he University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois) has received a three-year grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education to develop and implement a project that supports access and success for community college students who wish to transfer to Illinois. Entitled the Transfer Experience and Advising Mentors (TEAM) Project, activities include providing information, individual counseling, and hands-on assistance with the transfer process to a target audience of underserved and traditionally underrepresented students. Beginning with the fall semester of 2008, the project’s goal is to increase the transfer enrollment and promote the success of transfer students though graduation. This project supports the University’s five-year strategic plan that includes as one of its goals, excellence and access to the “Illinois Experience” through increased diversity of the undergraduate population. The TEAM project will also address concerns about the number of students enrolled in baccalaureate transfer programs in Illinois community colleges who never attain a four-year degree.

The project targets approximately ten community college districts in and around Chicago, near St. Louis, and in rural areas of Illinois that were selected based on density of prospective students, high enrollment of students from traditionally underrepresented groups and/or economically disadvantaged backgrounds, often coming from areas where historically few students have matriculated to UIUC. The project is expected to result in doubling the number of transfer students from the target districts within five years and achieving graduation rates for transfer students as high of those students who enter Illinois as freshmen.

The project’s four goals include:

Strategy 1: Transfer Experience and Advising Mentors (TEAM). A group of current UIUC students will be recruited and trained to serve as TEAM leaders who will deliver critical services for the students. TEAM leaders will be recruited from an honorary student association dedicated to fostering academic excellence and active involvement among transfer students and from students belonging to organizations such as the African American Cultural House, Asian American Cultural Center, La Casa Cultural Latina, and Native American House. By selecting TEAM leaders from these groups, the project will create a community linkage that research suggests plays a key role in the success of students from underrepresented groups. Also, because data on undergraduate retention rates suggest lower graduation rates among males than females, special efforts will be made to recruit male TEAM leaders. TEAM leaders will make visits to the target colleges to meet with prospective students and their families, communicate frequently with prospective students, assist students with completing financial aid and scholarship forms, participate in online discussion groups (e.g. transfer blogs) and provide mentoring, conduct campus visits and other activities related to guidance, and advise to students before and after their transfer to UIUC.

Strategy 2: “AdviserLink” Transfer Advising and Virtual Transfer Bridge. An examination of sources of difficulty and/or failure for community college transfer applicants revealed many students’ course-taking patterns indicated the absence of courses deemed critical for success in majors at Illinois. This “course pattern failure” could stem from lack of clarity in transfer requirements, incomplete advising to help students meet pattern requirements at various institutions, lack of course availability at some two-year institutions, and/or avoidance of courses perceived as too difficult. To address course pattern failure, the TEAM project will include a Web portal, “AdviserLink,” where prospective students identified by TEAM staff will be able to communicate with a dedicated transfer adviser who can help students prepare for success at Illinois. The project staff also hopes to develop a “virtual transfer bridge” targeting courses that are either frequent sources of course pattern failure, have been identified as critical to success in upper-level curricula at Illinois, and/or are identified as barriers to success by community college transfer coordinators and the Illinois Community College Board. Illinois faculty in consultation with community college instructors and transfer advisers will develop bridge courses, offered both online and on-site to the targeted community colleges. This blended model holds promise for the target audience because the community college system in the state has invested heavily in online learning, and four times as many community college students take online courses as students at four-year institutions.

Strategy 3: Change in Institutional Financial Aid and Credit Minimums to Improve Access and Opportunity. To accomplish the goals of this project, the University is addressing institutional policies and practices that have historically served as barriers to student transfer. First, the Illinois Promise program, which provides scholarships to students whose family incomes are at or below the poverty level, will be expanded to serve transfer students. Illinois Promise scholarships ensure coverage of the cost of tuition, room, and board. Expanding this program will increase access to the University for the most economically disadvantaged members of the targeted transfer population and will model change that can be replicated at other four-year institutions. Second, the traditional 60-hour minimum requirement will be lowered to 30 – 45 hours, to the extent possible across the entire campus. In many academic units, transfer requirements have already been reviewed and revised to enhance access at earlier points in various curricula. Also, the University will work with the participating community colleges to identify curricula where 2 + 2 articulation agreements and/or dual enrollment programs could be created to enhance curricular alignment and smooth student transition.

Chartered in 1867 as a land-grant institution, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is committed to excellence and access in research, teaching, and public engagement. The University’s mission is to transform lives and serve society by educating, creating knowledge, and putting knowledge to work. The University enrolls 31,000 undergraduate students in nine divisions, which together offer some 4,000 courses in more than 150 fields of study. The University enrolls more than 11,000 graduate students from around the world and ranks among the top eight universities in the nation in doctoral degrees awarded. As the state’s flagship institution of public higher education, the University of Illinois is committed to providing all qualified students – regardless of background and financial means – with an educational experience of the highest quality.