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In recent years, a convergence of several forces-increased legislative involvement in higher education, governmental and philanthropic pressure to increase postsecondary degree and certifi cate production, demands for a highly trained workforce, and fi scal belt-tightening at colleges and universities across America-has resulted in efforts to signifi cantly reform community college-to-university transfer and articulation processes. One increasingly popular method of reform is the implementation of transfer associate degrees: statewide pathways or degree programs that allow students to both earn an associate degree from a community college and transfer seamlessly into a state university with junior status. (Note: These degrees are known by different names in different states, but for the purposes of clarity, we refer to all of them as transfer associate degrees.)The reasons for implementing transfer associate degrees are myriad. From an effi ciency standpoint, states view these transfer pathways as vehicles for aligning lower-division general education and premajor curricula across two-and four-year institutions, thereby reducing course overlap and the need to repeat similar courses after transferring. In addition, there is emerging evidence that transfer associate degrees better prepare community college students for upper-division work, and that students transferring with such degrees are more likely to persist at a university, complete a greater number of credit hours, and pass more courses (Hezel Associates, 2007;Kisker, Wagoner, and Cohen, 2011;Mustafa, Glenn, and Compton, 2010). Furthermore, recent data show that transfer associate degrees in 1

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This chapter explores community college faculty satisfaction related to four specific variables.