National Academic Advising Association 2004 National Conference

ADVISING TRANSFER STUDENTS COMMISSION Meeting Notes

ROLL CALL

Members present: 36

Non-commission members present: 13

Total present: 49

The Advising Transfer Students Commission (ATSC) is a relatively healthy one. I don’t have numbers from the other commissions to use in comparison, but as of October 1st, ATSC had 914 members. I estimate that we added 16 new members through the CIGD Fair on Thursday morning, bringing our roll up to 930. It is possible that a few more individuals signed up to be members during the ATSC meeting.

RECOGNITION OF AWARD WINNERS

The commission meeting began with recognition of those ATSC members among this year's NACADA award winners. There were no less than seven honorees, who are listed below.

Linda Hollandsworth--Program director of the “First Year Student Success Program” at Coastal Carolina University

Outstanding Institutional Advising Program Award Winner

Gregory M. Blase--Assistant Professor at Kent State University in Ohio

Outstanding Advising (Faculty) Award Winner

Elizabeth Miazek--College Advisor, City Colleges of Chicago

Wesley E. Boyd--Academic Advising Specialist, Sam Houston State University, TX

Recipients of Outstanding New Advisor Certificates of Merit

Sharon Jacobsen-- Academic Curriculum Counselor, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Virginia Mihalik--Transfer Counselor, Lehigh Carbon Community College, PA

Recipients of Outstanding Advising Certificates of Merit

Susan Noble Herren--Academic Advisor, Auburn University, AL

Summer Institute Scholarship Winner

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

The meeting proceeded by outlining the track of presentations sponsored by the Commission. Those and others that were transfer-focused are listed here. Descriptions of the sessions may be found on-line in the annual conference area of the website.

Laying Down the Law: First Attempts by the U.S. Government to Regulate Transfer Practices -- Mike McCauley, Troy Holaday -- Weds., 1-3:00 pm, Room 260 (PC Workshop)

This was a great session, IMHO, but was under-attended. Mike made the comment to me afterwards, "If we were to repeat this session next year at this time, the room would be packed!" By this he meant that the McKeon/Boehner proposals in the Affordability of Higher Education act that attempt to regulate how colleges assess transfer credit are currently not on the radar of most institutions. They soon will be, however, and it’s going to be one big blip!

How do My Credits Transfer? An Innovative Approach for Transfer Students

Linda Arnest, Donnie McGovern -- Thursday, 12:15-1:45, Ballroom (Poster Session)

The University of Cincinnati displayed brochures and actual reports detailing how their on-line, automated system for evaluating transfer credit (employing DARS/CAS technology) works. This and other institutions should serve as a role model to schools that want to become more transfer-friendly through technology.

Bridging the Information Gap for First-Semester Transfer Students

Cynthia Fiedler -- Thursday 3:15-4:15, Room 232

I was impressed by the amount of information and expertise represented in this session. While Cynthia's talk was based on how new transfer students are received at South Missouri State University, a number of good ideas and discussion points arose for application in other settings.

Transfer Students: The Small College’s Lost Souls

Janis Wiliams & Bonnie Perticara -- Friday, 10-11:00 a.m., Room 207

I am afraid I missed this one. It was the only Commission track presentation I did not personally see. If a commission member would like to post something about this session, I think we would all be glad to read it.

Helping Students Transfer: A Conversation Among Two- and Four-Year College Advisors -- Connie Stamper-Carr, Kathie Price -- Friday, 4:30-5:30 p.m., Room 235

I was excited about this session; I liked the sound of the word "Conversation" in the title, because it made me think I was headed to a round-table style session. I was not disappointed. So many people wanted to talk, though, that the topic thread shifted around a lot. It was very valuable, and I learned all sorts of new things about what was going on elsewhere and some engaging topics of a more abstract or generalized nature were broached. The presenters had a really serviceable handout designed for two-year students headed to a four-year campus. Some of the most valuable elements in the handout, I thought, were the lists of questions that two-year students could use in assessing the quality of a campus they visit. Some questions, like "Are the buildings clean and generally in good repair," is the type of thing a transfer student probably wouldn't consider, but you can learn a lot about a university by how it cares for its property.

HOT Topics: Facilitating the Transition -- TrIGs*, Cohorts, and Other Strategies

Troy Holaday, Jason Boyd, Tom Grites -- Saturday, 11:15-12:15 p.m., Room 232

This was a GREAT session, and I’m not just saying that because I ran it. In fact, I have little or nothing to do with the content. Tom and Jason served as our expert panelists and inspired a number of attendees to go back home and start similar programs on their own campuses. A common theme in the message seemed to be “we were already doing it for traditional freshmen, it seemed logical to do a section of it for transfer students.” Logical, yes, but many colleges don’t take the initiative to make student services for transfers that are parallel to those offered freshmen. We often assume way too much experience on the part of transfer students and forget that dramatic changes, such as moving from a commuter campus to a residential campus, are occurring.

THE YEAR IN TRANSFER

Having accomplished the first two portions of the meeting in relatively short order, about 15 minutes was devoted to outlining transfer-related events at the national level that have occurred since the last annual conference. This was a MAJOR year for such developments.

The first item was to make ATSC members aware that several bills were introduced in the House of Representatives this year that, if passed, would place heretofore unexpected strictures on the evaluation of transfer credit. The extent of this legislation was shocking to most of the members present, and the new ATSC chair promised a small white paper on the subject to be forthcoming in the next month. In the meantime, he handed out extra packets from his "Laying Down the Law" session and pointed out that the same packet was available on-line.

Next, Mike McCauley characterized and gave dates for two other national conferences on transfer issues that will occur before the next annual NACADA conference. The 4th Annual Institute for the Study of Transfer Students, which is permanently ensconced in Fort Worth, Texas, will occur this January. The 2nd Biennial Conference on Articulation & Transfer will take place July, in Indianapolis. More information will be made available on the list serve as event details become finalized.

A report regarding the progress of the AACRAO Transfer Task Force was sought, but no one was able to provide any information as to the efforts of that group. The commission chair was also unable to find any information on-line, at the AACRAO site or elsewhere.

Finally, it was announced that the new NACADA monograph on advising transfer students is currently at the press and will be available for purchase within days.

CIGD MEETING NOTES

A lot of business was transacted at this year's CIGD Meeting. As an aside, Casey Self served this year as the elected Division Reprsentative, and he runs an excellent, highly efficient meeting.

New Commission

The Liberal Arts Advisors Interest Group was awarded commission status.

Choose Four

It was decided that NACADA members would be allowed to choose four groups to belong to from among all of the commissions and interest groups. Previously members could choose only two of each.

New Budget Process

In an effort to stimulate commission projects, a CIGD budget will be developed. Previously, commission budgets were requested by chairs for the following calendar year. This means, for example, that Betsy West submitted the Advising Transfer Students Commission budget in the summer of 2004 for the calendar year 2005 (which is the bulk of my own term as Chair). The timing of this cycle, it was determined, did not facilitate spending the funds available. The CIGD budget, if approved by the executive board, will hold an amount approaching $4,000 in trust for the commissions to spend each year.

[NOTE: This update from Casey hit my email late yesterday:

The NACADA Finance Committee and Board of Directors have APPROVED our proposal for a Division budget. I am very excited about this as I believe it will help us become more proactive as a division in meeting the NACADA strategic plan. Even though this proposal does not take effect until the 2006 budget year process, I would like for us to begin operating now as if it were in place. Therefore, if you wish to include a request for funding for any commission related projects for the 2005 budget year, please include this in your post conference reports due on Nov. 14th. Once I get all the requests for funding, Maura and I will make a supplemental budget request for 2005 on behalf of the entire division. This will also help us in the process to create budget guidelines for our division.]

New Service to Commission Awards Process

The procedure for submitting, judging, and giving out "Service to Commission" awards will be moved to the CIGD level (rather than being handled by the Awards Committee). If you know of someone who deserves this award, please contact your chair, tholaday@bsu.edu, and he will inform you of the appropriate means for nomination.

New Subcommittees

Subcommittees were formed to investigate aligning commission statements with NACADA guidelines and to investigate the possibility of "probationary" status for commissions that fail to submit annual reports or are deficient in other areas of required participation.

NEW GOALS AND VOLUNTEERS

The remainder of the time was devoted to setting new goals and procuring volunteers to enact them.

Seed Topics

The first goal was to energize the list serve by assigning members to each of the twelve months for the purpose of "seeding" topics. The notion of seed topics was introduced at last year's meeting, but somehow they did not materialize. The new chair, rather aggressively, sought volunteers for topics and months. The schedule was set as follows (topics, months, and seeders may be subject to change):

NOV: Troy Holaday - this post-conference report and the white paper (see “Year in Transfer” above)

DEC: Brady Johnson - the relationship between Admissions and other units in the transfer process

JAN: Sarina Swindell - assessment of our web presence as a commission and thoughts on making it more robust

FEB: Camille Girardi - (sorry, I forget the topic proposed -- it was a prolific meeting)

MAR: Troy Holaday - a recap of, and issues from, the 4th Annual Institute for the Study of Transfer Students

APR: Carol Mrak - (sorry, I forget the topic proposed -- it was a prolific meeting)

MAY: Mike McCauley - developments in international transfer credit evaluation

JUN: Virginia Mihalik - transfer student transition issues that arise from moving between 2-year and 4-year campuses

JUL: T. Mark Maury - remaining focused on the big picture of student development in the midst of calls for transfer bean counting

AUG: Kim M - the task of educating the public in regards to the complexity of transfer

SEP: Cindy - recruiting and orientation issues for transfer students

OCT: No seed topic - annual conference month

Task Force for Initiating a NACADA Response to the McKeon Proposal

Volunteers were sought to generate a draft of a letter, which would then be sent through other channels within NACADA for revision and approval, and finally proposed to NACADA as an official response to the McKeon proposal. It was decided that three members present and two not present would be chosen to serve on the committee. Betsy West (though she doesn’t know it yet), as the former Chair, and myself as the new Chair will also serve. Volunteers were: Eve Crandall, Mari Normyle, and Gayla Brashears. An attempt was made to diversify this group in terms of region and type of institution in the process of seeking volunteers. Carol Mrak, and Sarina Swindell volunteered to serve on the group as well, as needed.

[NOTE: As it turns out, I’m not sure we will need this task force. If you read my summary in the on-line packet for “Laying Down the Law,” I have discovered that the American Council on Education (ACE) made a very positive and thorough response. It is my impression that the best way to proceed would be for NACADA to endorse that document, as many other institutions and accreditors have done. Stay tuned, volunteers, I will let you know of opportunities to get involved as they develop.]

Task Force for Drafting NACADA Transfer Policy Guidelines

It was decided to initiate a second document that would outline transfer policy guidelines for institutions who request them from NACADA. These guidelines would not make recommendations about which policies should be in place, but rather more abstract issues such as how policies should be formatted, how they can be made clear and accessible, what elements should be addressed in them, etc. Volunteers for this group included: Tom Avantz, Virginia Mihalik, Camille Girardi, Heidi Koring (as volunteered by Mari Normyle), and Janice Williams.

[NOTE: I believe this group could still form a very useful function. It is likely we will combine the two task forces. Our goal would be to make institutions aware of the range of policies “out there,” how they relate to national legislation, and make suggestions on how to make policies robust, consistent, and clear. I would like to start drafting this document soon, though it is a big task and we will need to proceed with some measure of organization. I will issue another email to you volunteers individually within a couple of weeks with suggestions and questions as to how we should proceed.]

LOOSE ENDS

Here are several agenda items that were left untouched due to time constraints.

Web Presence

I wanted to put a task force together to study our web presence within the NACADA site. Sarina Swindell informed me that she was part of the old web committee, but that there was no activity as of yet. I decided to resuscitate two birds with one stone (?) by having Sarina seed the topic of web presence to the list serve. Hopefully this will generate SPECIFIC suggestions for improvement that we can enact. By the way, if you want to help Sarina out, NO WEB EXPERIENCE is necessary. (You don't even have to know that html stands for "hyper-text markup language" -- and you can promptly forget it now that you DO know that, if you want to). Julia Wolf at the Executive Office makes all of the changes for us. Go Julia!

Liaisons

The commission needs volunteers to serve as liaisons to the regions, other conferences, other organizations, etc. These liaisons' primarily will serve as points of information retrieval. (If we want to know something about region/group X, we can ask the appropriate liaison.) We have a few such liaisons in place, but would like to have more. Here are the opportunities for volunteers.

Region 1:

Region 2:

Region 3:

Region 4:

Region 5: Larry Ottinger

Region 6:

Region 7:

Region 8:

Region 9:

Region 10:

AACRAO:

Annual Institute for the Study of Transfer Students*:

Biennial Conference on Articulation & Transfer*:

* The commission chair will attend both of these conferences, but that does not preclude the idea of a different person serving as liaison.

Conference Presenters/Proposal Reviewers

Other volunteers will be needed to serve as reviewers of presentation proposals for the Las Vegas conference. In a post-meeting discussion with Camille Girardi and Eve Crandall, the idea was raised that the "roundtable" format might be a friendlier, livelier, more interactive, and more informative type of session to complement the more traditional models-based presentations. I found the HOT Topics session, for instance to be very stimulating. It also allows a larger number of “official” participants and it is easier to link up diverse panels (people from different regions, commission/interest group affiliations, school types, etc.) To that end, I intend to monitor the list serve conversations and request presentation volunteers from active participants in those discussions to moderate several roundtables, assuming the timing of that is possible. If the presentation abstracts are due before too many of these on-line conversations take place, I think we should go ahead and propose a couple of roundtable events, procure "presenters" to serve as panelists or moderators, and then further define the topics of conversation after-the-fact. Of course, traditional presentations are also welcome. This item can be effectively tabled until the call for proposals arrives, however.

Funded Projects Committee

It was noted in the meeting that the commissions have drastically underachieved in the area of using available funds effectively (or using them at all). I would like volunteers for a committee to generate big ideas (that cost money to enact) for promoting the Commission and serving transfer advising. I would say these ideas should be generated with a proposed budget of more than $100 and less than $500 (possibly more in future years). Anyone? Please?

PARTING SHOTS

It was tempestuous beginning to my term - without Betsy there to show me the ropes and keep me from making mistakes. I was glad to be able to fill in for her, however, so that she could take care of her very important family obligations. My thanks go out to Betsy for helping me prepare and I hope she will be with us next year.

I enjoyed the conference more than any NACADA national I have attended to date, which has taught me a lesson that I would like to pass on to you all. PARTICIPATE! Passively soaking up a conference might appeal to some, but to me it is an invitation to boredom, apathy, and distraction. Taking an active role in NACADA has rejuvenated my interest in the organization and given me new energy for the business of helping students make successful transfers.

My goal as Chair for the next two years is to activate as many of you as possible, drawing you into projects for the good of the organization, advising community, and the students we serve. I think we have made a good start with some very specific short term goals (the list serve seeders and the upcoming review of ATSC’s web presence). We also established some solid long term goals (drafting transfer policy guidelines to serve as a NACADA resource for institutions).

I know many of you have spent the last three days cleaning off your desk, filing all those presentation handouts, and generally getting back into your comfort zone.

Well, stop it! Get those papers back out of their neat file jackets. Capitalize on the ideas the conference crammed into your head and DO something about them … today … this week. Otherwise, before you know it, it will be October again. You will be headed off to another national conference wondering what happened to all those good intentions you carried away from the last one. I know; I’ve done it. So, raise your right hand and take the pledge with me.

I will achieve something of real significance in the field of advising (transfer students) this year!

As we progress through the next twelve months, some of you will fulfill this promise by working directly with the ATSC. Others will meet the challenge on their own campuses. Either way, let’s also pledge to share our stories, so that as we head into next October we will be reminded of what the national conference is all about – connecting people to advance the cause.

Troy Holaday

tholaday@bsu.edu