Institutions coordinate to address challenges in the transfer process for students
Texas Border Business
MCALLEN, TEXAS – South Texas College held its inaugural South Texas Transfer Summit on Feb. 28. The event included presentations from the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and Texas A&M University-Kingsville as well as a strategic planning discussion to gather input on some of the challenges found in creating a seamless transfer process that ensures the success of students.
In attendance at the event was STC President Dr. Shirley A. Reed, UTRGV President Dr. Guy Bailey, TAMUK Outreach Coordinator Cynthia Flores, and respective vice presidents and administrators representing the three institutions.
“We invited administration from South Texas College, with all of our VPs and most of our deans in attendance along with administration from UTRGV and Kingsville telling us what they know about our transfer students,” said Dr. Kelli Davis, University Relations, and Transfer and Articulation Center Officer. “Information we received included how many students they are receiving from STC, what is the trend, what are the resources available to them when they get on campus.”
UTRGV conducted their presentation, focusing on the different initiatives they have established for transfer students. Sofia Montes, UTRGV Registrar and Carlo Tamayo, UTRGV Associate Director of Outreach led that presentation. All institutions then held a transfer summit strategic planning discussion to gather input on the challenges faced when creating a seamless transfer process to ensure student success
Throughout the summit, attendees focused on critical barriers and challenges within the transfer process. Coordination between administrators aims to develop strategies to improve transferring for students as well as future trends and opportunities for higher education in south Texas.
“The end game is a seamless transfer. We want the transferring process as simple as possible,” Dr. Davis said. “We want to fix the holes that exist. We want to make sure that working together; we can figure out a way to reach these students at the appropriate times and get them the appropriate resources at the right time, and then have them successfully transition without a problem.”
Future meetings will include the participation of even more institutions likely by the fall. At that time, coordinators of the summit at STC say they would like to present an action plan to begin working on transfer issues in conjunction with the students themselves.
“At the next summit we will report back and then the idea to bring in students and have them share their experiences,” Davis said. “We also want to bring in high schools so we can have the whole spectrum of our students from high school all the way to graduates from these universities. We are going to build this in the next year.”
