Understanding, Connecting With, and Servicing Your Transfer Students

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Understanding, Connecting With, and Servicing
Your Transfer Students
Christopher Hockey Transfer Services
Coordinator SUNY Oswego
2009 ACPA Conference DC Metro
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Where Were Going

• Literature Review
• Who are our transfer students? Where do they come
  from?
• What challenges do transfer students face?
• How can we improve the transfer experience?
• The Future of Transfers
• Discussion/Questions/Comments

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Literature Review
Enrollment

• Recent information on college enrollment trends
  indicated that higher education experienced a
  rapid growth of transfer students in the last
  decade (United States Department of Education,
  2001).
• Significant portion of the college population
  attend more than one college. (Townsend, 2001)
• During some portion of their college careers,
  approximately 1/3 of college seniors have
  transferred (Jacobs, 2006)

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Literature Review

• Transfer students are often labeled as
• Not wanting to engage in the campus life of their
  new institution (Astin, 1982)
• Concerned only with their academic course
  requirements, being academically unprepared for
  the demands of four-year institutions (Keeley
  House, 1993 Laanan, 1999 Townsend, 1994)
• Not needing assistance in their transition
  because they have already experienced college
  life on at least one other campus (Beckenstein,
  1992)

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Literature Review

• Why do students transfer colleges?
• Pursue further education
• Academic difficulty
• Dissatisfaction
• Lack of institutional fit
• Financial difficulties
• Career Change
• Crisis
• Relocation
• (Harrison Varcol, 1984)

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Literature Review

• Characteristics of Transfer Students
• Aware of some institution expectations
• Expect some services as at prior institution
• When compared to freshman are more mature and
  understand rules
• Overly confident
• Possess a predetermined bias
• Come with developed interest in academics and out
  of class activities
• Developed better social skills
• Sense isolation and often skip orientation
  programs
• Show less enthusiasm
• Display false sense of security
• (Horne Kreusch, 1989)

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Literature Review

• Relatively well-established research in the
  United States has identified a range of student
  and institutional issues related to the transfer
  experience.
• Transfer shock (Carlan Byxbe, 2000 Cjeda,
  1997 Fredrickson, 1998 Glass Harrington,
  2002 Laanan, 2001 Rhine, Milligan Nelson,
  2000),
• Transfer shock" has been coined to denote the
  lowered performance of transfer students, in
  comparison to pre-transfer performance (Holahan
  et al., 1983)
• Student withdrawal rates (Minear, 1998 in D.S.
  Peterman, 2002 Van Middlesworth, Carpenter-Davis
  McCool, 2002)
• Institutional remedies to enhance the success of
  transfer students (Rhine, Milligan Nelson,
  2000)

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Literature Review

• Some more important information to know about
  transfer students
• Kelley (1982) observed that transfer students'
  awareness of themselves as a unique group was
  important in predicting transfer student
  expectations of academic success.
• Bean and Metzner (1985) suggested that
  administrators and faculty need to better
  understand transfer students on their respective
  college campuses.
• Studying transfer students upon their entry into
  their new institution provides an opportunity for
  researchers to study a group of students who are
  still committed to completing a college degree
  (Tinto, 1993)
• Assessing the goals, attitudes, academic
  behaviors, and intentions of transfer students
  allows for a better understanding of the college
  retention process for transfer students. (Laanan,
  1996)

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Gaps in the Literature

• Main areas the literature failed to give any
  insight
• Critical window of engagement for transfer
  students
• Small College/University data
• Lack of intensive transfer student research

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Gaps in the Literature

• Although numbers of transfer students increased
  over the past decade, research on transfer
  students has not kept pace with this growing
  trend.
• The research on transfer students has been
  devoted to comparing transfer students to their
  first-year student counterparts (Miville
  Sedlacek, 1995) or to students who originated and
  continued enrollment at the same institution
  (Keeley House, 1993 Townsend, 1994), or
  grouped students into minority and non-minority
  transfer students (Keeley House Laanan, 1999).

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Who Are Transfer Students?
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• FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT!
• NO TWO TRANSFER STUDENTS ARE ALIKE!
• About ½ of all CC students transfer to a 4-year
• Only 1/3 of those students transfer with an
  associates.
• 48 are racial and ethnic minorities.
• 15-20 drop out within first year at 4 year.
• Only 15-20 of students intending to get
  Bachelors actually do
• Come from less advantaged backgrounds.
• 1st generation college and 1st to graduate from
  high school.
• Extremely dependent upon financial aid and fewer
  means to get it.

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• Transfer students from four-year institutions
  participated in more active and collaborative
  learning, participated in fewer educationally
  enriching activities, viewed the campus as less
  supportive, reported gaining less from college
  than their peers, and were less satisfied with
  college.
• Compared with seniors who began and persisted at
  their current institution, students who
  transferred later in the course of studies (i.e.,
  had a higher class standing) when they initially
  enrolled at their current institution
  interacted less with faculty participated in
  fewer educationally enriching activities and
  reported gaining less from their peers.

Kuh, G. D. (2004, January). Enhancing transfer
student success. Keynote address presented at the
Second Annual Institute for the Study of Transfer
Students. Fort Worth, TX.
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• Transfer Expectations
• Experiences

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• Consistency between a students college
  expectations experiences can affect a students
  desire to establish membership in an
  institutions academic community
  remain enrolled at the institution. (Braxton,
  Vesper, Hosssler, 1995)

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• To increase student retention, we must create a
  consistency between a students expectations and
  experiences. (Barefoot, 2002)

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• The greater degree to which a students social
  expectations are met, the greater the students
  degree of integration into the social communities
  of a college or university. (Helland, Stallings,
  Braxton, 2002)

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Do You Know Your Transfers?

• Avoid making assumptions about your transfer
  students based upon national data.
• Go to the source Your campus, Your students.
• Utilize data from existing sources.
• Admissions data
• National surveys and assessment tools.

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Collaborating with your Institutional Research
Department

• Create new surveys that meet your needs
• Ex. Continuing Student Survey
• Create a plan to disseminate the results.
• Create opportunities to challenge assumptions
  and/or perceptions about your transfer student
  population.

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Challenges for Transfers

• Direct Challenges
• Academic under-preparedness
• Dysfunctional families or backgrounds
• Alcohol or drug abuse history
• Geographic preferences
• Social deficiencies
• Negative perceptions of transfers
• Financial stress
• Challenge-of-choice
• Lack of connection with someone at the
  institution.
• Environmental Change
• Unrealistic expectations

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Challenges for Transfers

• Indirect Challenges
• Limited institutional support
• Lack of research and information about them
• Little to no transfer student tracking

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Improving the Transfer Experience

• Campus Foundations
• Transition Experiences
• Continuing Support
• Housing
• Socialization
• Communication/Technology

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Improving the Transfer Experience

• Campus Foundations
• Intentionally connect the transfer students
  goals to the university early in the recruiting
  process.
• Establish on-going, intentional efforts to
  ascertain the actual needs of transfer students,
  as a separate and distinct group from freshmen.
• One way to do so is to designate a position to
  serve as a coordinator for transfer students or,
  based on the tremendous growth and success of
  First-Year Experience programs in their work to
  integrate and retain first-year students
  (Upcraft, Gardner, Barefoot, 2005),
  universities could establish a similar effort
  focused on transfer students.

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Improving the Transfer Experience

• Transition Experiences
• Universities should provide at least some
  separate and focused programming for transfer
  students during their orientation programs.
  These sessions should address the specific
  transition needs and concerns of transfer
  students.
• Transfer orientation sessions should be led by
  student leaders with an emphasis on creating
  community and proving opportunities for social
  integration, since those are such crucial
  components to retaining these students. Ideally,
  these student leaders would have themselves been
  transfer students so that they could serve as
  successful role models for the new transfer
  students.

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Transitional Program (Orientation)

• Create a separate transitional program for
  transfer students
• Move away from one size fits all models
• Online programs
• One day visits
• Overnight programs w/ student parents
• Use more mature themes
• Provide activities for social interaction
• Provide hands-off informational sessions

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Improving the Transfer Experience

• Continuing Support
• All transfer students should be assigned a
  faculty mentor through their department who
  should connect with them at the start of their
  first semester in order to provide a connection
  between the students goals, their academic
  program, and the institution.
• Additionally, some type of mentor from the
  current upperclassmen in the transfer students
  major should be assigned and they could provide
  social, academic, and goal and institutional
  commitment connections.
• Since the students Fall GPA accounted for the
  largest portion of the academic and social
  adjustment, the university should utilize
  mid-term grades to determine how new transfer
  students are doing in their classes and provide
  intervention for those who are struggling.

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Improving the Transfer Experience

• Continuing Support
• The social relationships mean everything
• Tau Sigma National Honor Society
• Demonstrates institutions commitment to transfer
  students
• Recognizes academic excellence
• Provides a point of connection for listening and
  leadership opportunities
• Transfer Mentor Programs
• NYU Transfer Buddy Program
• U of Florida College of Engineering
• Transfer Assistants in Residence
• Transfer Ambassadors

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Housing

• Options are crucially important for entering
  transfer students.
• Family housing
• Suite/apartment style
• The ability for transfers to see their housing
  before making a selection.
• Roommate selection process.
• Room selection process.
• Living-Learning Communities for Transfers.

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Living-Learning Communities

• TIGS
• Designed as First Year Interest Group
• University of Texas at Austin
• http//www.utexas.edu/student/vpsa/fig/trigs.php
• Interest Housing
• Syracuse University/ESF
• WiSE Transfer-LC
• Women in Science and Engineering
• Iowa State University
• http//www.pwse.iastate.edu/oncampus/transferlearn
  ingcommunity.htm

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Communication

• Challenges
• Transfer students need information and want
  services that they dont know they need or want
  until after graduation.
• A transfer student is only a transfer student
  until the first day of classes.
• Possible Solutions
• Designate a transfer expert
• Transfer newsletters
• Talk to your transfers early and often

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Communication

• Transfer Talk-Backs
• At least twice each semester
• Free lunch
• Discussion and written survey
• Changed format and results
• Sharing the feedback

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Technology

• Transfer friendly websites
• What turns up when you search for transfer on
  your website?
• Utilize stat trackers to understand population
  and flow
• Using online chat systems
• http//www.meebo.com
• Facebook/Myspace transfer groups
• Listservs
• RSS Feeds

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Remember...

• There are many roads to a transfer-friendly
  institution
• No one best model
• Different combinations of complementary,
  interactive, synergistic conditions

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The Future of Transfers

• 6.67 million students enrolled at Community
  Colleges by 2010
• Enrollment rate increase for Community Colleges
  is 32
• As tuition rises, enrollment at CCs will
  increase.
• By 2015, numbers of native students will decline
  (National Center for Education Statistics, 2004).
• Increasing amount of CCs offering Bachelors.

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Points to Ponder

• What can we do individually and collectively to
  enhance transfer student success?
• How do we get transfer students to take greater
  advantage of their schools resources for
  learning?

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• Questions, Comments, Discussion