Chancellor Rogers' Message, February 2026

Building Pathways, Expanding Opportunity: ECU’s Commitment to Transfer Student Success

Dear ECU Community:

One of our greatest strengths as a university lies in the diverse academic pathways our students take to arrive at ECU. This is especially true of our transfer student community. Transfer students bring with them experience, determination, and a clear sense ofpurpose. They also bring realities from the real-world—jobs, families, and financial responsibilities. Ensuring that our systems and approach allows the ECU community to meet these students with seamless systems, clear communication and genuine support that fits into their educational journey. That is why, as part of our broader student success agenda, we have made strengthening transfer student pathways a deliberate and measurable institutional priority.

New Pathways and Expanded Partnerships

The progress our teams have made in expanding transfer access is significant. In fall 2025 alone, ECU established 13 new transfer pathways, with 17 additional pathways on track to be finalized this semester. We have also converted previous articulation agreements into bilateral Bachelor of Science in Industrial Technology (BSIT) pathways and updated all Regionally Increasing Baccalaureate Nurses (RIBN) agreements to align with recent curriculum changes in the College of Nursing—ensuring that students entering nursing programs have a clear, current road map to degree completion.

These partnerships extend beyond our campus. Earlier this week, I had the privilege of joining Wake Tech President Scott Ralls on stage at Wake Tech IGNITE—an event dedicated to connecting students, the workforce, and the broader community. ECU’s presence at that event reflects our recognition that transfer success begins before a student ever sets foot on our campus. Building trust with our community college partners is foundational to this work.

Streamlining Articulation and Advising

Knowing that a pathway exists is only meaningful if students can navigate it efficiently. The Transfer Pathways Team developed a comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure for streamlined articulation—identifying technology systems, improving internal processes, and conducting educational campaigns across academic colleges and departments to ensure faculty and staff understand how to support transfer credit evaluation. The resulting Undergraduate Transfer Articulation & Evaluation SOP is a direct outcome of cross-functional collaboration and a model for how we approach institutional improvement.

Complementing this work, the Advising Standardization group has implemented an Advising Syllabus for all students that clearly communicates expectations and commitments from both students and advisors. Standardized advising SOPs now ensure a consistent experience campus-wide. Additionally, the Degree Works planner is being launched for all incoming freshmen and transfer students, and a launch of an advising CRM is underway—tools that will establish uniform engagement practices and help advisors proactively identify and support students who need intervention.

The Broader Student Success Ecosystem

Transfer success does not exist in isolation—it is part of a comprehensive institutional commitment to student success. Across our Executive Council priorities, we are advancing work on strategic scholarships, barrier reduction, retention analytics, and timely degree completion. The Strategic Scholarships Team has developed a Standard Operating Procedure to improve scholarship awarding efficiency, optimizing resources to directly support recruitment and retention. A Barrier Reduction Team is actively working to identify and eliminate obstacles like unnecessary registration holds that can delay student matriculation. A new “student success predictor score” will be integrated into our retention efforts this spring, enabling our teams to identify student needs and deploy interventions more quickly.

We are also developing a 30/60/90 credit hour campaign across all undergraduate programs to support timely degree completion—a key UNC System performance metric. Department-level dashboards are being developed to help every unit see and understand their contribution to retention, making student success a shared institutional responsibility rather than the work of any single office.

A Call to Action

I am grateful to the many faculty and staff who are advancing this work every day. A clear answer, proactive outreach, or a barrier removed can make the difference in whether a student persists or walks away. I ask each of you to view your role through a student success lens—whether you work in advising, the registrar’s office, an academic department, student affairs, or anywhere else across this institution.

President Hans often reminds us to “keep the main thing, the main thing.” For us, the main thing is helping every student who chooses ECU to thrive here—and to graduate prepared for meaningful lives and careers. Transfer students are not a population we serve on the margins; they are central to who we are as a university that values access, opportunity, and outcomes.

Together, we will ensure that all learners who choose ECU can find their pathway, navigate it successfully, and emerge prepared to make a difference in eastern North Carolina and beyond. 

Philip G. Rogers

Chancellor