Engaging faculty values to develop supportive transfer cultures: A toolkit for transfer champions

The global pandemic changed enrollment patterns across the country, forcing fouryear colleges and universities to reevaluate recruitment and retention efforts. At the same time, ongoing legal challenges to affirmative action continue to complicate enrollment strategies and reinforce the severe underrepresentation of low-income, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students at highly selective colleges and universities. As one strategy to address revenue gaps and meet equity goals, some four-year institutions are sharpening their focus on the recruitment and enrollment of community college transfer students, who are typically more diverse than the institution’s directly-admitted freshmen. However, many four-year colleges and universities do not have explicit support systems in place to ensure strong retention and graduation rates for transfer students.

To improve policies and practices that support transfer student retention and graduation, four-year institutions must cultivate a transferreceptive or transfer-supportive culture. Most colleges and universities have one or more transfer champions who work closely with transfer students and may advocate on their behalf.

Champions may be successful in implementing specific improvements for transfer students—such as establishing transfer centers or creating stronger transfer pathways into the institution—but these efforts can be undermined by the larger institutional culture. In particular, faculty interact directly with students in advising or teaching roles, and their implicit or explicit perceptions about transfer students may dramatically shape those students’ sense of belonging, motivation, and academic success. In this brief, we provide transfer champions with tools to cultivate faculty partners and positively inform the institution’s conversations and understandings about transfer students.