This research examines factors that contribute to persistence of sophomore students. It builds a model to predict the likelihood of leaving the institution by third year and explores whether the concept of transfer receptivity can be used to explain differences in persistence between continuing and transfer sophomore students. Results indicate that financial variables and transfer status are the most important variables in sophomores’ retention. Other student precollege characteristics and experiences during college also display statistical significance in the model we built. Implications for theory and practice are presented, including a discussion of a persistence framework and transfer receptivity concept.

In this article, the authors share the “pandemic” assessment method advanced after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a method based in longstanding assessment processes in their institution’s General Education program and reimagined through collegial interactions among faculty. After identifying what changed in their program-level assessment processes, and how, they identify key findings from two aspects of the assessment: student comments on end-of-term course evaluations and faculty comments from a portfolio review process. Finally, they offer their program’s takeaways from this revised assessment approach, including the elements from the pandemic year that they will continue to draw on into the future.

This special volume of the Journal of General Education addresses the 25 years of pioneering integrated, interdisciplinary work in University Studies, the general education curriculum at Portland State University including its accomplishments and its challenges. The volume is divided into four separate parts, each addressing a particular aspect or perspective of the program. Rowanna L. Carpenter, the director of assessment and research for the program, served as the managing editor for the volume, and each part had its own section editor who helped shepherd and curate the articles within. Each part also has an invited general education scholar who introduces the articles in the issue and places the discussion in a wider context of trends and research in higher education.

One of the assumptions in the notion of “connection” is that there are discrete entities to connect. In some ways, the ethos of Portland State's University Studies program is pushing the boundaries of this understanding of connection toward even a deeper sense of being part of one another. As the issues in this volume have focused on students, faculty, community, and leadership, we feel a nagging dissatisfaction with the limitations imposed by these categories. Although titles and roles persist (and are necessary) because University Studies is part of an academic institution, in the lived pursuit of inquiry, the labels can and do become blurred: faculty are students, leaders are colleagues, and community partners are teachers. In a sense, the 25-year journey from reform to revolution is what has occurred in University Studies. What began as an innovative configuration for delivering general education has blossomed into a living challenge to the traditions of higher education—and, we assert, our interconnected communities are all the better for it.