TCC Hosts Discussion on How Best to Support Transfer Students in Tulsa Region and Launches New Web Tool
Published
Tulsa Community College is hosting a virtual symposium featuring a national expert on college and university transfer on Friday, Oct. 23 during National Transfer Student Week.
Improving the transfer student experience is critical since roughly half of all students start at a community college. It is also an equity issue with higher income students more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree after they transferred as compared to lower income students.
The discussion includes the initiatives to support transfer students in the Tulsa region through the Tulsa Transfer Collaborative and on-going work of seven higher ed institutions. In Tulsa County, there are significant racial equity gaps in educational attainment at the bachelor’s or higher level.
“Tulsa Community College is the largest provider of transfer students in the state of Oklahoma. Through the work of the Tulsa Transfer Project, we along with our higher ed partners are working to increase the number of students earning bachelor’s degrees in the area,” said Dr. Leigh Goodson, TCC president & CEO.
The Tulsa Transfer Collaborative wants to ensure students do not lose credit hours - which equals time and money – when transferring. Members include Langston University, NSU, OSU-Tulsa, OU-Tulsa, TCC and TU with support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and the Gardner Institute.
While each of the seven institutions is working to improve the process, TCC has launched an interactive TCC2University portal to make bachelor’s degrees in the Tulsa region more visible. This new site provides transfer planning resources and a search tool that highlights bachelor’s degrees available in the Tulsa Region. The search allows exploration of TCC programs and transfer maps that provide a semester by semester guide from associate to bachelor’s degree.
In addition to the local initiatives, Dr. Janet Marling, Executive Director of the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students will provide an overview of the national landscape of university transfer, including barriers facing students and successful efforts to improve outcomes.
“With more than 1 million transfer students enrolled nationally, we applaud these efforts to address the equity gap and make the transfer experience more efficient and student-centric. We anticipate the pandemic will generate more student movement, or swirl, so the national dialogue needs to remain focused on how to best to support students as we see more shifts in higher education,” said Marling.
The virtual Tulsa Transfer Collaborative Fall Symposium is open to anyone who would like to attend with identical sessions in the morning and afternoon of Friday, Oct. 23. Email the Tulsa Community College University Transfer Office at TCC2University@Tulsacc.edu for more information and registration link.