Supporting Transfer Student Success

This research-based book with practical applications teaches academic librarians to support their transfer students effectively at both universities and community colleges, even when transfer students' information literacy needs differ from those of other students. Colleges and universities across the United States serve a large and growing population of transfer students. Current estimates suggest that more than one third of college students transfer from one institution of higher education to another at least once. At some institutions, transfer students compose up to fifty to sixty percent of the new incoming class. Academic librarians' understanding of the demographics and potential needs of transfer students is essential to supporting their success and mitigating "transfer shock." Just as public libraries often bridge gaps between individuals and services, academic libraries can proactively support the often unique needs of transfer students by spearheading textbook affordability initiatives, developing innovative programming, and making appropriate referrals to non-library student services. In this practical guide to supporting transfer students, authors Peggy L. Nuhn and Karen F. Kaufmann teach academic librarians how to optimize information literacy instruction, support research, help reduce stress, and connect the library to virtual students. They emphasize the importance of establishing partnerships with feeder institutions and other campus departments to best support transfer student success.

This research-based book with practical applications teaches academic librarians to support their transfer students effectively at both universities and community colleges, even when transfer students' information literacy needs differ from those of other students. Colleges and universities across the United States serve a large and growing population of transfer students. Current estimates suggest that more than one third of college students transfer from one institution of higher education to another at least once. At some institutions, transfer students compose up to fifty to sixty percent of the new incoming class. Academic librarians' understanding of the demographics and potential needs of transfer students is essential to supporting their success and mitigating "transfer shock." Just as public libraries often bridge gaps between individuals and services, academic libraries can proactively support the often unique needs of transfer students by spearheading textbook affordability initiatives, developing innovative programming, and making appropriate referrals to non-library student services. In this practical guide to supporting transfer students, authors Peggy L. Nuhn and Karen F. Kaufmann teach academic librarians how to optimize information literacy instruction, support research, help reduce stress, and connect the library to virtual students. They emphasize the importance of establishing partnerships with feeder institutions and other campus departments to best support transfer student success.

Co-published with At last there is a handbook that everyone in higher education can use to help increase transfer student success. This comprehensive resource has been brought together to meet the need for a truly holistic approach to the transfer experience. The book brings together research, theory, practical applications, programmatic illustrations, case studies, encouragement, and inspiration, and is supplemented by an online compendium for continual updates of resources, case studies, and new developments in the world of transfer.Based on a totally different way of thinking about, understanding, and acting to increase transfer student success, The Transfer Experience goes far beyond the traditional, limited view of transfer as a technical process simply about articulating credits, a stage of student development, or a novel enrollment management strategy. Rather, the book introduces a stimulating array of new perspectives, resources, options, models, and recommendations for addressing the many needs of this huge cohort – making the academic, civic, and social justice cases for improving transfer at both transfer-sending and transfer-receiving institutions.

This research-based book with practical applications teaches academic librarians to support their transfer students effectively at both universities and community colleges, even when transfer students' information literacy needs differ from those of other students. Colleges and universities across the United States serve a large and growing population of transfer students. Current estimates suggest that more than one third of college students transfer from one institution of higher education to another at least once. At some institutions, transfer students compose up to fifty to sixty percent of the new incoming class. Academic librarians' understanding of the demographics and potential needs of transfer students is essential to supporting their success and mitigating "transfer shock." Just as public libraries often bridge gaps between individuals and services, academic libraries can proactively support the often unique needs of transfer students by spearheading textbook affordability initiatives, developing innovative programming, and making appropriate referrals to non-library student services. In this practical guide to supporting transfer students, authors Peggy L. Nuhn and Karen F. Kaufmann teach academic librarians how to optimize information literacy instruction, support research, help reduce stress, and connect the library to virtual students. They emphasize the importance of establishing partnerships with feeder institutions and other campus departments to best support transfer student success.

Ultimately, the book is an invitation—and a challenge—for faculty, administrators, and student life staff to move relationships from the periphery to the center of undergraduate education.

Beyond Free College outlines an audacious national agenda—consistent with, but far more comprehensive than, the current “free college” movement—that builds on the best of US higher education’s populist history such as the G.I. Bill and the community college transfer function. The authors align a wide constellation of higher education trends—online learning, prior learning assessment, competency-based learning, high school college-credit— with a rapidly shifting student transfer environment that privileges college credit as the pivotal educational catalyst to boost access and completion. The book’s agenda seeks greater productive investment in postsecondary education by privileging a single metric—lower-cost-per-degree-granted—as the animating driver of a transfer pathway that will fulfill the potential of its historical, progressive innovators. Beyond Free College’s goal is as simple as it is urgent: To galvanize higher education advocates in an effort to reorganize, reorient, and reignite the transfer function to serve the needs of a neotraditional student population that now constitutes the majority of college-goers in America; and in ways that advance completion, not just access to higher education.

Published in partnership with the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students. Analysis of bachelor’s degree completion suggests that only about a third of college graduates attend a single institution from start to finish. More than one quarter earn college credits from three or more schools before completing a degree. For most, these student-defined pathways lead to increased time-to-degree and higher costs. Many will simply drop out long before crossing the finish line. Ensuring college completion and success requires an understanding of the evolving nature of transfer transitions and a system-wide approach that reaches beyond two-year and four-year institutions to include high schools participating in dual enrollment programs and military college initiatives. A new edited collection offers insight into institutional and statewide partnerships that create clearly defined pathways to college graduation and career success for all students.