Leveraging Technology and Coaching to Streamline Academic Pathway Selection Across Two-Year and Four-Year Transfer Partnerships
Each year, over one million students pursue studies across US community colleges with the intention of earning a bachelor’s degree, but less than 15% ascertain a four-year credential within six years of entering a two-year institutional context (Deane, Fink, Gordon, Jenkins, Kadlec, & Wyner, 2017). One solution offered to alleviate this completion crisis has been to create and sustain transfer partnerships between two and four-year institutions with aligned academic pathways to propel transfer student success outcomes and bachelor’s degree attainment (Wyner, Deane, Jenkins, & Fink, 2016). This session utilizes a large-scale transfer partnership as a case study to show how program benefits including aligned four-year academic pathways, which bind students to their catalog year at both institutions to maximize course transferability and to ensure students are meeting the admissions requirements of their chosen program of study upon transfer, ultimately help address this completion gap among the students both institutions serve. Comparable academic pathway initiatives also show to increase retention and on-time graduation rates across US community colleges (Jenkins, Lahr, Fink, & Ganga, 2018). This presentation focuses on how the transfer partnership facilitates the selection of academic pathways among its students, leveraging various higher education technology platforms across two institutions to streamline selection, documentation, as well as program and catalog year alignment. Additionally, guided pathway models with aligned academic mapping are often paired with the added program benefits of exploratory advising, including a timeline for initial pathway selection upon admission into the program, and academic coaching to keep students within the program on track towards timely degree progress, completion of the associate’s degree, and transition (Bailey, Smith Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015). Combine with targeted academic and student services support, the program also provides a streamlined transfer admissions process at time of matriculation into degree-seeking status at the four-year, ultimately reducing the barriers and decisions students traditionally face moving from the two-year to four-year institution (Jabbar, Epstein, Sanchez, & Hartman, 2021). Special consideration is given to the role of exploratory and academic coaching in the pathway selection process and how changes in academic pathway or catalog year are accounted for at time of student selection and matriculation to increase the applicability of earned transfer credit and to decrease the time and cost of attendance at both the community college and university. Overall, session participants will learn more about the completion outcomes of students in this large-scale transfer partnership and be able to take away practical suggestions on how to approach leveraging multiple technology platforms including Salesforce (CRM), Oracle Peoplesoft/SIS, and Ellucian Banner for pathway selection processes across institutions. Additionally, the session will discuss how technologies such as Blackboard, MS Teams, and EAB Navigate can be utilized to provide exploratory and additional advising tools to assist with pathway selection and academic success. Lastly, session participants will be able to clarify challenges, opportunities, best practices, and next steps towards implementing similar tools and advising resources across two-year and four-year transfer partnerships.
Which one or two theme(s) best describe the presentation? Transfer Credit / Prior Learning , Enrollment and Student Services
What Professional Application does this sessions apply to? Participants will learn about the completion outcomes of students in this large-scale transfer partnership, be able to glean suggestions on how to leverage technology platforms for pathway selection across institutions, discuss the challenges, opportunities, best practices, and next steps towards implementing tools and resources across two-year and four-year transfer partnerships.
Presentation Begins:
Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 3:10 PM Eastern Time
Presented By:
Rita Snyder Furr, George Mason University