MADISON – With transfers an increasingly standard part of the university experience, the University of Wisconsin System is hosting a symposium Thursday in Wisconsin Dells to examine current practices as well as new ideas and solutions to support student transfers across Wisconsin’s higher education sectors.
The UW System Transfer Symposium: Unwrapping the Orthodoxies of Transfer will bring together more than 100 faculty, administrators, registrars, transfer coordinators, advisors, and other student support staff representing the UW System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
“At a time when more than one-third of college students nationwide transfer at some point before earning a degree, the UW System is committed to help these students be successful in achieving their educational goals, whether they start at a two-year or four-year institution, or whether in the UW System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, or elsewhere,” said David J. Ward, UW System’s senior vice president for academic and student affairs.
In 2013-14, more than 14,000 new students transferred credits from another institution of higher education into or within the UW System.
Ward said higher education institutions in Wisconsin find themselves at a pivotal moment as they confront changing student demographics, shifting student enrollment and transfer patterns, uncertain budgets, new statutory requirements regarding credit transfer, transformations in the ways curricula are designed and delivered, and robust discussion on what the future workforce needs to know and be able to do.
The symposium will also address outcomes- and competency-based transfer, in addition to the more traditional transfer of credits, courses, and seat time.
The UW System Transfer Symposium is funded by an Association of American Universities and Colleges grant, through the financial support of Lumina Foundation for Education, and the UW System Office of Academic & Student Affairs.