Academic library initiatives for transfer student success

CHICAGO — Higher ed admission teams are aggressively recruiting transfers—and they’re finding success. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, about 38 percent of all students in higher ed in the United States have transferred at least once. If you don’t include transfer students in your outreach and instruction planning, you’re missing a significant portion of the student body. However, to meet the needs of this population requires academic libraries to rethink assumptions about incoming students. Gathering 17 case studies, “Transfer Student Success: Academic Library Outreach and Engagement,” published by ALA Editions, presents a rich and nuanced picture of academic library services to transfer students that will empower you to achieve transfer student success. Edited by Nancy Fawley, Ann Marshall, Mark Robison, in this book you will learn about:

• organizing around the strengths of transfer students;
• applying design thinking to ease transfer students’ “culture shock”;
• using autoethnography narratives to better understand the transfer student experience;
• revamping a transfer student success course by incorporating student reflections;
• building a campus network of transfer student support and information sharing;
• partnering with military and veteran support groups on campus;
• recruiting transfer students to a campus peer mentor program;
• serving students in health sciences bridge programs;
• building connections with a fiction book club; and
• creating personal librarian programs or librarian positions dedicated to transfer students.

Fawley has spent her career working in academic libraries primarily in reference and instruction. She has held previous leadership positions at the University of Vermont, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the University of Alabama, and Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. She previously coedited “The Discovery Tool Cookbook: Recipes for Successful Lesson Plans.” Marshall is an Information Services and Instruction librarian at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW), where she is also the government information librarian and library liaison to several departments within the PFW College of Arts and Sciences. She has coauthored publications in Library Hi Tech, Library Journal and College & Research Libraries News. Robison is Political Science and Peace Studies librarian at the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries. He also serves as an adjunct instructor for the University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information Studies. In addition to the research he has coauthored with the other editors, he wrote an earlier, single-authored journal article on transfer students’ information literacy experiences.

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