(Photo Courtesy of UMass Lowell Transfer Students Facebook) “From UMass Lowell’s Transfer Admissions page, ‘We’re glad you’re thinking of transferring to UMass Lowell and we look forward to making the process as smooth as possible for you.'”

Emma Quaranto
Connector Contributor

UMass Lowell is home to a diverse group of students, around half of them being transfer students. The university has helped these students get comfortable around campus with collaborative activities and specific advisors that help support them in adjusting to the university. 

According to the universities transfer students page, orientation is what helps begin the journey of a successful time here. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic the orientation is still held online which can make it difficult for some students to get everything they need to feel prepared. Kristen Rhyner, Associate Director of Academic Services for Transfer Support, says, “I want them back in person, there’s a lot of people on campus that are really pushing for them to be back on campus…I think once you got to campus, you’re like Wow, it’s really pretty! You know what I mean but it would have been awesome to know that in advance.”

While orientation remains online for the time being, the school does offer a lot of in person advising and activities for transfer students to not feel as lost at a new school. It is only a matter of whether or not the students are entirely aware of these offerings. “I didn’t know any of these resources existed,” said Jonathan Hatem, a recent transfer student to the university.

“I can talk mostly from the point of view from our office, the Centers for Learning Advising and Students Success…sometimes certain departments do a really good job with reaching out. We work with admissions and for additional questions, if the faculty advisor assigned cannot answer the questions,” Rhyner said.

Rhyner’s department does more behind the scenes work that focuses on transfer students that need a little more help in their transition. “We also, at the university, we have a thing called the Transfer Task Force…I’m the staff person that runs the Transfer Task Force and that’s made up of all the transfer coordinators, all the faculty transfer coordinators, and we do training like we do life size life cycle of a transfer credit and we do a yearly thing on how to interpret the advising report,” Rhyner says.

The university does a lot in preparation for new transfer students each semester, but a lot of it seems to come down to the advertisement of these programs.  Emails can be a good place to start, but, a lot of the time, these mass emails can get skipped over because of the amount of them students get, and it can be difficult to keep up with. The university is still dealing with the aftermath of changes from the pandemic  and the impact it had on both students and faculty members, but staff  have been working together to help get their students exactly what they need to succeed.

Rhyner shared her knowledge on the more recent updates, saying, “we did bring up transfers in the meeting with the chancellor, talking about how we can make the experience better. So, I do think that that is going to be part of a new strategic plan that is about to go forward,” said Rhyner. “There used to be a transfer student organization that sort of died with Covid that we are trying to start up again.”

The reset button has been pressed and work is starting to build back up again for transfer students. The pandemic was a learning experience for everyone. Everybody had to be more flexible to make things work smoothly. Rhyner was a part of the university’s Transfer Week 2022 which was an opportunity for all the transfer students of UMass Lowell to meet in person and relate to their peers who may or may not be sharing similar experiences in an unfamiliar environment.

The faculty members here do a lot and are finally able to provide support more effectively in-person. As Rhyner says, “We love students, we love our students. Period. Well, you will find that at the university. I feel that all around us. So yes, we are willing to go to whatever we can to help the student do well…But I do feel like there is that extra layer for our transfers.”