Vassar’s Exploring Transfer Program Inspires Initiatives at Other Colleges

For 40 years, Vassar has been hosting a liberal arts “boot camp” for community college students interested in pursuing a four-year degree. Students who enroll in Vassar’s five-week Exploring Transfer program take two courses, each team-taught by a Vassar faculty member and a community college faculty member, designed to prepare them for the academic challenges they will face, and they attend seminars and workshops designed to acclimate them to life on a four-year college campus.

According to a recent study conducted by the College, Exploring Transfer (ET) has been spectacularly effective. While only about 17 percent of all community college students ever attain a four-year degree, more than 70 percent of those enrolled in Exploring Transfer have done so.

Armed with these findings, President Elizabeth Bradley and a team of faculty and administrators launched Exploring Transfer Together to encourage other liberal arts colleges to consider creating ET-like programs of their own. That effort paid its first dividends this summer when administrators at Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College, both located in suburban Philadelphia, announced plans to host a joint program in the spring of 2025. The five-day session for 15 community college students will be held on both campuses and will be co-administered by Cheryl Horsey, Chief Enrollment Officer at Bryn Mawr, and Raquel Esteves-Joyce, Assistant Vice President for Student Diversity, Equity, and Access, at Haverford.

Wendy Maragh Taylor, Associate Dean of the College for Student Growth and Engagement and a leader of the Exploring Transfer Together team, said they were able to progress on the new project during a full-day focused retreat with Bryn Mawr and Haverford administrators on the Haverford campus in June, building on the groundwork already laid over the last couple years.

Both Horsey and Esteves-Joyce said their respective colleges had policies in place to encourage applications from community college students and that the pilot program had the wholehearted support of their respective college presidents—Bryn Mawr President Kimberly Wright Cassidy and Haverford President Wendy E. Raymond.

Vassar’s support included funds from a grant the College received from the ECMC Foundation to promote the Exploring Transfer Together initiative.

Marianne Begemann, Dean of Strategic Planning and Academic Resources, who co-taught one of the courses at Vassar’s first ET session in 1986, said she had long appreciated the value of the program. “Eighty percent of community college students say they want to graduate from a four-year college but fewer than 20 percent actually do,” Begemann said. “As a a nonprofit institution, Vassar should play an active role in contributing to the social good, and the College has been dedicated to doing so through this program.”

—Larry Hertz