Partnering with Community Colleges for Transfer Student Success

1. Partnering with Community Colleges for Transfer Student Success Samantha Cosgrove, Paul Lascuna, Dan Sheret Advisor: Melissa Schaub, Associate Vice Chancellor Office of Enrollment The University of North Carolina at Pembroke Pembroke, NC • Our Transfer Transition Office provides a unique set of academic services for new transfer students • The office is grant supported under the NASNTI (Native American Serving Non-Tribal Institutions) program of the U.S. Department of Education. • Transfer Liaisons regularly visit our highest-producing community college partners, establishing bonds with students there. • Transfer Liaisons are involved in New Student Orientation for transfers, and conduct academic outreach events throughout each semester. • The office itself provides a computer lab and lounge for transfer use, since a high proportion of transfer students from community colleges are commuters. Having a central “home base” helps transfers integrate socially at UNCP. • Peer mentors are available for students who have trouble adjusting to the differences between UNCP and their previous institution. • In cooperation with the Advising Center, TTO offers an optional Transfer Seminar class for new transfer students, mirroring Freshman Seminar. • UNCP has signed 38 articulation agreements with 13 North Carolina community colleges • We have several new agreements in process, particularly for education licensure programs. • Six of our agreements are RN to BSN bridge programs, and we will begin the South Central NC Regionally Increasing Baccalaureate Nurses (RIBN) program in fall 2014 with four of our community college partners. • We recently pioneered a Reverse Transfer/Dual Enrollment agreement with Richmond Community College, and are in the early stages of exploration for similar agreements with other community college partners. • Our office of Distance Education maintains a permanent presence on the campuses of five of our community college partners. These site coordinators maintain a close relationship with Undergraduate Admissions. • Admissions is also using Strategic Directions funding from UNC General Administration to enhance our campus presence with our neighbor, Robeson Community College, where we do not have a DE site coordinator. We hope to expand this partnership to other community college campuses in the future. • Our articulation agreements provide many options for students earning degrees other than the AA or AS • The Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies degree program accepts students with the Associate of Applied Science or the Associate of General Education (earned by Army Special Operations students at Fayetteville Technical Community College). Such students must complete the AAS at the community college, helping our partners achieve their degree completion goals while giving the students a wide range of options in different tracks such as Economic Development, Forensics, and Allied Health Administration. • Students with AAS, AGE, or AFA degrees also have several options in our more traditional BA and BS majors. • We proactively reach out to community colleges in the region to ask what programs they most need us to develop with them. • External funding has allowed us to target many academic support services to transfer students • The NASNTI grant provides funding for three programs targeted at increasing our students’ success rate on professional exams: the Praxis I for education licensure students; the NCLEX-RN for graduating nursing majors; and the MCAT, GRE, PCAT, and other pre-health-profession entrance exams. • Strategic Directions funding from UNC General Administration has allowed us to pilot an innovative extension of our existing Academic Resource Mentoring program to at-risk new transfer students, matching them with peer mentors who coach them in study skills, time management, and other crucial academic success topics.