Rose State College

A surge in enrollment at Rose State College is expected to lead to a second wave of graduates who use their degrees to transfer to universities across the state.
According to recent statistics, more than 900 students expect to graduate from rose State on May 7th, many with a two-year degree that will transfer to a larger 4-year institution.
With the more than 11 percent increase in enrollment for Fall 2009/Spring 2010, Rose State College officials expect the number of graduates could grow through next year. However, a surge of graduates in the system won’t cause an foreseeable problem, said Rose State Vice President of Academic Affairs Francis Hendrix.
“Our degrees were built to transfer,” Hendrix said. “Our faculty regularly meet with other faculty at our state’s universities to make sure of that.”
Rose State engineering coordinator Steven Fowler said he recently met with the other academic officials at the University of Oklahoma to ensure that classes at Rose transfer properly to OU.
“Our priority lately has been OU’s mechanical engineering program because many of our students are going that direction,” Fowler said. “We also have students going to other majors at OU, a few going to UCO (University of Central Oklahoma), and a few going to OSU (Oklahoma State University).”
Theresa Marks, Director of Advising at the University of Oklahoma, said Rose State faculty recently met with OU at a special conference held every semester for the purpose.
“We started having those transfer conferences here in the College of Engineering where we keep up with (Rose State’s) syllabi and keep track of the courses and how they transfer here,” she said.
Among some of the processes put into place for Rose State and other transfer students is an OU “transfer day”, in which students are given first priority in enrolling. Transfer Day is held in March, Marks said.
“The bottom line is, we are dedicated and committed to making the process as seamless as possible for students in the Oklahoma state system that are transferring in, and primarily in our major transfer institutions such as OCCC, Rose State and OSU-OKC. We stand on board and ready to answer any questions and work with faculty ahead of time…Please don’t hesitate to contact us.” Marks said. “We really like the transfer students. They’re already grown up and know what they want to do.”