Tag: Supporting

  • Strategies for Supporting International Scholars (opinion)

    Strategies for Supporting International Scholars (opinion)

    International scholars represent a vital economic force in the United States, contributing an estimated $42.9 billion to the economy and supporting more than 355,000 jobs during the 2024–25 academic year. But navigating the U.S. immigration system as an international student or postdoctoral researcher can be a long and complex journey.

    While everyone is subject to their individual situations, for many, the process begins with an F-1 student visa, which they hold as they complete a Ph.D. over five to six years. After graduation, they may choose to transition to Optional Practical Training (OPT), which provides a year of work authorization, with a two-year extension for STEM graduates. Some may then transition to a H-1B temporary work visa, which provides for three years of work authorization and is renewable for another three years.

    Depending on their visa journey, after this period of potentially 10 to 15 years on a temporary visa, a scholar who decides they would like to seek permanent residency would have several pathways available to them. The EB-1A (extraordinary ability) category allows for self-petitioning without an employer. It’s often the fastest route if one meets the strict qualifications.

    EB-1B is for outstanding professors or researchers and requires employer sponsorship. EB-2, another common path, is for individuals with advanced degrees such as Ph.D. holders; it often requires employment sponsorship and a labor certification (a process that certifies that the job offer will not adversely impact U.S. workers), unless one qualifies for a National Interest Waiver, which waives the job offer and labor certification requirement and allows for self-petitioning. Unfortunately, the green card timeline is also heavily influenced by one’s country of birth due to annual per-country limits.

    As universities recognize the critical importance of international students and scholars to their academic communities and the broader economy, innovative programs have emerged to address the unique challenges faced by this population. Below, we highlight some commendable strategies implemented by leading universities to support international students beyond traditional academic services.

    Career Development and Professional Preparedness

    Universities can collaborate with private organizations like Beyond the Professoriate, which offers a PhD Career Conference addressing critical career-related topics. These career-focused initiatives are particularly valuable because they address the reality that many international students and scholars will pursue careers outside academia, yet traditional graduate programs often provide limited exposure to industry pathways.

    Complementing these efforts, universities can implement career-readiness workshops tailored specifically for international scholars to address their unique professional development needs. The effectiveness of such programs lies in their practical approach to addressing real-world concerns such as navigating visa restrictions or OPT applications and securing employment that supports immigration status.

    We recommend that institutions thoughtfully include entities that hire international students in their programming and create events that specifically connect employers and international scholars. Institutions should also help scholars explore job opportunities beyond the United States.

    Mentorship Networks and Alumni Connections

    Mentorship programs represent another cornerstone of effective international student support. Programs like the Graduate Alum Mentoring Program, Terrapins Connect, Alumni Mentoring Program and Conference Mentor Program serve as exemplary models. Successful programs take a systematic approach to matching mentors and mentees based on shared interests, career goals and often similar international backgrounds, creating authentic relationships that provide comprehensive support for scholars’ academic journeys and beyond. For international students and scholars unfamiliar with cultural norms around American professional networking, having a guide with a shared background transforms potentially overwhelming experiences into valuable opportunities for professional development.

    Community Building and Recognition

    Universities that successfully support international populations prioritize creating multiple touch points for community engagement and mutual support, from informal networking events to structured support groups that address specific challenges. Community engagement is critical to minimizing isolation and allows scholars to draw on support from a variety of sources. These touch points can include accessible initiatives such as Friendship Fridays, International Coffee Hour, the Global Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Program, International Student Support Circle, VISAS Cafe and International Friends Club.

    Another strategy is systematically highlighting the accomplishments of international students, scholars and faculty, and staff members at the university level. Recognition programs can include features in university publications, special awards ceremonies, spotlight presentations, fellowships and social media campaigns showcasing international student achievements. These initiatives celebrate contributions, demonstrate the value of international diversity and provide positive role models while combating negative stereotypes.

    Peer Support

    Since they first emerged in the early 1900s, international student associations have been central to their members’ identity formation and have long enriched U.S. campuses and social life. In these challenging times, such organizations can help their members find the support they need. National organizations such the Graduate Students Association of Ghanaian Students in the USA (GRASAG-USA) or the North American Association of Indian Students (NAAIS), as well as local chapters of groups like the Indian Students Association, continue to be effective social and emotional support resources for international students.

    Providing Support in Navigating Immigration Policy Changes

    Given the lengthy and often uncertain nature of immigration processes, U.S. institutions play a vital role in offering both practical support and emotional reassurance to their international members. Some institutions offer free legal consultations with external immigration attorneys. Institutions may choose to provide internal immigration advice in addition to external consultations.

    Institutions may also support foreign nationals by providing information through a weekly newsletter as well as offering up-to-date guidance on policies and policy changes in an easily understandable format. Institutions without these forms of support may choose to refer scholars to national organizations that collate policy analysis and resources.

    Furthermore, universities can offer programs spotlighting lesser-known immigration options, such as the O-1 visa for individuals with extraordinary ability.

    By providing clear information, legal support and proactive communication, institutions and organizations can alleviate much of the stress international scholars face.

    The most effective approaches involve integrated systems that combine multiple strategies rather than relying on single interventions. Successful universities create comprehensive ecosystems addressing career development, mentorship, community building and recognition as interconnected elements of student success. When institutions act not just as employers or educators, but as advocates, they empower the international talent they have invested in and ensure that global knowledge continues to thrive.

    The authors acknowledge Sonali Majumdar and Bénédicte Gnangnon for their valuable contributions toward this article.

    Zarna Pala serves as assistant director of the Biological Sciences Graduate Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. She earned her Ph.D. in molecular parasitology from BITS Pilani, India, and brings multifaceted experience spanning infectious diseases research, academic administration and innovative program design; her work encompasses strategic admissions planning, cross-institutional partnerships, developing professional development resources and advocacy for early-career researchers.

    Rashmi Raj is the assistant dean for student and postdoctoral affairs at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. She completed her doctorate in biochemistry at the National University of Singapore prior to completing a postdoc in metabolic engineering at Northwestern University; in her current role, Rashmi oversees postdoctoral program development, faculty development and career development programming and alumni engagement for both predoctoral and postdoctoral researchers.

    Henry Boachi is a program manager at University of Virginia’s Environmental Institute. He leads the institute’s recruitment, professional development and community engagement work with postdoctoral scholars through the Climate Fellows Program. He also supports practitioner fellows who are recruited to enrich UVA’s climate research efforts with their professional field (nonfaculty) experiences.

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  • Supporting students and free speech on campus requires reform

    Supporting students and free speech on campus requires reform

    The recent polling on students’ views on free speech, published by HEPI, presents what looks like a confusing and muddled picture of students’ perspectives.

    On the one hand, today’s students appear more alert to the demands of safety and security than previous cohorts, with increased support for the use of content warnings, safe space policies, and a decent majority (63 per cent) who agree with the premise that protection from discrimination and ensuring the dignity of minorities can be more important than unlimited freedom of expression.

    On the other, the same cohort of students expresses support for a good number of principled free speech positions, with 70 per cent agreeing that universities should never limit free speech, and 52 per cent that education should “not be comfortable” because “universities are places of debate and challenging ideas.” There is also increased support for the proposition that “a lot of student societies are overly sensitive.”

    If you’re searching for coherence in students’ position then none of our collective mental models seems to apply – whether that’s a “woke” model (in the pejorative sense of snowflake students drawing equivalence of mild offence with grievous bodily harm), or from the classical liberal pro-free speech standpoint. These, we are forced to conclude, may not be the mental models current students are using in their understanding of navigating complex political territory.

    One of the characteristics of the free speech debate has been that a lot has been said about students, and the sort of environment they ought to be exposed to while on campus, but rather less attention has been paid to what students might want to say, or what purposes and values they attach to political debate and civic participation. The current political climate is, to put it mildly, grim as hell – raucous, accusatory, significantly short on empathy and compassion and, worst of all, not producing significant improvements in young people’s lives.

    Given that context, it might not be all that surprising that most students want at least one political party banned from campus – it was Reform topping the poll that caught the headlines last week, but I find more significant that only 18 per cent of students said that no political party should be banned from campus. Could it be that students don’t feel the parties have all that much to offer them?

    The winds are changing

    This is a deeply pertinent question for contemporary student leaders, who frequently find themselves in the cross-fire of these debates.

    Speaking to student leaders about free speech policy, particularly in the wake of the Office for Students’ intervention at the University of Sussex, there’s a growing challenge for institutions to confidently be a political actor on campus. And for students there is a real sense that their attitudes to politics at university are changing.

    On my regular briefing calls with student unions I run through the top ten things happening in policy that month, and recently there’s been a steady influx of questions about what happens when students get frustrated that there’s a new student society on campus that they ideologically disagree with.

    At one students’ union a group of Reform supporting students filed to be a registered SU society following the US election in 2024. Even if the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act wasn’t around, the SU would still be required to register and ratify the society – the only difference now is it’s clearer they must follow the joint free speech code with the university. Students signed petitions and directed their anger at the SU for ratifying the society in the first place and any subsequent events held by ReformSoc were met with student protest (also protected under the terms of the new legislation).

    The protests centered around the events being a threat to safety on campus, fearing events would border on hate speech and that the SU no longer reflected or represented them. Students that protested likely support abstract principles of free speech, yet these don’t neatly map onto what they fear may be its results. The ratification and later protests did the rounds on social media and got the attention of the public at which point a rush of unpleasant comments and attacks headed towards the SU.

    In one sense all this is as it should be – the society was enabled to exist, those who wanted to protest did so – but it’s doubtful that much actual debate took place, or that many minds were changed. The SU leaders involved were left trying desperately to stick to the law, facilitate student political engagement, keep the peace, and protect themselves from increasingly vicious attacks for doing so.

    Statements and action about EDI, decolonisation or the recent trans ruling are wrapped up in a new sense of nervousness that will frustrate both ends of the student political spectrum, albeit in different ways. I did enjoy speaking to one team who told me the frustration from students about ReformSocs has led them to put on more EDI based events in the hope more students keep coming, find their safe spaces and recognise that the campus still represents them.

    Making it happen

    All this is contributing to a real tension when it comes to understanding how SUs can best support students and student leaders to become political actors, and agentive citizens. Both the toxicity of the current political environment and the regulations that are intended to try to lay down some principles to manage it, are difficult for student leaders to navigate.

    Now that the free speech legislation is in force, the next debate needs to be about how we get to a space where universities and SUs are agents of civic and political action which isn’t seen exclusively through the lens of “woke” or even the classical liberal position – but something more directly applicable to students’ lived experience of engaging with these tricky political issues.

    There needs to be a deeper understanding and discussion within the student movement, supported by institutions, of the importance of having a plurality of ideas on campus and recognition of the particularities of the current political moment. For university to be both a safe space and also a space to be challenged, the mode of challenge needs to be tailored to the issues and the context.

    In the conversations I’ve had there’s a willingness to try and convert the protest energy into political action, to push SUs to continue to be political agents and welcoming of debate, developing students’ civic identities. I’d love to see debates about free speech reframed as an exciting opportunity, something which already allows diverse student thought, often through student societies. But just sticking to the rules and principles won’t deliver this – we need to move the conversation to the practicalities of making this happen.

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  • Supporting Students Through Feedback: Approaches for Faculty – Faculty Focus

    Supporting Students Through Feedback: Approaches for Faculty – Faculty Focus

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  • Supporting the student wellbeing supporters

    Supporting the student wellbeing supporters

    Across the UK, the sector is focused on scaling up wellbeing provision for students.

    But as the mental health needs of learners increase, so too does the invisible pressure placed on academic and professional staff.

    It’s a quiet crisis: wellbeing support for students is climbing the strategic agenda, while support for those delivering that care remains comparatively under-resourced. This is thrown into sharp relief given the turbulent times across the higher education institutions with staff facing uncertainty about stability of jobs, expectations and workload.

    Staff as emotional first responders

    Within the current HE model, academic staff are expected to be responsive to student disclosures, emotionally available during distress, and flexible with academic adjustments, all while fulfilling the core responsibilities of curriculum design, delivery, and assessment. As a result, the boundaries between rising workload, pedagogy, pastoral care, and crisis navigation are becoming increasingly blurred. A 2022 report by Education Support found that 78 per cent of academic staff felt their psychological wellbeing was less valued than productivity, and over half showed signs of depression.

    While professional staff often serve as key facilitators of institutional wellbeing initiatives, they too experience compassion fatigue and rising burnout especially in roles that bridge student-facing services and policy implementation. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on academic and professional services staff was far reaching, with an increased demand for staff to re-design teaching resources, master new technologies and approaches to engage students and support their wellbeing whilst also managing their own mental health and resilience.

    Reorganising workload and investing in their wellbeing is a necessity for retention, effectiveness, and staff morale.

    Coaching as a holistic practice of care

    Coaching in higher education is a personalised approach for investing in an individual by supporting them to reach their full potential. The way coaching approaches support for an individual is through reflection, clarify goals, developing a growth mindset and build self-awareness. Therefore, coaching has been increasingly introduced across the higher education institutions for supporting students’ resilience. As those initiatives progressed, a parallel narrative emerged “Look after the staff and staff will look after students” in the 2022 Journal of Further and Higher Education by Brewster. Academic and professional colleagues also needed a space to pause, reflect, and rebuild their own sense of clarity and confidence.

    Just as students have had to navigate the difficulties and emotional toll of the Covid-19 pandemic, so have staff had to navigate profound disruption in their lives whilst still providing support for students’ mental health. With the disruption caused by the pandemic only a few years in the past, staff now face more challenges resulting from job uncertainty, institutional restructuring, and sector-wide instability. The cumulative impact of these pressures has left many staff navigating blurred boundaries, depleted confidence, and a loss of clarity about their professional identity. In this context, coaching for staff focused on wellbeing, self-reflection, and self-compassion is a strategic necessity for supporting staff resilience.

    Coaching sessions embedded into staff work plans would provide spaces for staff to decompress and have meaningful conversations to clarify career goals. While it may be desirable to reduce workload, coaching can have indirect effect in equipping staff to manage workload more efficiently through reprioritisation. Consequently colleagues would not only feel better equipped to support students but would also be able to recognise and respond to their own emotional needs, re-align work plans with their personal and professional values enhancing their overall mental wellbeing.

    Coaching isn’t just a tool for student development, it’s a strategic investment in staff wellbeing. It’s also a reminder that institutional care must be available to all staff. As it stands right now coaching is reserved only for those in leadership management. All staff academic, professional, and operational deserve access to coaching as a tool for personal and professional wellbeing. When coaching is inclusive, it becomes a strategic lever for culture change, not just individual development.

    Reframing the culture

    In a sector often reliant on institutional employee assistance programmes or crisis-oriented interventions, staff coaching offers preventative, community-driven professional development that builds collective capacity for resilience. It reframes wellbeing not as “self-care,” but as cultural care embedded in day-to-day practice, mentoring, and reflection especially given the challenges of current circumstances.

    In an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and automated systems, the need to preserve human connection, emotional intelligence, and identity within education has never been greater. Coaching provides space to foster not just personal and professional growth, but a grounded sense of self, anchoring staff in their purpose and values in a period of rapid technological change. We cannot afford to treat staff wellbeing as secondary to student success as they are interdependent. When staff are supported, resourced, and cared for, they are better positioned to create the conditions in which students can thrive.

    If the higher education institutions wants to retain engaged, resilient and emotionally intelligent educators, then coaching shouldn’t just be something we only offer to students and leadership staff. Leadership plays a critical role in setting the tone for this culture, ensuring that wellbeing is not just encouraged but embedded in everyday practice for all staff. It requires visible leadership commitment to wellbeing, through coaching, open dialogue, and consistent reinforcement of values of empathy, inclusion, and respect. One powerful way to enact this commitment is through institutionally supported coaching not just for leaders, but for all staff.

    Many institutions already have a valuable but underutilised resource; trained internal coaches. These individuals bring deep contextual understanding of the higher education institution itself. Encouraging and enabling internal coaches to work with staff across all roles not just those in leadership can embed a culture of care and reflection at scale. When coaching is normalised as part of everyday professional development and wellbeing, it signals that the institution values its people not just for what they produce, but for who they are.

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  • A NEST for Online Learning: Supporting Students in Virtual Education – Faculty Focus

    A NEST for Online Learning: Supporting Students in Virtual Education – Faculty Focus

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  • A NEST for Online Learning: Supporting Students in Virtual Education – Faculty Focus

    A NEST for Online Learning: Supporting Students in Virtual Education – Faculty Focus

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  • Advance HE must deepen our expertise in supporting transformation and change

    Advance HE must deepen our expertise in supporting transformation and change

    The challenges for higher education and research institutions – both in the UK and in many countries across the world – are acute and immediate.

    A combination of funding pressures, changing student demands, the rapid development of AI, international conflict and restrictive visa regimes are necessitating significant change and transformation.

    These tough challenges require all those working in higher education to think differently about how we lead, teach, support students and operate. Yet within these challenges lie opportunities for innovation and positive change.

    I am three months into the role as chief executive of Advance HE. My recent conversations with many of our members have reinforced the need for us to focus on how we can enhance our support for transformation and change.

    Time for a change

    I believe that to be successful, higher education institutions need good leadership; effective governance; they should promote excellence in teaching and learning; and embed equality, promote diversity and inclusion. These are the four key pillars of Advance HE’s work and will continue to be so. However, we cannot stand still. Supporting higher education institutions in this difficult and changing context means that Advance HE needs to change and modernise. Our portfolio, programmes and products need regular review, refreshing and revamping, to remain relevant, to be high value and high impact.

    There has been excellent work led by Universities UK’s transformation and efficiency taskforce, which set out a number of recommendations and challenges for the sector. Advance HE can play an important role in supporting transformation and change both at a sector level and an institutional level. In the context of financial pressures, changing student needs, international uncertainty and digital developments – we need to be an enhancement agency – a trusted partner for higher education and research institutions.

    Supporting enhancement, change and transformation will now be at the heart of what Advance HE does – embedded across our member benefits, our programmes and our consultancy. To help institutions through these challenging times we will apply our expertise, experience and resources to best support enhancement and service improvement, where it is needed.

    Collaborating with partner organisations that are supporting transformation and change will be central to our approach. Blending our expertise in leadership development, educational excellence, equality and inclusion, governance effectiveness with the experience of partners that have different but complementary skills and capabilities.

    Overall, our focus is primarily on people. We can play a role to enhance capabilities at all levels to lead and manage transformation and change – academics, professionals services, governing bodies.

    What we will do

    There are three practical steps I am taking now to strengthen our support for transformation and change:

    Firstly, we have made supporting transformation and change a core part of our membership offer. We are drawing on the areas where we have deep expertise – leadership development, educational excellence, governance effectiveness – to apply our expertise directly to the most pressing issues facing our members.

    For example, the new Educational Excellence Change Academy, a structured virtual six-month programme designed to help higher education staff to lead systemic educational transformation. The programme provides practical support to redesign curriculum to align with workforce needs, reimagine pedagogy to be inclusive, digital, and engaging; and enhancing student support models to strengthen wellbeing and retention.

    Additionally, we have launched the Merger Insights and Roadmap, a new resource for navigating institutional collaboration, partnerships and mergers. Drawing on recent case-studies from successful transformations, it considers early option-testing and due diligence through to culture integration and regulatory engagement.

    Secondly, later this autumn I will announce a new strategic advisory group who will work with our in-house expert to further enhance our support for transformation and change. We will further evolve our membership offer; review our portfolio of products and services; lead new research to share insights; and bring knowledge and learning from other sectors that have delivered significant transformation. We will also recruit new associates with deep and relevant transformation experience to work with our in-house experts.

    Thirdly, we will do more to realise the benefits of Advance HE being a global organisation with an international membership. Our 470 members are from 34 countries – with almost a third of our members outside the UK – in Australia, Ireland, in the Gulf, across Europe, in South-East Asia and beyond. The challenges facing higher education institutions in one part of the world are often mirrored in another. The solutions, approaches and innovations being developed in different contexts can offer fresh perspectives and practical ideas that translate across borders. We will do more to draw on the fact that we have a diverse, global membership to share insights, solutions, and good practice across our membership.

    At a time of significant challenge for higher education and research, institutions are increasingly needing to deliver transformational change in the way they operate. Advance HE is committed to supporting people working in higher education to do this successfully.

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  • Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

    Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

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  • Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

    Supporting the Supporters: Promoting Educators’ Mental Health – Faculty Focus

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  • Supporting Transfer Student Success Through Data

    Supporting Transfer Student Success Through Data

    Transfer students often experience a range of challenges transitioning from a community college to a four-year institution, including credit loss and feeling like they don’t belong on campus.

    At the University of California, Santa Barbara, 30 percent of incoming students are transfers. More than 90 percent of those transfers come from California community colleges and aspire to complete their degree in two years.

    While many have achieved that goal, they often lacked time to explore campus offerings or felt pressured to complete their degree on an expedited timeline, according to institutional data.

    “Students feel pressure to complete in two years for financial reasons and because that is the expectation they receive regarding four-year graduation,” said Linda Adler-Kassner, associate vice chancellor of teaching and learning. Transfer students said they don’t want to “give up” part of their two years on campus to study away, she said.

    Institutional data also revealed that their academic exploration opportunities were limited, with fewer transfers participating in research or student groups, which are identified as high-impact practices.

    As a result, the university created a new initiative to improve transfer student awareness of on-campus opportunities.

    Getting data: UCSB’s institutional research planning and assessment division conducts an annual new student survey, which collects information on students’ demographic details, academic progress and outside participation or responsibilities. The fall 2024 survey revealed that 26 percent of transfers work for pay more than 20 hours per week; an additional 40 percent work between 10 and 20 hours per week. Forty-four percent of respondents indicated they do not participate in clubs or student groups.

    In 2024, the Office of Teaching and Learning conducted a transfer student climate study to “identify specific areas where the transfer student experience could be more effectively supported,” Adler-Kassner said. The OTL at UCSB houses six units focused on advancing equity and effectively supporting learners.

    The study found that while transfers felt welcomed at UCSB, few were engaging in high-impact practices and many had little space in their schedules for academic exploration, “which leads them to feel stress as they work on a quick graduation timeline,” Adler-Kassner said.

    Put into practice: Based on the results, OTL launched various initiatives to make campus stakeholders aware of transfer student needs and create effective interventions to support their success.

    Among the first was the Transfer Connection Project, which surveys incoming transfer students to identify their interests. OTL team members use that data to match students’ interests with campus resources and generate a personalized letter that outlines where the student can get plugged in on campus. In fall 2025, 558 students received a personal resource guide.

    The data also showed that a majority—more than 60 percent—of transfers sought to enroll in four major programs: communications, economics, psychological and brain sciences, and statistics and data science.

    In turn, OTL leaders developed training support for faculty and teaching assistants working in these majors to implement transfer-focused pedagogies. Staff also facilitate meet-and-greet events for transfers to meet department faculty.

    This work builds on the First Generation and Transfer Scholars Welcome, which UCSB has hosted since 2017. The welcome event includes workshops, a research opportunity fair and facilitated networking to get students engaged early.

    The approach is unique because it is broken into various modules that, when combined, create a holistic approach to student support, Adler-Kassner said.

    Gauging impact: Early data shows the interventions have improved student success.

    Since beginning this work, UCSB transfer retention has grown from 87 percent in 2020 to 94 percent in 2023. Similarly, graduation rates increased 10 percentage points from 2020 to 2024. Adler-Kassner noted that while this data may be correlated with the interventions, it does not necessarily demonstrate causation.

    In addition, the Transfer Student Center reaches about 40 percent of the transfer student population each year, and institutional data shows that those who engage with the center have a four-percentage-point higher retention rate and two-point higher graduation rate than those who don’t.

    Do you have an intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.

    This article has been updated to correct the share of incoming students that are transfers at UCSB.

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