This year about 150 students who enrolled in Truman State University were transfer students coming from community colleges or four-year universities. About 8 percent of Truman’s population is made up of transfer students.
Julia Price, the admission counselor for transfer programs, said much of the admission process for transfer students is the same. The timeline is similar to new students as far as applying for admittance and scholarship opportunities.
Price said often when transfer students come to Truman, they will meet with counselors individually, so they can have a personal conversation about what that student is looking for.
Price said at the admission level, they try to mirror the personal connections students will make with people such as their academic adviser, their student adviser and their professors.
“When I work with transfer students coming in, I connect with them when they come visit,” Price said, “The next time I see them, I remember their name, I remember what school they’re from and what they’re interested in and pieces from when we talked together…”
Transfer Programs Coordinator Ted Frushour helps the transfer student process at the Center for Academic Excellence. He manages relationships with community colleges, creates and improves programs with community colleges and ensures academic ease for transfer students and even advising some of the them — specifically those who transferred to Truman from community colleges.
Frushour said there are several ways Truman tries to help transfer students succeed and feel comfortable at Truman including peer mentoring. Now it includes a transfer orientation which ensures transfer students know about the resources available to them, gives them an adviser in their department and one at the Center for Academic Excellence.
TruMACC is one of the programs designed to help students who plan to enroll at Truman upon finishing community college graduate from Truman within four years. Through this program, students enrolled at Moberly Area Community College have the opportunity to take one class at Truman per semester, which is especially helpful for those who want to major in a program not offered at MACC.
Frushour said perhaps one of the best programs Truman offers to students is the opportunity to live in a Transfer Living Learning Community in Ryle Hall. LLC’s are hallways that focus on a specific topic or identity for students to further bond with people in their residence life community.
“Our goal there is to have a place on campus for transfer students to live, if they want to, where they can meet people who are going through the same experience and create some community there,” Frushour said.
Frushour said he is working on updating program information for community colleges. He said this is so students and faculty at Truman and community colleges are best informed about what classes they should take to set themselves up for success if they transfer to Truman.
Ryle Hall Director Laina Porter said these past two years the LLC has thrived, especially under the leadership of its two returning student advisors, seniors Jake Francis and Amollie Stoermer.
Porter said as of right now, half of the transfer LLC aren’t filled with transfer students, and she hopes starting next year that will change.
“This year, our goal is to come up with a product to inform transfer students about the transfer LLC,” Porter said.
Porter said Francis and Stoermer are collecting testimonies from students who have lived in the transfer LLC to design a pamphlet for transfer students that will inform them of the benefits of living in the transfer student LLC.
Stoermer was a transfer student and once lived in the transfer student LLC. Stoermer said the student advisers for that community in Ryle are mindful about the programming they provide for their students as well as the information they include when they decorate bulletin boards.
She said she remembered the comfort of coming to live in the transfer LLC and being with people who were learning about things such as JINS and the portfolio at the same time she was.
Stoermer said she was not aware of how many upper level classes she would have to take to graduate from Truman, ultimately pushing her graduation date back a year. Despite this, she said she also gained some great things from transferring to Truman from a community college.
“Having leadership opportunities at a community college helped me become more confident here in a larger setting,” Stoermer said. “Coming from a smaller setting, learning those leadership skills and getting a taste for what a college curriculum looks like and the standards you have to reach, really prepared me for how academically strenuous Truman is.”