Supporting Transfer Student Success Through a Faculty Mentor Program

Supporting Transfer Student Success Through a Faculty Mentor Program

Associate Director, Office of Transfer Services

Appalachian State University

Kim Morton

Appalachian State uses many intentional efforts to boost integration and success for incoming transfer students, which number 1,700 annually.

Photo courtesy of the Office of Transfer Services.

Transfer students account for one third of the incoming class at Appalachian State University, a campus of 17,000 total undergraduates, and the institution puts a high priority on helping this population transition. The eight-person Office of Transfer Services uses many intentional efforts to boost integration and success, resulting in new transfer students either returning for their second year or graduating for a strong retention rate of 86%.

With 1,700 new transfer students a year at Appalachian, creating a true mentor–mentee program in which each student is assigned a specific mentor would be impossible. Instead, that one-on-one relationship happens with an academic advisor throughout students’ degree progression. Thus, the Faculty Transfer Mentor program, which involves more than 100 trained faculty and staff who volunteer their time to develop supportive academic relationships with transfer students, serves as a vital additional resource. Originally designed to help prospective transfers connect directly with faculty regarding their college requirements, this academic integration-focused program has evolved as the Office of Transfer Services has expanded its reach. Mentors make themselves available for transfers, answering questions, providing support and referrals, and advocating for students within their academic department and elsewhere. Many faculty in the program were either transfer students themselves as undergraduates or have seen transfers struggle in their transition and want to help. These faculty members’ passion to help students transition into Appalachian makes them strong advocates for relating to and supporting this population.

A Move to Proactive Coaching

Key to this program is the training mentors receive at the beginning of their service. All interested mentors must attend a 90-minute in-person training, during which they learn about the transfer student population nationwide, in North Carolina, and at Appalachian; the characteristics and needs of transfer students; and what they can do as mentors to help. We have found it helpful to offer the training sessions in mid-semester, after the rush of the start of the semester but before advising kicks in for the next semester. Sessions are usually small, with 5 to 10 participants, and offered multiple times per semester. The small groups allow participants to add to their experiences and ask questions throughout. In addition to understanding who our transfer students are, the training provides mentors with adjustment survey results to help explain the challenges facing transfers’ transition, resources from the Office of Transfer Services and other offices on campus, and best practices in working with transfer students.

Once their training is complete, participants confirm their interest in being faculty mentors, and Appalachian markets them to prospective, admitted, and current transfer students to discuss curriculum plans and academic resources. The Office of Transfer Services’ website lists mentors’ contact information, but students can also find out about the program through targeted emails, support resources, and other websites. Mentors receive a sticker to put on their office door so students can identify them when visiting their department.

The Office of Transfer Services also provides ongoing training for mentors by distributing relevant information (e.g., updated campus demographics, resources, student engagement opportunities), sharing news articles on the subject of transfer students, and encouraging participation in online webinars (e.g., the National Student Clearinghouse). As topics come up, we may schedule more in-person training or student panels so that mentors are familiar with new resources or issues.

Information on the training schedule and the Faculty Transfer Mentor program goes out to the Appalachian campus community through email. In addition, students and current Faculty Transfer Mentors can recommend colleagues to serve, and those employees receive targeted invitations. The Office of Transfer Services specifically recruits academic programs with high transfer populations and emphasizes the mentor program at meetings with new department chairs. The program is also discussed at Appalachian’s New Faculty Orientation. Aggressive recruiting and word-of-mouth about the program have helped the university triple the number of mentors trained over the past few years.

After mentors’ training is complete, they receive surveys from the Office of Transfer Services to assess the program’s material and usefulness. The office annually assesses the program and how mentors are used, while ensuring participants want to continue serving. Over the past three years, 100% of mentors said the training met their expectations, and 97% were extremely satisfied or satisfied with training. The office has received comments such as “This was the best training workshop that I’ve been to since I started working at Appalachian.”

Activities

Visibility. As Faculty Transfer Mentors enjoy interacting with transfer students, Appalachian provides additional opportunities for them to be visible on campus and help market the program. Mentors help staff pre-orientation programs and other welcome events at the university (e.g., tables and tents during the first few days of classes, pizza parties). They also host discussions on the institution’s common reading during Welcome Weekend and conduct a faculty–student exchange in which they advise students on adjusting to college. Since most transfers live off campus, many transfer mentors also participate in House Calls, a program hosted by the Office of the Dean of Students in which volunteers knock on the doors of off-campus students to check in and provide resources.

Outreach. At the beginning of the semester, Faculty Transfer Mentors receive lists of incoming transfers and will often reach out to those in their major. This proactive outreach gives faculty and students the chance to connect. With 70% of Appalachian’s transfer students arriving from community colleges, we ask faculty to make new students aware of activities that might not have been available at their previous institution (e.g., research, internships, study abroad). A few departments go further, hosting welcome events for transfer students such as a math department tea or a geology pizza lunch.

Advocacy. An important benefit of the required training for mentors and continual communication about transfer-related issues is increased understanding of this student population’s needs. This often leads faculty and staff to advocate for transfer students in their department and with campus committees. For example, mentors have reached out to the Office of Transfer Services to ask how a curriculum change could affect community college transfer student pathways, as well as with ideas to improve workflows for course petition approvals and create articulation agreements.

Conclusion

Having faculty and staff mentors volunteer their time to provide additional support and resources to transfer students has benefited Appalachian in ways hard to quantify. While we cannot directly correlate our strong retention rate and slight uptick in transfer graduation rates over the past four years to a single program, students report that the mentors do contribute to their success:

• When prospective students are asked why they chose to attend Appalachian, our Faculty Transfer Mentors are often recognized for the time they spend explaining academic programs, laying out expected coursework, and giving tours of their departments.

• In our campuswide transition student survey, 13% of new transfer students specifically recognized their mentor as the person who had been most helpful to their success.

• In our annual Transfer Student Survey, mentors were named as a key resource helping transfer students through their transition to Appalachian 11% of the time.

• Students frequently nominate their Faculty Transfer Mentors for our annual Transfer Champion Award. The past two winners, both Faculty Transfer Mentors, were recognized for their dedication to connecting transfers with their academic departments, easing barriers, and advocating for the needs of transfers.

Going forward, we hope to continue recruiting mentors in the majors where they are not yet represented, while continuing to increase their visibility on campus and collaboration with the Office of Transfer Services. Institutions interested in starting a similar program will benefit from campus partners that advocate for transfer students during discussions, on committees, and in their departments. In a successful program, mentors will form impactful relationships with transfer students that could make the difference between success and failure, feeling a sense of belonging or not, and retention or attrition. Each person and interaction at a university plays a crucial part in student success, and the Faculty Transfer Mentor program is an effective strategy for supporting this important population.

Contact

Kim Morton mortonka@appstate.edu