\n<\/p>\n
For over two decades, the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students has bridged two worlds\u2014the researchers who study transfer students and the campus staff who work with them. Located at the University of North Georgia, NISTS has gathered these groups for annual conferences, disseminated resources and research, and doled out awards for groundbreaking work.<\/p>\n
Now, university leaders say they can no longer afford to fund NISTS. At the end of October, NISTS, at least in its current form, will shutter.<\/p>\n
The institute \u201chas made a lasting impact in improving transfer policy and practice nationwide,\u201d and \u201cits research has informed how colleges and universities support transfer student success,\u201d university officials said in a statement. <\/p>\n
But \u201cunfortunately, due to ongoing budget constraints and a realignment of institutional priorities, the university is no longer able to financially support the Institute,\u201d the statement read. \u201cWe are proud of the Institute\u2019s legacy and the many partnerships it has built, and we remain committed to serving transfer students through our academic programs and student success initiatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Janet Marling, NISTS\u2019s executive director, said that over the past year, institute staff tried but ultimately couldn\u2019t find a new permanent home for their work\u2014at least for now. She hopes that other organizations will carry on parts of the institute\u2019s work, including its conferences and programs, and house its research and resources so transfer professionals can continue to benefit from them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have heard, time and time again, there just isn\u2019t anyone else providing the resources, the community, the networking, the translation of research to practice in the transfer sphere in the way that NISTS is doing it,\u201d Marling said.<\/p>\n
NISTS prides itself on taking a unique approach, connecting staff who span the transfer student experience\u2014from admissions professionals to advisers to faculty members\u2014in an effort to holistically improve transfer student success. Transfer practitioners and researchers worry NISTS\u2019s closure will have ripple effects across the field.<\/p>\n
Alexandra Logue, professor emerita at the CUNY Graduate Center, said the transfer process inherently involves multiple institutions working together, including, in some cases, across state lines; about a quarter of transfer students choose to go to a four-year college or university in another state.<\/p>\n
Logue appreciated that NISTS conferences offered a rare \u201cchance for people from all the different states in the country to come together\u201d to coordinate and swap best practices. Such programs also allowed transfer researchers like her to share their findings with staff working directly with transfer students on campuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe research that we do is pointless if it isn\u2019t put into practice,\u201d Logue said.<\/p>\n
While other organizations are doing powerful work to improve transfer student outcomes, NISTS played a major role in bringing new visibility to transfer students\u2019 needs by making them a singular focus, said Stephen Handel, a NISTS advisory board member.<\/p>\n
The institute \u201cadded a legitimacy to a constituency of students that often got forgotten,\u201d Handel said. \u201cNISTS was completely focused on that constituency alone, and that\u2019s what made it unique.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eileen Strempel, also on the advisory board, said she got involved with NISTS when she served as an administrator at Syracuse University and sought to create a strategic plan to improve transfer outcomes\u2014an area she hadn\u2019t done much work in before. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like, oh, wow, there\u2019s a brain trust already for me, the neophyte, the learner who doesn\u2019t know very much about transfer at all,\u201d she said. She called the closure \u201ca terrible loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said NISTS leaders often asked conference participants how many of them had never attended a convention focused on transfer students before; Each year, most hands went up.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, what that moment always crystallized was the important role that NISTS had\u201d in helping practitioners figure out \u201chow they could learn from other colleagues, that they didn\u2019t need to recreate the wheel,\u201d Strempel said.<\/p>\n
Those lessons have had downstream effects on students.<\/p>\n
Each practitioner came out better equipped \u201cto help hundreds, if not thousands of students,\u201d Strempel said. <\/p>\n
Marling said one of the most exciting parts of the work was seeing its impact on students across the country. For example, she watched graduates of NISTS\u2019s post-master\u2019s certificate program in transfer leadership and practice go on to make meaningful changes on their campuses, such as establishing new transfer partnerships with other institutions or revamping training for advisers to improve transfer students\u2019 experiences.<\/p>\n
She said she feels \u201cprofoundly sad\u201d about NISTS shuttering at University of North Georgia, but she also believes NISTS will live on in some form because of the \u201ctremendous outpouring of support and concern\u201d that followed the announcement of its closure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very hopeful that the spirit of NISTS will continue,\u201d whether that\u2019s as an institute elsewhere or \u201cwithin the many, many transfer champions that are working in higher education across the country. I\u2019m really excited to see how individuals and institutions take what they\u2019ve learned from NISTS and continue to grow their focus on transfer students and continue to provide equitable opportunities for these students.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For over two decades, the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students has bridged two worlds\u2014the researchers who study transfer students and the campus staff who work with them. Located at the University of North Georgia, NISTS has gathered these groups for annual conferences, disseminated resources and research, and doled out awards for groundbreaking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1083,2041,120,3071,3364],"class_list":{"0":"post-30818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-close","9":"tag-institute","10":"tag-national","11":"tag-prepares","12":"tag-transfer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}