Graphic design bachelor’s completion pathways
Designing clearer pathways to a bachelor’s degree
As an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Lakeland University, I initiated and led partnerships with Lakeshore Technical College, Milwaukee Area Technical College, and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. The goal was to help graphic design graduates transfer efficiently into Lakeland’s bachelor’s program without repeating comparable coursework or weakening the value of the degree.
- Role
- Initiative leadCurriculum strategist
- Scope
- Three technical college partnerships
- Outcome
- Three articulation agreements executed
The challenge
Each college had a different curriculum, credit structure, and set of priorities. We needed to determine which learning experiences were equivalent, what students still needed to complete, and how those requirements could fit into realistic timelines.
The work also involved tuition, scheduling, staffing, facilities, recruitment, and institutional approval. Progress depended on aligning faculty, registrars, admissions teams, operational leaders, and executives across three institutions.
My approach
I compared curricula, identified potential course equivalencies, and created term-by-term completion scenarios for different course loads and timelines.
I kept the student experience at the center while protecting Lakeland’s academic standards. During the MATC discussions, for example, I challenged an overreliance on self-designed coursework and advocated for a pathway that respected prior learning while preserving meaningful advanced study.
My role moved between strategy and execution: initiating outreach, analyzing curricula, writing proposals, developing schedules, presenting recommendations, supporting student recruitment, and guiding the work through review and approval.
I continued stewarding the partnerships after approval, revisiting transfer pathways as partner curricula evolved so the agreements remained accurate and useful.
View the complete partnership proposal (PDF, 10 pages)
The outcome
The initiative resulted in three executed articulation agreements, each supported by institution-specific transfer recommendations, clear completion pathways, partnership frameworks, and recruitment and implementation planning.
Together, the agreements created more direct routes to a bachelor’s degree, supported Lakeland’s enrollment and regional partnership goals, and established a repeatable model for future collaborations. Across all three, the leadership approach remained consistent: understand the people involved, map the system, protect what matters, and create enough clarity for groups to move forward.
“Monique has led the way in developing a bachelor’s completion program in graphic design for some of our technical college partners. Monique represents Lakeland and her program with the utmost professionalism.”
Leadership in practice
- Cross-functional leadership
- Aligned stakeholders across disciplines, leadership levels, and institutions.
- Systems thinking
- Turned complex curriculum and operational information into clear, repeatable decision tools.
- Hands-on strategy
- Shaped the partnership approach while directly contributing to research, proposals, completion plans, recruitment, and implementation.
If you’re building or strengthening a brand, process,
or team—I’d love to connect.