The Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee continued to meet through this fall semester to focus on the campus-wide Transfer Initiative priorities set forth last year. The meetings focused on developing a strong foundation for a campus-wide evaluation of transfer.
During the 2013-2014 Academic Year the committee set priorities around increasing our campus-wide transfer culture through outreach, cross-division collaboration and other practices. Many of these ideas have been implemented and others will be implemented, if funded, in coming months and years. Multiple collaborations have been happening – such as the campus-wide push to support our students to have their personal statements reviewed, cross-program and division promotion and implementation of transfer events and much more! The word is definitely out and student participation in transfer-related events, workshops and services is on the rise! Applications for UC Transfer Admissions Guarantees were up this year and we expect to see an overall increase in transfer numbers.
The missing link to our work is knowing, through research, where we are being effective and successful and what we can do to improve transfer as a campus.
In order to better understand and design programming and interventions based on student needs, the Advisory Committee has been working closely with the Office of Planning, Research and Institutional Effectiveness (PRIE) to design fundamental research questions that the PRIE office can use in its transfer research. Last spring, the committee met to evaluate what information, both quantitative and qualitative, we want to know about students who are in the completion/transfer stage of the completion by design process. This fall, we continued this work, looking at the connection and entry phases as well. In addition to designing the research needed, we created a Transfer Student Exit survey implemented over last spring and fall which yielded positive results. Additionally, the Committee continues to focus on the original priority of how to increase our campus-wide transfer culture.
Article submitted by Suzanne Poma
