The Transfer Treadmill: Forging An Institutional Identity in a Multicampus System

Abstract

An examination of Wright College, a community college in Chicago, reveals that it has no particular magic formula for transfer success. Wright 's strong transfer programs should be recognized as an outgrowth of the college's unique development within a 7-college district. Faculty and administrative commitment to the centrality of the transfer function, combined with student needs and preferences, allows for a continual reinforcement of the primacy of transfer in Wright 's institutional identity. Wright 's historically-driven image of itself as a "junior college, " and it reputation as such in the surrounding communities, have persisted over time and guided the college's priorities and decisionmaking.