On May 26th, UMBC welcomed academic leaders and enrollment professionals from Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) and the College of Southern Maryland (CSM) for the Strategic Transfer Excellence Plan (STEP) Convening. Supported by the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) and the Aspen Institute, the event brought together partners to align priorities, strengthen collaboration, and advance a shared vision for improving the transfer student experience.

STEP is a student-centered partnership focused on creating seamless pathways from community colleges to UMBC. Through the initiative, the partner institutions are working together to identify and remove unnecessary barriers to transfer, reduce time to degree, and increase bachelor's degree attainment for community college students. The partnership has committed to five shared goals:  expanding transfer enrollment from AACC and CSM, improving first-year success, increasing graduation rates for community college transfer students, reducing equity gaps in student completion, and strengthening STEM pathways.

The convening was centered on laying the foundation for the next phase of the work through discussions on governance, accountability, stakeholder engagement, communication strategies, and the resources needed to support long-term implementation. Participants represented a broad cross-section of the transfer experience, including deans, faculty, and leaders from admissions, advising, financial aid, the registrar, institutional research, information technology, orientation, student success, and student affairs.

Student voices grounded those conversations in lived experience. They highlighted the different pathways students take to UMBC and the opportunities institutions have to better support them along the way.

Zoha Waleed and Joaquin Seminario, AACC students who presented research through UMBC's inaugural URCAD Partners program, shared how participating in undergraduate research before transferring helped them see themselves as part of the UMBC community and inspired them to consider pursuing PhDs.

Laura Comey, who participated in dual enrollment at CSM before enrolling at UMBC as a first-year student, reflected on the lasting impact of her community college experience.

"Looking back, CSM was not just the place where I earned college credits. It was the place where I learned how to be a college student. It was where I learned how to advocate for myself, how to ask for help, how to lead, and how to imagine a bigger future for myself."

Markala Pharr, who transferred from CSM to UMBC, shared how delays in credit evaluation affected her first semester.

"Since I also had to wait for certain courses to be reevaluated during my first semester, my options for classes were limited."

Together, the students reinforced a central theme of the convening: transfer students bring resilience, experience, and valuable perspectives to their institutions, and their success depends on intentional, coordinated systems that make navigating the transfer process as seamless as possible.

The Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) and the Aspen Institute, also in attendance recognized the partnership's commitment to expanding opportunity, noting its excitement about the life-changing impact the initiative can have for students across the region through UMBC's efforts to expand access and invest in transfer student success.

This summer, STEP enters Phase 2 of the Maryland Transfer Initiative, with work focused on stakeholder engagement and governance, shared vision alignment, resource alignment, and strengthening data and institutional infrastructure. As executive leadership across all three institutions continues to guide the partnership, STEP will serve as the framework for advancing coordinated action that improves outcomes for current and future transfer students.

Transfer success at UMBC begins with the student experience — and the Registrar's Office is driving the improvements that make that success possible. For the Transfer Services team, every transcript, evaluation, and policy update is centered on one goal: ensuring students have the information they need to move forward. 

Smart Technology Meets Smart People

Launched in 2022, Smart Panda has transformed how transfer credit evaluations are processed.

Before its implementation, staff manually entered each course detail from incoming transcripts — a time-consuming task made even more challenging by the growth in electronic and dual-enrollment transcripts after COVID-19. Now, Smart Panda's Raptor tool assists data entry by capturing transcript data, and its Rule Builder helps create course equivalencies that populate directly into the student record system.

This shift allows staff to focus on quality checks and complex evaluations rather than repetitive data entry. "Technology can make us faster, but it doesn't replace our expertise," one team member explained. "Equivalencies change, and it takes knowledgeable people to keep everything accurate."

The project — more than five years in the making — highlights the team's persistence and creativity. "We approach these projects as a team," the Transfer Services staff shared. "Everyone brings different strengths. We brainstorm, problem-solve, and learn together to create the best possible outcomes for students."

Meeting Students Where They Are

The Transfer Services team works closely with offices across campus to ensure credits are evaluated fairly and efficiently.

• Daily coordination with Admissions keeps transcripts moving.

• Support for registration and graduation helps ensure students meet prerequisites and degree requirements.

• Ongoing collaboration with Study Abroad and academic departments builds new equivalencies that recognize the full range of student learning experiences.

The Maryland Transfer With Success Act has also expanded flexibility, allowing credit to be awarded for a broader range of coursework and for new forms of prior learning. Combined with Smart Panda's efficiencies, these efforts support the new 20-day turnaround goal — giving students faster decisions and clearer pathways forward.