Tennessee Higher Education Leaders Gather to Help Transfer Students Succeed

KNOXVILLE- Public and private university officials, whose work is key to achieving Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam’s Drive to 55 initiative, gathered Wednesday for the 2018 Tennessee Transfer Summit to add to their toolkits for ensuring more Tennesseans complete higher education.

Hosted by the University of Tennessee and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the summit brought together more than 160 transfer admissions counselors, registrars, directors of advising and adult-learner contacts from across the state.

“Last year, alone, approximately 28,000 students transferred from out-of-state or transferred between two- and four-year institutions within Tennessee,” said Linda Martin, UT vice president for academic affairs and student success. “It is critically important for institutions to ensure these students experience seamless transitions, and that best practices are implemented to enable transfer student success.”

Martin and her Tennessee Board of Regents counterpart, TBR Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Randy Schulte, agree the annual summit has strengthened transfer initiatives that incentivize community college students to pursue bachelor’s degrees.

“The TBR College System of Tennessee recognizes the continual need to strengthen and celebrate transfer initiatives and opportunities for our community colleges to baccalaureate-granting colleges and universities in Tennessee,” Schulte said. “The Tennessee Transfer Summit provides a unique opportunity for key representatives of all post-secondary institutions to link, learn and strategize together to optimize transfer efficiencies for our students.”

The event educates participants on the latest in multiple initiatives to ease and encourage transition from community college to four-year universities, including:

• Reverse transfer
• Tennessee Transfer Pathways
• Tennessee Reconnect
• Navigating TNReconnect.gov

The lineup also includes experts on best practices in transfer work, and working with transfer students and prior learning assessment.

The event agenda and speaker biographies are at transfersummit.tennessee.edu.

Tags: Academic Affairs and Student Success, Community Colleges, Drive to 55, Featured, Linda C. Martin, Reverse Transfer, Transfer Summit