Innovative linkages: two urban community colleges and an elite private liberal arts college.

This paper reports on the result of two case studies of innovative transfer agreements between urban community colleges and an elite private women's college. Transfer agreements between Miami-Dade Community College and Smith College as well as Santa Monica College and Smith College are examined to determine the factors that influence their success. The study's findings indicate that the transfer agreements succeed because of the potential for benefits for both campuses; the use of a formal written agreement and the involvement of faculty; and the personal attention paid to transfer students and prospective transfer students at both campuses.

Introduction and Background

In 1997, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported the story of Charlotte Dickerson who had transferred from Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC) to Smith College, an elite women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts (Geraghty, 1997). At the time, Charlotte was one of a handful of Miami-Dade students who had made the transfer to Smith. The success of Dickerson and the other students led Smith and Miami-Dade to formalize a transfer agreement between the two institutions. Later, Santa Monica College (SMC) entered into a similar agreement with Smith. (1) Both transfer agreements allow students the opportunity to transfer from either community college to Smith and receive credit for the courses they have taken, as long as those courses have been designated as appropriate for transfer by the institutions involved.

Although most transfer or articulation agreements involve two public institutions from the same state, these two specific agreements are unique because they involve public community colleges and an elite out-of-state private college. (2) There is no way of knowing how widespread the practice of having articulation agreements across state lines is, especially between public and private colleges, but we can conclude that the vast majority of the research on transfer agreements between community colleges and baccalaureate-granting institutions focuses on relationships between institutions within the same state and, more specifically, on arrangements between public institutions. Cejda's (1999) research on the transfer patterns at a private liberal arts college offers an exception. His research, however, suggests that the concept of transfer can be only loosely applied to the students and college he studied. The students in his research used community colleges more for reverse transfer or as a safety valve to pick up isolated credits than they did as a stepping stone to a baccalaureate education.

The transfer agreements between Smith and Santa Monica and Miami-Dade are of interest because of their potential to provide very bright community colleges students with an opportunity to attend an elite school as well as their potential to add to the richness and diversity of institutions like Smith College. The three institutions involved in this arrangement are somewhat unique. For example, both Miami-Dade and Santa Monica are extraordinarily successful in terms of the numbers of their students that transfer to their respective state systems of higher education and to local private institutions. Santa Monica regularly publicizes the fact that it is the "premier transfer spot" to the University of California and California State University systems. Miami-Dade boasts that one of seven upper division students in the Florida State University System began his or her postsecondary career at Miami-Dade. Smith College is not a typical postsecondary institution either. It is both a women's college and an elite institution with a great degree of selectivity.

Nonetheless, we believe that these institutions and the transfer agreements they have constructed have something important to teach other institutions. In particular, transfer agreements such as these have the potential to create win-win situations for community colleges and private liberal arts colleges. Transfer agreements with private institutions, for example, enhance the reputation of community colleges, help them to look beyond traditional venues of cooperation, and, most importantly, provide opportunities for community college students to transfer to elite institutions that may have previously been "out of reach." There are also tangible benefits for liberal arts colleges in considering such a relationship with community colleges. Specifically, liberal arts colleges can use such agreements to attract bright, capable, proven students from diverse backgrounds and can supplement applicant pools, which is particularly important for private four-year colleges in today's competitive market.

Compared to their four-year college counterparts, community college students are more likely to be minorities, to be first generation college students, and to come from lower socioeconomic groups (Cohen & Brawer, 1996; Harris, 1998; Higgins & Katsinas, 1999; Inman & Mayes, 1999). Elite private colleges like Smith College have traditionally served a different student population. Although many work hard to diversify their student bodies, these colleges' student bodies typically remain quite homogeneous. Factors contributing to this homogeneity include cost, high admissions standards, rural location, and absence of substantial ethnic populations in the surrounding communities. These colleges rarely look to community colleges as a potential source of high ability students of color. The same could be said for large public universities. For example, our university constantly seeks students of color, and yet it does not typically look to establish transfer agreements with out-of-state community colleges as a potential source of these students.

In light of the uniqueness of the colleges and their transfer agreements and their potential to serve as a model for other institutions, we set out to answer the following questions: Why do Miami-Dade Community College and Santa Monica College have transfer agreements with Smith College and vice versa? What benefits accrue to the institutions involved? What factors make these transfer agreements successful? What might other community colleges and four-year colleges and universities do to make such a program work for them? Due to space limitations, in this article we focus on the institutional issues and factors characterizing these unique agreements. We will focus on student selection and transition issues in another venue.

Conceptual Framework

As indicated earlier, with the exception of Cejda's (2000) work, nearly all

the research on transfer or articulation agreements has focused on intrastate articulation between community colleges and public four, year institutions (e.g. Kintzer & Wattenbarger, 1985). Another body of research has focused on the specific factors that facilitate or inhibit student success in transferring from community colleges to four-year institutions and to earning bachelor's degrees. For example, studies such as those by Brint and Karabel (1989), Clark (1960), and Dougherty (1992) argue that historical and organizational processes within community colleges are to blame for low transfer rates. These criticisms of community colleges, on the other hand, are deflected by those who point to the aspirations, attendance patterns, and characteristics of those who attend community colleges (Cohen & Brawer, 1996; Astin, 1977; Grubb, 1991).

For the purposes of our study, we used a framework proposed by Ignash and Townsend (2000) based on their extensive review of the transfer literature and survey of state policies. Ignash and Townsend (2000), although describing state-level articulation, identify several core indicators of effective transfer programs that are useful to frame the present study. Beyond formal, written agreements which seem to be assumed by Ignash and Townsend, the principles of effective articulation agreements most relevant to establishing links between community colleges and private institutions include: "Transfer students should be treated comparably to `native' students by the receiving institution;" faculty from both two- and four-year institutions have responsibility for maintaining the agreement; articulation agreements "should accommodate those students who complete a significant block of coursework (such as the general education requirements) but who transfer before completing the associate's degree;" program-specific agreements should be developed and transfer agreements should be evaluated (p. 177-179). They also argue that the community college and four-year college must be equal partners in providing the first two-years of a bachelor's degree, meaning that transfer can work in all directions. Each of these principles is correlated with the comfort level of all parties involved, including faculty and students. Essentially, Ignash and Townsend argue that it is not enough to have a transfer agreement; effective agreements must create an environment that provides for the needs of both students and faculty at the two- and four-year institutions involved.

Interestingly, when Ignash and Townsend (2000) evaluated states on the extent to which they met some or all of their seven principles, they found only 7 states that include private, nonprofit colleges in their agreements and only 20 that involve faculty. Another 11 reported that faculty are somewhat involved. Most state agreements ensure that general education courses do transfer. We use these principles for effective transfer articulation agreements as a backdrop for analyzing the agreements between Smith and Miami-Dade Community College and between Smith and Santa Monica College.

Study Methods

To develop a holistic understanding of the unique transfer agreements between these two community colleges and Smith, we conducted two separate case studies: the first one involving Miami-Dade Community College and its transfer agreement and the second involving Santa Monica College's transfer agreement. We entered these case studies with few preconceived notions regarding the transfer articulation agreements themselves, nor whether they corresponded to the models described by Ignash and Townsend (2000). Instead, we hoped to learn about these agreements primarily via the experiences of those involved. The stories these colleges (and the students who have transferred between them) have to tell are important for what they reveal about transfer agreements between such seemingly very different colleges.

One three-day visit was made to each campus. Two of the three investigators visited Miami-Dade and Santa Monica, and all three visited Smith. This allowed for data to be collected in an efficient manner and for more than one investigator to develop a feel for each institution and its culture. It also helped to ensure trustworthiness of our conclusions to the extent that each researcher developed his or her own perspective on the college and the transfer agreement, and perceptions were shared and discussed. The visits to the colleges occurred during January and February of 1999.

At each campus we used semistructured interviews as well as document review to gather information. We began by interviewing individuals responsible for managing the transfer programs. In addition, we interviewed the president of both two-year campuses, the dean of instruction or his or her equivalent, any other administrators and faculty involved with the policy, and students who have transferred or who were considering transferring. We used our initial contact at each college to help us identify the interviewees. Approximately 10-15 people were interviewed at each site. All interviews were taped with permission and transcribed for later data analysis.

The first task in data analysis was to provide a descriptive account. The second task was to create categories of meaning or themes that cut across the data. In this stage we used evidence to create tentative themes or concepts "indicated by the data ... [but that] have a life apart from the evidence" (Merriam, 1998, p. 179). This process involved closely reading the interview transcripts and creating units of data that were formed into tentative categories that were then compared with data from successive transcripts.

We used common techniques appropriate for qualitative research to ensure the trustworthiness of our data. First, we taped and transcribed all interviews to guarantee accuracy of data collected. Second, at least two of us went to each site in order to check or confirm one another's interpretations of data. Third, we made a special effort to gather discrepant evidence at each site. That is, we made an attempt to talk with students, faculty, and staff who might have been critical of the agreement.

The Colleges

Miami-Dade Community College(MDCC). Miami-Dade Community College is one of the largest and best known community colleges in the country. It has six campuses in the greater Miami metropolitan area. Together these campuses enroll more than 124,000 students each year and have the largest number of Hispanic students of any postsecondary institution in the U.S. It is second in the number of African American students enrolled. We spent the majority of our time on the Wolfson Campus, which is located in downtown Miami and is the only urban campus within the college. Other campuses also have honors programs. We decided to focus our study on the honors program at the Wolfson campus because its director served as the primary staff connection between MDCC and Smith.

By any standard, the level of diversity on the Wolfson Campus is truly amazing. For example, in 1998, 52% of the students on campus were U.S. citizens, with the next largest group being resident aliens. One in 10 students is a refugee or asylee, often from either Cuba or Haiti. Sixty-one percent of Wolfson students are Hispanic, 21% are African American, non-Hispanic, and 16% are White, non-Hispanic. One in five Wolfson students is responsible for at least one child, and more than one half live on a household income of less than $20,000 annually. More than one third of Wolfson students work at least 30 hours per week while attending MDCC and nearly two-thirds are first-generation college students (Quiroga & Garcia, 1998). The majority of students on the Wolfson Campus are pursuing an associate's degree (66%) and plan to transfer to a four-year college (76%). Eighty percent of those who do transfer to four-year colleges do so at Florida International University (FIU) (Quiroga & Garcia, 1998).

On the Wolfson Campus and on other MDCC campuses, prospective Smith transfers are identified through the honors program. The honors program at the Wolfson campus is relatively informal in its organization and administration. Entering students who test above a certain level are invited to join the honors program. In addition, the director recruits students who have been brought to her attention by faculty referrals. Students so identified are advised to visit the honors program office, but the decision to join the program is entirely the student's. Students choosing to enroll in the honors program become eligible for extra advising sessions, help in transferring, and honors scholarships that cover full tuition and fees at Miami-Dade for two years. Honors students take one required course taught by the program's director. Approximately 100 students are in the honors program at the Wolfson campus.

The honors program at the Wolfson Campus has been very successful during the last few years in helping its students transfer to four-year institutions outside Florida. For example, in 1999, a self-described "banner year" for the honors program, students from the Wolfson campus honors program transferred to some of the best colleges in North America: New York University, McGill University, Brown University, Lehigh University, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Virginia, as well as many other institutions. In that same year, eight students, each of whom received full tuition and room and board packages, transferred to Smith College utilizing the MDCC-Smith transfer agreement.

Santa Monica College (SMC). Santa Monica College is located in Santa Monica, California, within the larger Los Angeles metropolitan area. The college enrolled more than 30,000 students (headcount) in the spring quarter of 2001, 30% of whom attended full-time. The students at SMC are also a very diverse group. During the most recent quarter, 22% of students at SMC were classified as Asian or Pacific Islanders, 10% as African American, and 25% as Hispanic. SMC prides itself on its transfer rate, especially to University of California (UC) campuses and private colleges and universities around the nation. The college is consistently ranked number one among the 106 California community colleges in its transfer rate to the UC system. In fact, SMC has articulation agreements with more than 30 private and public colleges and universities across California and more than a dozen outside California.

SMC is proud of its success in helping students transfer to four-year institutions. The college emphasizes its transfer success in many of its publications and recruiting efforts. For example, the college's 2000 winter and spring course catalog pictures former SMC students on the campus of the University of Southern California. The catalog goes so far as to extol the virtues of private colleges and their "smaller classes, greater financial aid, specialty majors" (p. 3) and reports anecdotal stories from students who have transferred to Georgetown, Smith, Stanford, and Pepperdine.

SMC's transfer agreement with Smith College is particularly interesting because Santa Monica has established a women's college of its own. The women's college at SMC is a program of women-centered courses available to all interested students. Some of the courses fulfill general education requirements for the purpose of transfer, while others are electives. While enrollment in the program is not a prerequisite for transfer to Smith or any other women's college, the program does provide female students at SMC who are interested in the concept of a women' s college with a chance to experience a unique curriculum and, perhaps, build interest in transferring to a four-year women's college. SMC attempts to provide these opportunities via its agreement with Smith, instate women's colleges, and the agreement it is currently negotiating with Mount Holyoke College.

Smith College. Smith College is a selective (3) women's college located in Northampton, a picturesque small town in western Massachusetts. Smith has a national reputation for academic excellence. Smith participates in the Five College Consortium with Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, and Hampshire Colleges as well as the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Smith is relatively large for a liberal arts college. It enrolls 2500 students, the vast majority of whom are of traditional age. Smith is not nearly as diverse as either Santa Monica or Miami-Dade. Approximately 20% of Smith's students are students of color (President's Task Force, 1996).

Smith is somewhat unique among selective liberal arts college in its willingness to accept transfer students. While many selective liberal arts colleges and universities accept very few (or zero) transfer students each year, Smith routinely enrolls more than 100 such students each year. These transfer numbers are necessary, in part, because fewer than 5% of high school students will even consider enrolling in a women's college (Harwarth, Maline, & DeBra, 1997). Transfer students provide a good solution to this perennial recruitment problem.

Understanding the Success of These Transfer Agreements

Our analysis of the data revealed at least four factors that make these transfer agreements successful. First, all institutions benefit from the agreement. Second, the agreements are in writing and were constructed with the support and input of faculty on both campuses. Third, and most important, there is a high level of personal attention and communication between the institutions. Fourth, faculty and staff at all the institutions involved cater to the needs of the transfer students. We discuss each below in depth.

A Win-Win Situation

Why should institutions--both community colleges and private liberal arts colleges--be interested in creating transfer agreements? The investment of time and resources to set up such arrangements between public and private institutions, especially outside the state, could be perceived as a waste of limited resources. That said, respondents at all three institutions were clear that these transfer agreements created a win-win situation for all involved.

For community colleges like Miami-Dade and Santa Monica that pride themselves in facilitating transfer, the Smith arrangement creates one more opportunity to enhance transfer options for students to a broad range of institutions. The agreement with Smith College symbolizes that commitment. As an administrator at Santa Monica explained, "What we wanted was to create the opportunity for students who wanted a different kind of experience [as compared to a California public university] and who were ready for a different kind of experience and would really benefit from that." Both MDCC and SMC commit substantial resources to make this happen. They operate large scale transfer advising programs, actively seek out innovative arrangements with a variety of institutions and institutional types, invite a variety of campus recruiters to visit, visit a variety of campuses themselves, and invest resources in advertising themselves to potential and current students as being places that facilitate transfer. It is helpful for the academic image of the community colleges involved to be able to say they send students to four-year institutions such as Smith.

For Smith, there are also significant benefits of engaging in transfer relationships with community colleges. Chief among them is getting highly qualified students who have already demonstrated an ability to do high-level college work. Admissions representatives at Smith indicated that "when we chose Miami-Dade and Santa Monica, we chose places that we thought were doing a good job, for one thing. So, that we thought that the students who were coming.... came well-prepared." The benefits to Smith were summed up by an administrator at Mami-Dade who explained, "I also think that they wouldn't keep doing it if our students didn't go up there and offer things. I think we send incredibly gifted, experienced people up there." She concluded, "I think it's a marriage made in heaven."

Faculty and administrators at Smith also acknowledged they were very supportive of the transfer agreements for the diversity they could bring to the Smith student body. An administrator at Miami-Dade told us, "They made a commitment to have some range of diversity, which is a very good thing for New England, and for Smith." Similar sentiments were expressed by staff at Santa Monica: "I think it all started that Smith college was looking for diversity." Indeed, interviewees at SMC indicated that Smith is the only out-of-state institution that conducts a special on-campus program at the community college aimed at attracting underrepresented students. In this sense, Smith was referred to as "a little more progressive, cutting edge" in terms of recruiting a diverse student body.

Interestingly, the diversity that resulted from the agreements was somewhat different from what we originally expected. Because of the stated objectives of the transfer agreements and because of the very diverse student bodies at both MDCC and SMC, we fully expected most of the transfer students to be African American, Asian American, or Hispanic Americans, which was not the case. Students transferring to Smith from the two community colleges were, however, diverse in their backgrounds and experiences in ways that we hadn't foreseen when we began this project. Specifically, we met a former ballerina, transfer students who were single mothers, women who were the first in their family to attend college, and first generation immigrants from Eastern Europe, Cuba, and other Caribbean locations, as well as older students. None of the women we spoke with would have ever considered going to Smith or an institution like Smith prior to attending Miami-Dade or Santa Monica. And, while we were initially disappointed that more African Americans and Hispanics were not among students who transferred, our conversations with the women who did transfer revealed the depth and diversity of experiences they brought to Smith.

Representatives from all three institutions recognized that community college students stand to benefit the most from such agreements. According to an administrator at Smith College, "It is not just the idea of having a collaboration with Smith College, but to have students understand that they can go to places like Smith.... and that we have this kind of agreement might make them say `Gee, maybe there is a chance that I should be setting my sights on those places too, instead of Florida State.'"

Formal Relationship Between the Institutions and Involvement of Faculty

The existence of a formal, written transfer agreements between Miami-Dade and Smith, and Santa Monica and Smith were integral to the success of the programs. These agreements, which are nearly identical in terms of language, detail the courses that are "acceptable for degree credit at Smith." As noted earlier, the "collaborative admission agreements" do not guarantee admission to Smith from either MDCC or SMC. Instead the agreements exist to "encourage" students to apply to Smith and "to make the transition as painless as possible."

In both cases, the construction of formal agreements involved faculty members from both campuses. This process required time, of course, but also served to build rapport and trust between the faculty and staff at both institutions. Prior to the construction of the agreements, students from both MDCC and SMC had transferred to Smith and graduated. After Smith had received a few transfer students from each institution, however, staff there noticed their success and went back to both MDCC and SMC to let them know that "students were missing some courses that would be a good idea for them to have." In response, each of the two-year institutions began to work with Smith to identify courses that would transfer. This process involved the sharing of catalogs, course descriptions and, ultimately, conversations between faculty members at both campuses. Sometimes, these conversations helped to resolve difficulties. For example, a staff member at MDCC told us "we had a situation where [Smith] didn't want to give credit for a math course, and in one of our visits we had the math instructor [accompany us] and he vouched and proved his case, showed what was being taught ... and we were able to change their minds."

Just as importantly, the formal agreements provide a significant degree of convenience to students who are contemplating transfer. For example, the existence of the transfer agreement makes it simple for students before and after transfer. As one MDCC student who had already been accepted for transfer to Smith told us:

   Because they have the articulation agreement, when they look at our
   transcripts and see RISS 1120, they know what that is. Or when they see
   MACC 1140, they know that that is pre-calculus. It makes it a lot easier
   than a lot of colleges where, when you apply, you have to fill out, you
   have to list all of your courses, the titles, everything. You have to
   supply the school with a whole course catalog.... Whereas through the
   articulation agreement, Smith is already clear on what our courses are and
   how they compare to the courses they offer, what the comparable courses
   are. So they can transfer your credits as completely as possible.

The agreement serves as a kind of safety blanket for students considering Smith, as one student noted:

   Well, the agreement was very soothing when I got it because it laid out the
   courses they accept. You know, pretty much I had all the courses I had
   taken they were accepting. That was good and the encouragement of transfer
   students which is good and which I haven't felt from other private
   universities that I'm applying to.

Importance of Personal Attention and Communication between the Institutions

The key to the success of these transfer programs revolved around several key individuals involved and the fact that efforts to attract potential Smith students were low key, relatively informal and somewhat restricted in scope. These transfer agreements worked primarily because of the relationships constructed over time between staff members at the different institutions. The agreements arose out of that personal contact, which was merely formalized through written agreements. This personal contact was enhanced by personal visits to each other's campuses, according to several respondents, including a dean at MDCC.

   I think that that personal relationship has flourished in the sense that
   they have come to us. We have had the dean of enrollment management come
   and visit us, their disabilities person, we have had admissions persons, we
   have had ... scholars, the director, the assistant director, and they have
   invited us to go there. I had gone to Smith college with a group of
   professors, we went with Chemistry, Math, the social sciences, a transfer
   person, and we visited Smith college. It has been a win-win situation. We
   could see what was in it for our students, and when they came they could
   see the quality of the students, the diversity of the students that we
   have. That is what has enriched the relationship, that personal ... not
   only the communication.... It's not a superficial relationship, because we
   have been able to make this contact, they have visited with the campus
   presidents, so this interchange has been the most productive. And I think
   that that is the best thing that has happened.

Because of their knowledge of the campus and the people at Smith, advisers at both community college campuses were able to provide students with more accurate answers to their questions and to speak with confidence about life at Smith. An advisor at Santa Monica told us she was able to provide prospective transfer students with a good description of Smith as a result of her visits to Smith's campus.

   I don't think I would be able to describe it as vividly [without the
   visits]. NYU is another popular destination for students from Santa Monica.
   I've never been to NYU. Yeah, we transfer about 40 students a year to NYU.
   We transfer about 40 students to the University of Texas at Austin.... But
   I can't speak as vividly about those institutions because I haven't been
   there....

Similarly, admissions counselors at Smith relied upon their relationships with staff at SMC and MDCC if they had questions about prospective transfer students. Smith admissions counselors told us they appreciated and trusted the recommendations of their colleagues at MDCC and SMC.

   If I look at a transcript or an application and I have questions or
   whatever, I will get on the phone with [the honors program director at
   MDCC] or [women's college director at SMC] and ask `How are you looking at
   this student?'

   We trust their judgment.... You know, if she [the MDCC honors director]
   calls me and said she thought we [Smith] made a mistake [by not admitting
   someone], I would really look into what she said. Cause maybe she knew
   something that we didn't know, although they tend to present their
   candidates really well.

Personal Attention and Communication with Students at the Community College is Essential

When asked for the "recipe" for constructing and implementing a successful transfer program, faculty, staff, and students invariably responded with comments that focused on the importance of certain people in the transfer "pipeline." We quickly learned that without these persons and their intimate knowledge of and frequent intensive contact with prospective transfer students, these transfer agreements would not be as successful as they are. Indeed, the personal approach extended to prospective transfers. For example, MDCC honors students visited Smith for a week during the summer and listened to lectures by Smith faculty members. Smith footed the entire on-campus bill, including room and board for these students. Moreover, the relationships between the campuses provided prospective students with the opportunity to visit with community college students who had previously transferred to Smith. These visits provided prospective transfer students from SMC with reassuring information and a sense of what Smith was really like. More than one student also reported that the visit to Smith's campus, and discussions with former SMC students currently at Smith and SMC's women's college, let her know that Santa Monica students had done well at Smith. In addition, students who were thinking about transferring to Smith from either MDCC or SMC felt like they had a "leg up" in that they could speak with advisors, faculty, and former students who had intimate, real knowledge of the environment at Smith.

Another example of this is evident on Miami-Dade's Wolfson campus, where the honors program director is described by Smith colleagues and transferring students as "integral" to the success of the pipeline between Miami-Dade and Smith. Her frequent meetings with honor students to address their concerns and help them identify a prospective transfer institution allow these students to focus on transferring. Several students told us her help was instrumental early on and throughout their progress toward transfer. In the words of one student, she "knows what Smith can and cannot take and what they will and will not require ... you probably won't have much trouble transferring because you'll have already taken classes that will fit into the Smith curriculum." Another added, "All of us are taking the leadership seminar this semester which is a kind of survey, philosophical history course. The other component is it lets us do our applications together. And [the director] goes over all of your applications. She tells you how to get your recommendation letters, when to get your recommendation letters." The director also reviews students' transcripts to make sure all is in order, helps with college essays, and provides students with application fee waiver letters.

The informality of the programs also seems important to their success. Prospective transfer students at Miami-Dade and Santa Monica are not identified or recruited via a formal process. As noted earlier, students are invited and referred to the transfer center at SMC or the honors program at MDCC, but beyond that, there is no systematic effort to identify and enlist every single student who might be eligible to transfer to Smith. Initially, we were disappointed in the lack of greater, systematic efforts to recruit all potential African American and Hispanic students to transfer to Smith. But we soon realized that the programs work precisely because they are small and faculty and staff at MDCC and SMC serve an important gatekeeping function that ensures that those students who are selected will have a real opportunity for success. Importantly, we did see a commitment from all sides to bring diversity to Smith. As one advisor at SMC explained, "I really do have a commitment, I guess you'd almost say, I'm on a mission to try to ... move our rainbow population into the elite upper tier where they're under represented."

Effectively, the honors program caters only to those students who are truly interested in participating in the program. Or, as the honors program director puts it, "the students who are successful in the honors program come looking for it." At that point, the honors director begins to meet with students to address their needs and assess their progress toward transfer. These meetings yield information that the honors director then uses to steer students toward four-year colleges and universities that might be appropriate for their skills, interests and fit. Knowing Smith as she does, she will encourage only those students she is confident can succeed there to apply. In fact, the honors director at MDCC-Wolfson would not be able to provide the level of services she does to many more students.

Santa Monica takes a different approach. SMC promotes transfer for all of its students via a more comprehensive process that includes high-lighting its transfer rates and success in campus publications. Unlike most community colleges, SMC has a transfer center, complete with full-time counselors who focus on matching students with institutions that fit their interests and abilities. Even so, relationships between students and faculty and faculty members' knowledge of Smith seemed to play an important role in the process at SMC.

   I think really most of the students who want to go to Smith are kind of
   self referrals and probably they have heard it from maybe an instructor in
   the classroom who maybe they are taking a women's college class from or
   they've seen [the women's college director] or another thing that we do too
   is we have a representative from Smith come out at least once a year and we
   have a big poster that we put around.

Implications of This Study

By any measure, the transfer agreements between Smith College and MDCC and SMC are quite successful. As a direct result of the agreement, dozens of students who likely would never have considered attending an elite college, let alone an elite women's college, have transferred to Smith and graduated. (3) Smith has been and continues to be the recipient of an incredibly diverse, highly qualified group of transfer students and yet simultaneously assumes little risk in accepting these students because they have already demonstrated the skills and ability needed to perform there.

Our research has revealed several factors that are important to the success of these programs and correspond to the principles for effective transfer agreements identified by Ignash and Townsend (2000). First, the agreements, while not technically articulation agreements, exist in written form. Moreover, consistent with Ignash and Townsend's findings, the construction of the agreements involved faculty on both campuses. Second, success was not solely a result of the structures and policies in place at each institution. Certainly the emphasis placed on transfer at Santa Monica and the resources spent on the transfer center contribute to that institution's high transfer rate. The honors program at MDCC and transfer center at Santa Monica's women's college provide crucial curricular and process information for prospective transfer students and contribute to the success of the students who transfer to Smith. However, those structures alone are insufficient. Once students are in the honors program at MDCC or express an interest in transferring to Smith, it is the personal knowledge, trust, contacts, and efforts on all sides that actually make these programs work. Faculty at all three institutions were committed to and involved in the construction of the agreements and the continuing program. Not only do individuals such as the honors director at MDCC's Wolfson campus do all they can to help students transfer to Smith, they also serve a critical gatekeeping function for Smith. They encourage and recommend only those students they know can succeed at Smith. This gatekeeping function is critical to the trust Smith admissions counselors have in recommendations and applications they receive from SMC and MDCC and ultimately to Smith's long term willingness to invest valuable scholarship dollars in these transfer students.

We believe that the agreements Smith has with MDCC and SMC can and should be replicated by other institutions seeking highly qualified, diverse students. However, there are several important points for interested parties to consider. First, formal written agreements may be important as Ignash and Townsend (2000) suggest, but they may not be sufficient, especially if the two institutions involved in the transfer agreement are dissimilar and separated from each other culturally or geographically. That is, we cannot expect students to take advantage of opportunities like attending Smith unless they feel comfortable with the decision to pack up and move far away from home to a part of the U.S. and a college they know very little about.

Second, institutions must develop the necessary personal relationship between transfer coordinators, admissions directors, and other staff to ensure trust and cooperation across campuses. Transfer coordinators and honors program directors must go the extra mile in convincing students, especially those from underrepresented groups, that a college such as Smith is worth the effort. They then must invest the time and effort to prepare the students well for the application and transfer process. Institutional support must be present in the form of recruiting efforts, such as summer trips to Smith and personal support in the form of transfer assistance and counseling. Some gatekeeping is also essential. The reputation of the community college depends on its carefully selecting prospective transfer students and yet providing sufficient encouragement to convince a student from inner-city Los Angeles or Miami to venture to Smith College.

Similarly, the receiving institution must provide personal services to dull the transfer and culture shock frequently experienced by first semester transfer students. Several of the students we spoke to had difficulty upon arriving at Smith because of the campus culture and the fact that they did not know what to expect upon arrival. This reality is acknowledged in other research on the transfer student (see Cohen & Brawer, 1996). The four-year colleges must have financial aid and appropriate on-campus support for the transfer students. We say appropriate because this is a somewhat sensitive issue. Most faculty and staff at Smith were careful not to label or otherwise spotlight transfer students.

In short, based on this study, we believe that community colleges are a gold mine waiting to be discovered by elite colleges as well as other four-year institutions looking for diverse, highly qualified students. Agreements such as the ones Smith has with these community colleges will not dramatically affect the overall transfer rate because they only work when they are small. However, they will give students who have otherwise never considered broader options the motivation, confidence, and skills to consider institutions that have been, heretofore, the domain of the upper middle class.

(1) The agreements between Santa Monica College and Smith, and Miami-Dade Community College and Smith are technically considered "collaborative admission agreements," rather than transfer articulation agreements. They do not guarantee admission to Smith upon completion of a certain academic program at either Santa Monica or Miami-Dade. They will be referred to as "transfer agreements" for the purpose of brevity and clarity in this paper.

(2) An agreement between LaGuardia Community College and Vassar College was described in Educational Record, 72(4), 43-45, Spring 1991.

(3) In 2000, for example, Smith accepted 56% of first-year applicants. Within that group, SAT scores at the 25th and 75th percentile ranged from 1180-1380.

(4) Unfortunately, due to a lack of records and the fact that students had transferred prior to the establishment of a formal agreement, staff from the three institutions were unable to provide an accurate count of the number of students who had transferred from either SMC or MDCC to Smith. Based on the records available, we can say with some certainty, however, that the number is greater than 25 and less than 100.

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Christopher Morphew is an assistant professor in the Higher Education Administration Program at the University of Kansas. [e-mail]

Susan Twombly is a professor in the Higher Education Administration Program at the University of Kansas. [e-mail]

Lisa Wolf-Wendel is an associate professor in the Higher Education Administration Program at the University of Kansas. [e-mail]