Office of University Evaluation
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Arizona UTRN Team
Sponsored by the Lumina Educational Foundation, the Urban Transfer Research Network (UTRN) is a multi-institutional research project designed to identify and document the articulation/transfer pathways and successes of target student populations within urban community college-university systems as well as to inform institutional policy and practice related to transfer success. Specifically, the project is focused on improving the transfer and baccalaureate completion rates of underrepresented students.
Membership in the Urban Transfer Research Network (UTRN) currently consists of Portland State University (Lead); Mt. Hood, Portland, Chemeketa, and Clackamus Community Colleges (Oregon); Arizona State University; and select Maricopa County Community College District institutions (Arizona). The overall goal is to create an extensive research network among urban community college-university systems.
The UTRN homepage contains information about the grant, project participants, advisory committees, data collection, preliminary reports and project updates, and links to other information associated with the project.
To date, the Arizona UTRN team has:
- defined student transfer cohorts to evaluate community college-university enrollment patterns;
- produced tables for the cohorts mentioned above using the Arizona State System for Information on Student Transfer (ASSIST) database;
- collected and coded qualitative data through interviews with ASU and MCCCD administrators, faculty and staff.
During spring semester 2009, the team is continuing to refine the Arizona data tables and analyze data from the initial phase of interviews. The team also plans to conduct interviews with students at various phases in the transfer process.
Data from the quantitative and qualitative phases will be analyzed with the purpose of informing institutional policy and practice related to transfer and degree attainment pathways, particularly among underrepresented populations.