It Takes Two to Tango: A Listener's Question on Partnership and Transfer

After receiving a thoughtful email from a listener, Loida explores a difficult but important question: What happens when one institution wants to partner, and the other doesn't?

Building on a recent conversation about how universities can be better partners to community colleges, this solo episode examines the other side of the equation. Drawing on findings from her doctoral research with community college professionals across Texas, Loida discusses the realities of transfer collaboration, the barriers that emerge when institutions operate in silos, and why partnership cannot be sustained by one side alone.

The conversation expands beyond traditional transfer to explore learning mobility, institutional alignment, and the growing need to recognize learning acquired through military service, workforce training, dual enrollment, prior learning assessment, and other pathways. Ultimately, this episode challenges institutions to move beyond good intentions and toward shared understanding, meaningful collaboration, and actionable outcomes that better serve students.

If transfer is a promise, then partnership—and alignment—are how we keep that promise.





Host:
Loida González, Ed.D.
Director, Recruitment & Enrollment Services
Texas A&M University–Central Texas




FMI on The Assembly: https://www.aacrao.org/events-training/meetings/the-assembly/balancing-access-and-accountability



Email us at transfertea@aacrao.org!

Transcript

0:13

Hi, you are listening to Transferte, a podcast for the ACR community sponsored by ACR, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. I am your host, Aloida, and whether you're joining us from a community college, a university, a state system, an association, or somewhere else in the learning mobility ecosystem, thank you for being here. One of my favorite things about this podcast is that the conversation doesn't end when the episode does. Some of the most meaningful discussions have happened afterwards, in conference hallways, on LinkedIn, through emails, and in conversations with practitioners who are doing this work every day. And that's exactly what happened after a recent episode. A few weeks ago, I sat down with Ashley for a conversation about how universities can be better partners to community colleges. The episode sparked some really thoughtful responses, but one email in particular stopped me in my tracks. A listener who works in transfer recruitment at a four-year university wrote, quote, What about the inverse? What happens when a community college doesn't want to partner with a university? I'd imagine we aren't the only institution struggling with this, end quote. And honestly, that's a fair question. Because if we're going to talk truthfully about transfer partnerships, we can't only talk about one side of the relationship. Today I want to unpack that question, not to point fingers, not to criticize any institution, but to explore what happens when partnership becomes one-sided and what that means for the students we're all trying to serve. One of the things I've learned throughout my career is that higher education loves very simple narratives. Some of them sound like universities are the problem, community colleges are the problem, admissions is the problem. Oh, advising is the problem. No no technology is a problem. But the reality is almost never that simple. In my dissertation, I interviewed community college professionals across Texas about students who intended to transfer, but ultimately never did. What struck me wasn't that participants spent time blaming universities. As a matter of fact, it didn't happen, it didn't go that way. It was quite the opposite. Most understood that everyone was working within real constraints. Some of those were staffing shortages, policy limitations, technology barriers, competing priorities, common one. what they described instead was something much more complicated. It was a lack of alignment. And alignment is different than blame. I think that's an important distinction to make here, because partnership is not simply about whether institutions like each other or whether they have a signed agreement on file. Partnership is about alignment, alignment in expectations, alignment in communications and intentionality, alignment in how we define student success, alignment in what information students need and when they need it. One of the things I learned through my dissertation is that many of the barriers professionals described were not necessarily caused by a lack of resources. Often, they were caused by institutions operating with different assumptions about what students knew, what their partners were communicating, and what responsibilities belong to whom. And when institutions are not aligned, students become responsible for connecting the dots themselves. One of the strongest themes that emerged from my research was the importance of relationships, and I'm not talking about agreements or memorandums, MOUs, MOAs, we call them different things. I'm not talking about articulation documents, you know, those that we signed, contractual agreements and we post on our, on our website for students. No, I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about relationships. Participants consistently talked about the value of having actual people they could call, people who would answer their questions, people who would clarify policies, people who would help solve problems, people who would pick up the phone. When those relationships existed, transfer became easier. When they didn't, students often became the messengers between institutions. And that is where things start to break down, because students should never be responsible for translating one institution to another. But relationships alone are not enough. Relationships create trust, but alignment creates outcome. The strongest partnerships aren't simply built on goodwill alone, they're built on a shared understanding of the student journey and a commitment, a real commitment to solving problems together. Because students don't need institutions that are friendly. We use that term alone, transfer friendly institution, but that's not what they need. Students need institutions that are coordinated. So let's return to our listeners's question. What happens when one institution genuinely wants to collaborate and the other doesn't? The answer is so uncomfortable. Students lose. Maybe not immediately Maybe not visibly. But eventually. And by the way, it's not just the students that lose families lose. Our local community loses, our state loses, our system loses, our nation loses. This is how we have and why we have an increasing amount of learners with no credit. Millions. Students lose access to information, they lose clarity, they lose confidence, students lose momentum, and sometimes they lose the opportunity just altogether. And today the stakes are even higher. The conversation is no longer limited to traditional transfer from a community college to a university. Students are bringing learning from military service, workforce training, certifications, microcredentials, dual enrollment experiences, prior learning assessment, and other non-traditional pathways that I'm sure a lot of us have heard of. Learning is happening everywhere. The question is whether institutions are aligned enough to recognize it, because if we struggle to align around traditional transfer, how will we align around the broader learning mobility ecosystem the students are already navigating. Now, before we assume bad intentions, let's talk about why partnership sometimes doesn't happen. And on that topic, um, I've mentioned this before in the podcast. I don't think anybody in higher education has bad intentions. No, all of us love students, all of us want to open the door, we're eager to help to change lives, but sometimes that doesn't happen because of capacity. People are overwhelmed. Sometimes it's turnover, relationships disappear when people leave. Sometimes it's just competing institutional priorities. Sometimes it's historical baggage. Sometimes it's simply that no one has created a reason to come to the table. Most institutions are not actively trying to harm students, but many institutions are operating in ways that unintentionally do create barriers, and sometimes those barriers emerge because institutions genuinely do not understand each other's realities. Community colleges operate under different pressures and universities. Universities operate under different policies and community colleges. Different funding structures, especially state to state, different accountability measures. Different student populations, different priorities. Yet, we often make assumptions about one another without taking the time to understand those differences. Partnerships begin with communication, but alignment begins with understanding. Here's the hard truth, partnerships cannot be demanded, they can only be cultivated. You cannot force another institution to care, you cannot force them to um engage, you cannot force them to prioritize transfer, but you can continue creating opportunities for those connections. You can continue showing up, you can continue demonstrating value, and you can continue centering students in the conversation. And perhaps more importantly than all of that, you can move conversations beyond relationships and towards true action. What problems are we trying to solve together? What outcomes are we trying to improve? How can we help one another? What information do students consistently struggle to find? What credits consistently create confusion? What pathways continue to create barriers? The future of transfer and learning mobility more broadly will require institutions to move beyond simply meeting together and towards creating tangible solutions together, because eventually the question becomes, are we protecting institutional preferences or Are we improving student outcomes? Think about that for a second. Students do not care whose responsibility something is. They care whether someone can help them. They care whether their credits count. They care whether their pathway is clear or. The time to graduation. They care whether the information they're receiving is accurate and how it's going to affect them. They care whether the learning they worked so hard to achieve. That might be in the classroom, might be in a military setting, workplace certification program assessments. Whether that is recognized and valid. Students don't distinguish between community college silos, university silos, or departmental silos, no, they experience one educational journey. And increasingly, the journey spans multiple institutions, multiple learning environments, and multiple forms of recognized learning. Every time we fail to collaborate, students experience that failure as confusion, delay, frustration, or lost opportunity. As learning mobility continues to evolve, I think we need to challenge ourselves to think differently about partnership, not as a transaction. Not as a recruitment strategy, not as an articulation agreement. But as a shared commitment to student success. Because the future isn't simply about being or helping students move through those institutions, the future is about helping students move through learning itself. That means recognizing and valuing learning wherever it occurs, whether it comes from a community college classroom, military training environment here or overseas, a workplace. A certification Competency-based, a dual enrollment course, or prior. Assessment of some sort, learning mobility is already happening. Students are already moving across institutions and experiences. The question is whether our systems are prepared to move with them, and that requires alignment. It requires understanding. It requires action and ultimately, it requires all of us. So to the listener who sent that email, thank you. Because your question reminded us that partnership is not a one-sided conversation. Universities need community colleges, Community colleges need universities, and more importantly, students need both. My dissertation taught me many things, but perhaps the most important lesson was this Transfer success is rarely determined by one single office, by one single institution, or by a single person. It happens when people choose to work together, when they choose to understand one another, and when they align around student success. And when they commit to creating solutions rather than simply discussing challenges. Transfer is a promise. And if it is a promise, then partnership is how we keep that promise, but partnership alone is not enough. No, we need alignment, we need understanding. We need a true willingness to recognize learning wherever it occurs and to work together on behalf of students navigating increasingly complex educational journeys. Because bridges don't work simply because they exist. They work because both sides are committed to building. And maintaining them together. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Transfer Tea. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. What challenges have you experienced when building transfer partnerships? What has worked? What hasn't? Send me an email, connect with me on LinkedIn, or continue the conversation with colleagues on your campus. Until next time, this is Transfer T, where learning mobility meets practice, where transfer is more than a process, it's a promise, because learning doesn't stop, and neither should opportunity.