Transfer Student Success: Academic Library Outreach and Engagement

Tailor your institution’s approach to transfer students using this collection’s creative ideas for orientations, library instruction, partnerships with like-minded campus groups, and other initiatives.

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, the editors present a rich and nuanced picture of academic library services to transfer students that will empower you to achieve transfer student success. 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.