Playing nice in the sandbox

Abstract

This study was designed to explore the collaborative experiences between community college and 4-year institution administrators to improve the transfer process, enhance transfer student success, and support bachelors degree completion for community college transfer students. Knowledge generated is expected to inform staff and faculty at community colleges and 4-year institutions as to how collaboration will enhance the success of transfer students with optimal transfer of credits and completion of the baccalaureate degree. The qualitative research tradition of interpretative phenomenological analysis was used for this study. Semi-structured interviews were held with five community college and five university leaders. With the goal of approaching my research as a scholar-practitioner, the Theory of Collaborative Advantage (TCA) was the framed used and is a practice-based theory about the management of collaborations which focuses on the potential for collaborative advantage arising out of inter-organizational partnerships. The findings indicate that these leaders agree that collaborations are advantageous, transfer students should be supported through joint institutional efforts, and policy should incentivize institutions to collaborate. Findings also show that key resources and attributes are necessary for successful transfer including inter-institutional support networks and impactful future practices should engage faculty, use data to drive decisions, and structured policies and systems should be implemented.