UC Merced announces partnership to encourage Valley community college student transfers
UC Merced on Thursday announced a new effort intended to encourage Central Valley community college students to transfer as Bobcats to the Gateway to Yosemite’s only four-year institution.
The university is partnering with the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC) leadership team on an initiative to connect more community college students to UC Merced.
“This collaboration with CVHEC will ensure that onboarding of new community colleges to this transfer initiative is of the highest quality and supports community college student success in their academic journey,” said Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñozin a UC Merced news release.
“It also allows for us to learn and adapt this work as we go.”
Using the online Program Pathway Mapper, the system builds a pipeline that allows students to explore vetted transfer pathways and gives counselors an effective advising tool, a UC Merced news release said.
A grant from the State of California Education Learning Lab has facilitated a collaboration between UC Merced and Bakersfield College, as well as Merced College. The partnership connects community college students earning associate’s degrees at these campuses to undergraduate baccalaureate programs using the Program Pathway Mapper.
“This program creates clarity for our students,” said Merced College President Chris Vitelli in the release. “It’s embarrassing it took us this long to make something like this program, but now it’s helping our students know what to do to transfer to UC Merced.”
Many institutions use the Program Pathway Mapper, but UC Merced is the first UC to use the program, according to the release.
