NISTS | University of North Georgia
NATIONAL TRANSFER
STUDENT WEEK
OCTOBER 20-24, 2025
NISTS organizes National Transfer Student Week to celebrate transfer students and the professionals who support them on their journeys.
As transfer champions, it's vitally important that we build awareness of common transfer barriers and the diverse student needs and identities within our transfer populations. National Transfer Student Week offers the perfect opportunity to highlight transition struggles and successes and unite your campus partners in advocating on behalf of your specific transfer population. Join us for this annual event, every third (full) week of October, to challenge assumptions, build empathy, and instill transfer pride on your campus.
Last Year's Theme:
"Unlocking Potential: Keys to the Transfer Journey"
The NTSW 2024 theme celebrated the wealth of skills, knowledge, and perspectives that transfer students bring to our campuses. It recognized they possess their own unique 'keys' - their problem-solving skills and adaptability, diverse lived experiences, and connections to community - and are motivated to achieve their goals. Our role is to amplify that inherent potential, creating clear pathways and inclusive environments where all students can fully apply their strengths and confidently navigate the transfer experience. Professionals at both transfer-sending and -receiving institutions participated in NTSW in two important ways:
1. Celebrating the Transfer Student Experience:
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Highlight the varied strengths and experiences transfer students bring to campus
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Create programs that build on students' existing skills and knowledge and expand their transfer capital and efficacy
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Develop campaigns that foster transfer student pride and community
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Recognize and appreciate faculty and staff who champion transfer student success
2. Enhancing Institutional Support:
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Create a data sheet that illustrates the impact transfer students have on your campus
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Organize a workshop for campus peers to build empathy and understanding for the transfer student experience
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Commit to a department-level policy/practice review to identify areas for improvement
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Invite departments or partner institutions to collaborate on improving transfer pathways
#TransferStudentWeek
MARKETING KIT
If you'll do the planning, we'll provide the artwork to help you advertise!
Our NTSW marketing kit, including customizable templates, is available to help bring your ideas to life. The theme is meant as a starting point for brainstorming, so feel free to adapt the messaging and imagery to suit your specific needs.
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*The 2025 kit will be released this summer. Please stay tuned!
SHORT ON PLANNING TIME?
Here are some quick ideas for implementing the 2024 theme:
Highlight Success Stories
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Showcase transfer student stories on your website’s home page, in an email newsletter, or on your social media channels.
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Ask current students, alumni, faculty, and staff to share how pivotal moments, mentors, or programs were "keys" to their transfer journey success.
Encourage Self-Reflection
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Provide prompts for transfer students to reflect on their strengths, accomplishments so far, and goals for continued growth.
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Have students identify personal "keys" that empower them like time management skills, self-advocacy, forming study groups or joining clubs, family support, etc.
Host Workshops
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Offer interactive workshops focused on building skills for “key” moments of the transfer journey, all the way from planning and enrollment through engagement and goal completion.
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Invite campus partners like advisors, career counselors, or financial aid officers to lead sessions unpacking their area's "key" to the transfer journey.
Symbolic Giveaways
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Hand out keychains, buttons, tumblers, t-shirts, or other cool prizes that capture the theme's metaphor.
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Award a "transfer champion" plaque or trophy to faculty and staff who go above and beyond to support or advocate on behalf of transfer students.
Campus-Wide Activities
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Organize a "key" scavenger hunt highlighting useful campus resources along the way.
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Print the theme on a giant banner where students and campus colleagues can share motivational quotes or "key" advice for academic or life success.
LEVERAGING THE POWER OF TRANSFER STORIES
Although transfer-focused research has increased over the years, scholarship alone cannot provide a full picture of the transfer student experience. ​The transfer stories below reflect a small fraction of the first-hand accounts we’ve heard through the years and may be similar to your students’ experiences.
What type of stories do you tend to hear? How might you share them to build empathy for students' journeys? Which insights could inform new and existing transfer initiatives at your institution?
