By Beverly Makhani, Office of Undergraduate Education
PULLMAN, Wash. – Students with college credits earned outside Washington State University have a new place on the Pullman campus to find information: the Transfer Resource Center in Smith CUE 403.
“Beyond the many services we provide, I want the students to view the Transfer Resource Center as the place to get answers and get involved,” said Susan Poch, assistant vice provost and center director.
The TRC is a central location to access services provided by the Transfer Clearinghouse, part of the Office of Undergraduate Education. Services include transfer credit evaluation, pre-transfer advising, transfer-specific clubs and activities and other campus resources.
WSU choice of transfer students
“Recent data show that nearly 80 percent of WSU students, by the time they graduate, earned some type of transfer credit,” Poch said. They could have completed classes or degrees at other institutions, in the military or via Running Start and advanced placement courses in high school, for example.
“That percentage represents a significant population of our students who have unique course credit and college transition needs,” Poch said. “We want every one of them to have the best experience at our university from the time they apply for admission through graduation.
“Transfer students bring diversity and unique experiences to classrooms and our community,” she said. “We want WSU to be transfer students’ university of choice.”
“We will do that through services provided directly to those students by the Transfer Clearinghouse and through our many collaborations with admissions counselors, academic advisors and college liaisons at each WSU campus,” said Waylon Safranski, assistant director of the center. “It’s nice to have the Transfer Resource Center as a place to call home.”
Website, equivalency database, answer line, clubs
The Transfer Clearinghouse website, http://transfercredit.wsu.edu, provides thorough information about the transfer credit process, types of credit, how degrees transfer, evaluation request forms, academic programs, graduation requirements, statewide transfer initiatives and other WSU resources.
The website links to the transfer equivalency database, which provides vital information to students planning to transfer credits to WSU. Over the past year, the clearinghouse has worked to update equivalencies for University Common Requirements (UCORE) and departmental courses. Progress is continuing on enhancements to show prospective students how transfer credit applies toward WSU degrees.
The center’s two-part “Transfer Answerline” aims to provide rapid responses to transfer-related email queries to transfer@wsu.edu and phone calls to 509-335-8704. Safranski is the point person and also handles one-to-one meetings with students.
Two registered student organizations just for transfer students – Team Transfer and Tau Sigma, an honorary – will hold meetings in the CUE 403 suite. John Nugent, assistant director of New Student Programs, is the advisor to the groups.
Contacts:
Susan Poch, WSU Transfer Resource Center director, 509-335-6037, poch@wsu.edu
Waylon Safranski, Transfer Resource Center assistant director, 509-335-8704, wski@wsu.edu
