Audit foundational courses with high DWF rates to improve curriculum

Two-year to four-yearappliesFour-year to two-yearwith adaptationFour-year to four-yearwith adaptation

Mechanism

Foundational courses where transfer students collect Ds, Fs and withdrawals get identified by name, so faculty can put support where the failures actually are.

Preconditions

Course-level grades broken out by transfer status, available to departments.

Owner, by role

Department Chair / AVP for Student Success

Who can act

One institution alone

Effort

Medium, 6 months to first visible effect

Outcome metric

DWF rates for transfer students in the audited gateway courses

Failure modes

Faculty may view grade audits as threats to academic freedom, resisting curriculum review.

Contra-indications

None stated

Related practices

LTI-PM-008 Embed transfer student success metrics in evaluations of academic deans