Student life directors will be responsible for issuing the official transcripts organized by Alamo Institute.
By Zachary-Taylor Wright
zwright9@student.alamo.edu
The Alamo Colleges will begin issuing official “co-curricular” transcripts along with academic transcripts to students who request them by December, according to a presentation from the center for student information and the Student Leadership Institute shown at the committee of the whole meeting Aug. 8 at Killen Center.
Elizabeth Garza, center of student information director, said students’ extracurricular activities will be documented through OrgSync.
Garza said math and engineering students have been using OrgSync to document extracurricular engagement, inspiring her department to look into districtwide implementation.
“Here at Alamo Colleges, we encourage students to do more than their academic studies, and we encourage them to participate in volunteer work, to participate in internships, in student organizations and leadership development,” Garza said. “So we needed a way to document that work.”
Rodell Asher, coordinator of the Student Leadership Institute, said the co-curricular transcripts will have a student’s home college information as the header and footer of the document and will include the student’s name, contact information and a list of clubs and organizations they were a part of with the length of time they were a member and the option for student reflection.
Garza said her department put a group of cross-college staff members together with student life directors to begin looking at OrgSync as a tool to document student engagement.
Asher said OrgSync is a useful tool because it captures student involvement from connection to completion, saying students can use the web application to register for orientation and join clubs.
Asher said her department is working with student life directors to determine how to best use the web application.
Her department also is looking into organizing student information on OrgSync by Alamo Institute.
Asher said students have the option to download an unofficial transcript or request an official co-curricular transcript that is “verified, validated and approved by their respective student life director.”
In an interview with The Ranger Aug. 10, Garza said a PDFs of official “co-curricular transcripts” can be sent to email addresses of employers or transfer schools requested by students.
Garza said she does not foresee a need to employ new staff at the college or district level to implement the new transcripts, and she said there shouldn’t be any cost to implement them because it is a digital file that doesn’t require printing.
Asher said there is an OrgSync implementation team that is developing a training plan for students and “appropriate staff.”
“Our anticipated goal for students to request the official co-curricular transcript is December 2017,” Asher said. “We are very excited about the opportunity to have students document their co-curricular activities in an official co-curricular transcript.”
In an interview with The Ranger Aug. 10, Garza said “appropriate staff” are club advisers and student life directors.