This year's conference theme encourages us to celebrate our wins, both big and small, as catalysts for system-wide change. Selected sessions will have an important role in helping attendees see the transformative power of incremental progress and embrace their roles as change-makers. 
 

Since every event is only as good as its content, we’re relying on you to contribute valuable insights and inspiration for conference attendees. We recognize that transfer is very context/institution-specific and are eager to see your creative approaches to ensuring transfer students have access to the information, support, and opportunities they need to be successful.  
 

We’ve listed some reflection questions below to jumpstart your brainstorming, but all transfer-focused session ideas are welcome. If you have questions or need clarification about any part of the proposal process, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

In thinking about the knowledge, tips, and strategies you could share with other transfer professionals, how do you: 
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• Track progress, identify milestones, and create system shifts? 

• Overcome barriers and cope with setbacks? 

• Stay motivated in challenging times?

• Involve students in your work? 

• Measure your impact and share your results? 

• Collaborate with others and leverage your resources? 

• Inspire colleagues to join you in your efforts?
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SELECTION CRITERIA

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The information on this webpage provides an overview of the details we need to determine whether your session is a good fit for this event. We strongly suggest you reference the Proposal Checklist and other hyperlinked documents to plan and organize your submission. 

Please ensure your proposal is detailed, well-organized, and includes appropriately cited source material (as needed). Because we’re primarily interested in content and substance, you are welcome to use the writing style that feels most natural to you - e.g., conversational, informative, narrative, scholarly, etc. 
 

Volunteers will assess proposals in a masked review process, meaning reviewers won’t see your name or other identifiers. As indicated in the Proposal Review Guidelines, proposals must: 
 

• Address a significant issue or challenge in the transfer field. Clearly explain your topic, along with the background and rationale for your session. Our sample topics list provides a snapshot of possible issues, but you may explore any aspect of the transfer student journey or what it takes to support it. 
   

• Offer practical implications and takeaways. We want attendees to leave your session with concrete ideas and actionable strategies they can immediately put into practice. List the top 3-5 recommendations, resources, guidelines, templates, or toolkits you plan to cover during your presentation and briefly describe why they are important and potentially useful. 
   

• Promote adaptability and scalability. Highlight the ways your presentation material might apply to other types of institutions/systems or transfer professionals. Be sure to consider whether your ideas can be customized to fit different contexts (e.g., student body size, characteristics, needs, staffing, and financial resources), or how they might be applied to different stages of the transfer process. 
   

• Engage attendees in meaningful ways. We encourage you to thread interactive and participatory methods that foster reflection, dialogue, and collaboration among attendees throughout your session. Provide a basic outline of your presentation, noting the techniques you might use to engage and involve your audience (e.g., quizzes, polls, demonstrations, case studies, role plays, group discussions, etc.). 

 
Additionally, your proposal should emphasize one or more of the following elements for the best chance of being accepted. Although optional, these factors can significantly strengthen the potential relevance and impact of your presentation. 
 

• Student perspectives and voices. Center your session around the specific challenges and needs of transfer students, emphasizing their unique characteristics, backgrounds, and experiences. If students cannot participate as co-presenters, consider using pre-recorded stories or testimonials or sharing quantitative or qualitative student data.
   

• Collaborations and partnerships. Highlight the importance of working with others to facilitate transfer success. Include co-presenters from other areas or institutions or discuss how you fostered relationships with various stakeholders, such as faculty, administrators, or community partners.
   

• Evidence-informed decision-making. Emphasize the use of theory, research, best practices, or assessment data to support and measure the effectiveness of your work. Cite relevant sources/studies, provide data from your own projects, or share examples of data collection methods and evaluation frameworks that can help attendees assess and improve their own programs.