JMU Next: Meeting Students Where They Are
News
SUMMARY: An article focused on the role that the Office of Transfer Initiatives plays in supporting transfer student success - Winter Edition
James Madison University
The Office of Transfer Initiatives within University Advising is here for transfer students across what we think of as the transfer student life cycle: before, during, and after their transition to JMU. At a recent retreat, our four-person team quickly filled a whiteboard with the projects and programs that we are working on to support transfer student success. We also began to identify the themes that run through all our work, whether we are helping a high school student choose classes for their first semester at Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC) or whether we are meeting with a JMU senior who wants to give back as a transfer leader before they graduate.
Transfer students bring a rich diversity of experience to JMU. Our goals are to support them as they plan for their education, connect them to resources, provide information so they don’t take classes they don’t need, promote affordability, advocate for transfer-friendly practices and policies, build transfer pride, and foster sense of belonging.
Before Transfer
Jennifer Jackson
Transfer Advising Coordinator
On how she became involved in transfer advising:
"I was a transfer student back in the day...my faculty advisor [at Virginia Commonwealth University] told me they would love to have student advisors and I realized I loved this."
On how [recent] changes have bettered the department:
"As a transfer student, you don't know what you don't know...we have to know a little bit about everything. Now that we have this programming and this initiative, we can change the narrative."
On the biggest reward from the Tranfer Advising Coordinator job:
"What I get such joy is when I finally see them at orientation. They made it and they are here."
The core program of the Transfer Initiatives office is JMU Next Transfer Advising. Academic advisors from JMU hold office hours at nearby community colleges so that students who are interested in transferring can get advice about classes to take and how to be competitive for admission to JMU. Kate McDaniel serves Blue Ridge, Laurel Ridge, and Piedmont Virginia community colleges. Jennifer Jackson works with students from NOVA and Germanna. Jessica Hyde helps at Blue Ridge and is on point for students coming from any other community college or 4-year school.
The JMU Next team supports work at the local and state level to facilitate JMU faculty input on the Virginia Community College System’s curriculum development process as well as helping to create transfer guides, so students know exactly what courses to take before transfer. We provide planning and advising support for the BRCC and JMU co-admission program, and we are expanding programmatic offerings there—including the upcoming “Get the Scoop about JMU” ice cream event that we are co-hosting with Admissions and the Adult Degree Program.
During Transfer
Transfer Initiatives is one of many offices that plays a big role in transfer students’ lives as they make the transition to JMU. We work alongside the Registrar’s office, Orientation, Off-Campus Life, the University Career Center, and other key offices as students learn how their credits will transfer, navigate the steps to enroll at JMU, register for their classes for the first semester, and plan for graduation and beyond. We coordinate the logistics of new student advising for transfers and train advisors in each major on the nuances of advising transfer students. We host a Canvas course to introduce new transfers to JMU’s academic requirements and enrollment processes, lead an enrollment webinar to answer their questions, co-host a lab to offer registration support, and present at Open Houses, Choices, Orientation, and Weeks of Welcome.
After Transfer
Kate McDaniel
Transfer Advising Coordinator
On the impact of transfer advising:
"It's [Transfer Advising] a great place to start out if you don't know what you want to know. We meet students where they are before they even get to JMU."
On changes that have happened recently or will be soon to come:
"Biggest change has been Transfer Virginia. It is a statewide push to standardize all of the associate degrees. As well as the Transfer Virginia Guide, which is a portal for a student to pull up the guide for the 2 year and then what you'll do at the 4 year. This is a big win for transfer students."
Our transfer advisors have always been available to meet with current JMU students who have questions. Now, based on input from transfer students in focus groups and other settings over the past few years, we are expanding our programs for them—starting with Transfer Tailgates, a new concept where we offer informal spaces for transfer students to meet and connect with each other before heading to other events on campus. More than 60 transfer students attended our Transfer Tailgate for Student Org Night. Finally, we have just hired two students to serve as our inaugural transfer student ambassadors. They’ll be helping us develop programs, lead presentations, and mentor new transfer students.
We continue to support transfer student success behind the scenes after students arrive at JMU, monitoring transfer student outcome data, responding to referrals, and advocating for transfer-friendly practices and policies institution-wide.
One of the challenges facing our team is how we can get the word out about the advising we offer to prospective students prior to transfer. We still hear from students in focus groups that they didn’t find our advisors prior to transfer and ended up taking a lot of wasted classes. We have partnered over the last year with the offices of Admissions, Marketing and Branding, and Digital Marketing to rebrand our transfer advising program as JMU Next, including a new logo, an updated website, and new marketing materials. We are reaching out to community college transfer advising partners across the state in new ways, so we can build a stronger network of referrals, and for the first time ever, we are proactively reaching out to students who met with us in recent semesters to check in on how they are doing and see if there is anything they need.
The work that we do feels vibrant and vital. We believe that through our partnerships with other offices across JMU, with BRCC and other regional community colleges, and with the Virginia Community College System at large, we have the potential to move the needle on transfer student success at JMU and on degree attainment in the Shenandoah Valley and beyond.