Beginning in the spring of 2015 all transfer students on the McMinnville campus will be required to take a one-credit Transfer Colloquium course.

After 77 faculty members voted in favor of the motion at the Oct. 6 Faculty Assembly meeting, students who have fewer than 72 transferable credits will be required to take the pass/fail course.

The class, which will meet 13 times within a semester, must be attempted by all fall and spring semester transfers and first-year students who have fewer than the 72 credits.

This fall, 13.8 percent of Linfield’s entering students were transfers.

Transfer Colloquium will operate similarly to the freshmen colloquium, in which a common reading text will be assigned and taught by a peer adviser and a faculty member.

The goal of the Transfer Colloquium course is to inform students about Linfield’s class sizes, graduation requirements and to encourage students to meet with their advisers.

Transfer Colloquium will be offered in the fall for only transfer students, and also in the spring for a mixture of first-year and transfer students.

Before this motion passed, transfer students were not required to enroll in a colloquium course; even students in the Adult Degree Program are required to take a colloquium course.

The course is designed to support transfer students with their transition into the Linfield community, learn about Linfield’s resources and to help students graduate in a timely manner.