The UCLA Summer Transfer Program: An Exploration of Black Transfer Student Retention Experiences

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine the role that transfer outreach programs play in the retention of Black transfer students at a UC campus. At this stage in the research, limited information exists on how transfer outreach programs impact the retention of Black transfer students. Considering that the transfer path has become one of the main routes in how Black students are attaining their bachelor's degree (Campaign for College Opportunity, 2015), this case study explored the retention experiences of Black transfer students who participated in a UC transfer bridge program. By conducting ten one-on-one interviews and one focus group with Black transfer students who participated in the transfer program and graduated, the study explored the retention experiences of the program alumni through a critical race theory lens. The main research question associated with the study is: What are the retention experiences of Black students that participated in a transfer outreach program? The two additional research questions are: how do Black transfer students experience campus racial climate at UCLA? and what are the institutional conditions that support or hindered Black transfer students as they progressed through their undergraduate education? The findings of this study suggest that the Summer Transfer Program supported the retention of its Black transfer participants through exposing participants to academic and student support services that were imperative to their retention. Participants also discussed the negative campus racial climate that they described as an institutional hindrance, which lead them to seek out counter-spaces on campus. The significance of the findings can perhaps assist transfer outreach programs with how to best prepare and guide Black transfer students through a potentially hostile campus racial climate on their path towards a baccalaureate degree.