“New School New You”: The UAB Transfer Student Podcast

Halle Baldwin, Department of Psychology

Jeremy Chu, Department of Neuroscience

Ryleigh Fleming, Karishma Parbhoo, Diana Bucio, Sarah Adkins-Jablonsky, & Samiksha Raut, Department of Biology

Cinnamin Cross, Biomedical Sciences

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Almost half of the students in higher education in the United States begin their journey at a community college. Transfer students are often first-generation college students belonging to underrepresented minority groups (URM), and/or are from low socio-economic backgrounds. Their unique pathway to a successful college completion is more than often accompanied by a temporary decrease in their academic performance due to academic differences once they transfer from a two-year to a fouryear institution, known “transfer shock” (D’Amico & Chapman, 2018). This transfer shock is further enhanced by lack of social support systems at the transferring institutions. These adverse experiences have shown to impact a student’s sense of belonging and further retention, especially for STEM majors. Thus, it is imperative that institutions of higher education should help address this critical issue related to transfer students’ needs.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), is a public research university located in the heart of Birmingham, and is Alabama’s largest degree-granting university with more than half of its students enrolled in STEM related programs. Moreover, UAB is a preferred destination for transfer students from nearby twoyear institutions constituting 11% of the overall annual enrollment (College Transfer, 2021). Therefore, targeted strategies focused on retention and graduation of the transfer students are important to enhance the mission of undergraduate education at UAB. While UAB has transfer resources, few are student-run or highlight firstgeneration, URM, or low Socio-Economic Status (SES) student perspectives. Considering that a recent survey suggests that the audience for podcasts is at an all-time high with podcast playing in 50% of U.S. homes, and 48% of the podcast listenership are college aged adults (Winn, 2021), podcasts represent an ideal platform for broadcasting peer-to-peer conversations to help mitigate adverse transfer student experiences.

In 2020, an Associate Professor in the UAB Department of Biology (S.R), drawing from vast experiences implementing and assessing Service-Learning projects (Adkins-Jablonsky et al., 2021; Mendoza et al. 2020);) and working with one-on-one transfer students in large enrollment courses, envisioned creating a podcast that summarized the insights and experiences of transfer students to serve as a guidepost for future and in-coming transfer students. S.R. recruited seven undergraduates across four STEM disciplines at UAB to establish the podcast series “New School New You”, accessible at the following web-link: https://anchor.fm/ newschoolnewyou. This undergraduate student team recruited transfer students, particularly those who were first-generation, URM, or low SES students to be interviewed to share their transfer stories. The following logistical workflow was established for “New School New You” and thus may be of benefit to other educators and stakeholders seeking to establish an institutional podcast.

Logistics

1. Include students on the podcast team who reflect the identities of the transfer students - The recruited student team (including authors H.B., J.C., R.F., D.B., and C.C) all as allies of this student community.

2. Mapping content stream - To prepare the episodes, the student team worked with the faculty advisor (S.R) and transfer students to identify literature and perspectives that led to assembling topics, creating a robust question set, and finalizing the content stream. For examples of these episodes, see “2 Example Episodes” below. Materials were assembled in a shared Google Drive that included folders for episodes/script writing, podcast image art, audio introduction, and audio recordings. Students practiced interviewing with each other and the faculty advisor as an informal training, and all team meetings were held virtually.

Album cover for podcast series “New School New You”

by Karishma Parbhoo

3. Working with a population of interest - Transfer student interviewees were recruited and were provided with a list of episode topics. Each student was asked to select a topic of interest dependent on their personal transfer student experiences. While student teams and transfer students’ interviewees were not monetarily compensated, all students were encouraged to highlight the interview experience on their resume/CV.

4. Partner with on-campus organizations - We sought feedback from UAB Service-Learning and Undergraduate Research as well as from the UAB Media Studies Program. Many transfer student interviewees were recruited by the student team from the UAB Transfer Student Organization (TSO) and Student Multicultural & Diversity Programs at UAB. TSO is continuing to advertise “New School New You” to UAB’s transfer student population through its social media platforms.

5. Choose open-source and free podcast platforms - All interviews were planned using Google documents and e-mail correspondences. Furthermore, interviews were recorded via Zoom interface on students’ personal computers/smartphones and edited using a free software called “Audacity”, and then uploaded to Anchor, a free podcast website that can connect to other podcast platforms (i.e., Spotify and Apple Podcasts). The entire production of this podcast was student-run and free of any incurring expenses, implying that no additional university resources were required. This makes the podcast a viable strategy for institutions interested in developing transfer student resources.

6. Ensure continuation of project - It is likely that student team members have varying graduation dates;it is therefore imperative to add new student members so that the team can continue production of new episodes in case a few members’ graduate. The advisor will maintain the Google Drive so that the future team members can continue accruing episodes. The podcasts will remain public indefinitely.

7. Assess progress and make target goals - On average, there have been ten full external plays from start to finish of each episode. Episodes are on average, 36 minutes long, so there have been over 5,000 minutes of combined air play of “New School New You” as of April 2021. Continued partnership with the TSO is demonstrating increased interest in the podcast. The target is 100 state-wide listeners by the end of 2021 achievable through a wider dissemination with TSO and via social media platforms such as Instagram.

Example Episodes

Imposter Syndrome and Your Identity and How to Find It

Each episode involved two trained student interviewers asking questions related to current evidence-based educational research to one or more invited transfer student interviewees. In this way, transfer student experiences were positioned within a broader transfer community context while being able to still highlight students’ unique stories. Two episodes and their summaries are outlined below:

1. Imposter Syndrome: The Imposter Syndrome description reads: “In this episode we will be discussing what imposter syndrome is and how it can affect students in an academic and social environment. Come and learn about how to overcome these feelings and hear from two transfer students that are currently experiencing imposter syndrome and see if you can relate to them.” In the Imposter Syndrome episode, a student interviewee noted she struggles with imposter syndrome as a transfer student and non-traditional student noting, “... obstacles have made me feel like I don’t belong in academia.” The student said there were unspoken assumptions about community college education which fed into her undermining her own accomplishments. A close community of colleagues and mentors who understand your perspective and potential, she says, is vital for feeling personally and academically supported as a transfer student.

2. Identity and How to Find It: This episode description says, “In this episode we will be discussing ever changing identity and how to recognize yourself even through the madness of college. Come and learn about how growth and change is expected during the college experience and hear two transfer students discuss how their identities changed when they transitioned to a four-year university.” Transfer students often report that it is rather difficult for them to strike new friendships at a new institution, especially if they are living off-campus and pursuing off-campus work. A transfer student’s advice to future students would be to be friendly because these casual conversations can manifest in long-term relationships grounded in genuine human connection and empathy. She continued to explain that social campus organizations, like honors programs and community service groups, allowed for the establishment of her social and professional identity.

Outlook

The podcast descriptions above, which are akin to oral histories, summarize non-identifiable publicly available information without making generalizable findings, and thus, do not constitute authentic research data. With that said, research on transfer student identity is sparse, and we therefore, recommend rigorous education-based research studies explore these themes in order to make conclusions that can impact academic policies on transfer student progress, belonging, and retention. Future work can compare and assess interviewer, interviewee, and listener outcomes using validated surveys and open-ended questions. These results could help uncover the degree to which podcast interventions can foster a sense of belonging, reduce transfer shock, and contribute to persistence in a university setting.

Ultimately, “New School New You” enabled peer-to-peer interactions that pave way towards honest and comfortable conversations with an often-overlooked community. The goal was to create an avenue for transfer students to have their voices heard and to amplify those voices as they overcame academic and social struggles. In this way, “New School New You” is offering transfer students much needed support, one interview at a time.

References

Aelenei, C., Lewis, N. A., & Oyserman, D. (2017). No pain no gain? Social demographic correlates and identity consequences of interpreting experienced difficulty as importance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 48, 43–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2016.08.004

College Transfer. University of Alabama at Birmingham Transfer-Profile. (2021). https://www.collegetransfer.net/UniversityOfAlabamaAtBirmingham/ TransferProfile/tabid/145/Default.aspx

D’Amico, Mark & Chapman, Lisa. (2018). Community College to University Transfer. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. https://www. myfuturenc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/NEW-Policy-Brief-Univ- Transfer-DAmico-Chapman-PS.pdf

Winn, R. (2021). 2021 Podcast Stats & Facts (New Research From Jan 2021). Podcast Insights. https://www.podcastinsights.com/podcast-statistics/

Adkins-Jablonsky, S., Fleming, R., Esteban, M., Bucio, D., Morris, J. J., & Raut, S. (2021). Impacts of a COVID-19 E-Service-Learning Module in a Non-Major Biology Course. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 22(1).

Mendoza, D. A., Adkins, S. J., Bhatt, J. M., Morris, J. J., & Raut, S. R. (2020). Service-learning curriculum increases climate change awareness. Science education civic engagement, 12(1).

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Ms. Michelle Forman, Director of the Media Studies program, and Gareth Jones, Assistant Director Service- Learning and Undergraduate Research for their technical assistance with the podcast. We would also like to thank Ms. Victoria Smith, Associate Director of the First Year Experience at UAB for her assistance.