Community college transfer pathways may play a critical role in realizing broadened participation in engineering; Community colleges serve as an important access-oriented pathway through the postsecondary system in the United States, and also depend on 4-year institutions to streamline vertical transfer. The extent to which 4-year institutions are receptive to community college transfer as a viable pathway to engineering degrees may play a significant role in its efficacy. This dissertation explores a few aspects of transfer receptivity at 4-year institutions to understand how they relate to the efficacy of vertical transfer pathways in engineering disciplines. The first manuscript is a case study of an articulation agreement partnership between one 4-year institution and two public community college partners. The second manuscript examines how transfer policies and institutional characteristics of 4-year institutions in the U.S. relate to the enrollment, graduation and reporting of transfer students in engineering. I use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies across both manuscripts. The results of these studies revealed that: 1) specific challenges for transfer in engineering suggest that adequate examinations of transfer receptivity need be discipline-specific, 2) institutions encounter dissonance when simultaneously managing aims to increase access and prestige, 3) there is a need for shifts in policy and ranking systems that incentivize increases and improvements in vertical transfer, 4) there is a need for more transparency of transfer-related policies and transfer student data, and 5) our understanding of transfer matriculation remains well ahead of graduation outcomes. / Doctor of Philosophy / Community college transfer pathways may be critical to increasing the number of women and underrepresented minority engineers. Community colleges serve as an affordable way for students and families to begin their postsecondary education in the United States, but depend on universities to support community college transfer to complete bachelor's degrees. How well universities partner with community colleges in transfer may determine how well it works for students and families. This dissertation explores a few ways that universities encourage or discourage community college transfer as a way to earn a bachelor's degree in engineering. The first study looks closely at a transfer partnership between one university and two community colleges. The second study looks at how transfer policies and characteristics of universities relate to the enrollment, graduation and reporting of engineering transfer students. The results of these studies revealed several important themes. First, there are specific challenges to transfer in engineering. Next, institutions have a hard time increasing access to their institutions for community college students while also increasing their academic ranking and prestige. With this in mind, there is a need to shift policies and ranking systems that encourage institutions to focus more on increasing community college transfer. Next, universities need to be more transparent about their policies and data that influence transfer students. Finally, we know a lot more about how often transfer students successfully transfer to universities than we do about how many students end up graduating from the university and how long it takes them to do so.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/99298 |
| Date | 07 July 2020 |
| Creators | Grote, Dustin Michael |
| Contributors | Higher Education, Knight, David B., Kniola, David J., Robbins, Claire K., Lee, Walter C. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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