Planning Transfer Week? Start With Partners, Promotion and a Reason to Attend

How Binghamton University’s Michael Henningsen plans a Transfer Week students want to attend, from choosing partners to dropping what doesn’t work.

By The New College Perspective

At Binghamton University, National Transfer Student Week, a national initiative held every third week of October to celebrate all things transfer, has included internship workshops with ice cream sundaes, karaoke, a riverbank cleanup and a dinner at Dave & Buster’s.

The person behind those activities is Michael Henningsen, who works in Binghamton’s Office of Transfer Student Success. His job focuses entirely on transfer students once they arrive at the University from their previous institution. He runs a transfer mentor program, advises the institution’s Tau Sigma Honor Society chapter (the only national honors society specifically for transfer students), and meets one-on-one with students facing challenges.

His ties to National Transfer Student Week go back to its beginning.

Michael is a former president of the New York State Transfer and Articulation Association, which teamed up with the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students in 2017 to create the national week. He has since celebrated the week at two institutions, first at a community college and now at Binghamton University.

For campus staff planning their own week, here is how Michael chooses activities, finds partners and gives students a reason to participate.

1. Decide what you want students to experience

Michael knows what his week is for. The goal, he said, is "an opportunity to show our transfer students that they are valued, they are seen, they matter to us, and we want them to get a feeling that they do in fact belong here at Binghamton.”

That goal fits the work his office does. It helps transfer students get acclimated and involved; it does not evaluate transfer credits or provide academic advising. "For lack of better words, we're the fun office," he said.

It also answers something he hears from students. "Yes, I transferred, but I don't want to be boxed in as a transfer," they tell him. "I want to be a Binghamton University student."

His response is to make the label something to be proud of. "We're trying to celebrate that title," he said. "We're celebrating their achievements and everything they've been through that their counterparts haven't."

One way he has done that is by telling their stories. At the community college where he used to work, he spotlighted individual transfer students during the week, along with faculty and staff who had once been transfer students themselves. "It went over well," he said. He wants to bring those spotlights to Binghamton.

2. Match each activity with a campus partner

Michael does not plan Binghamton’s National Transfer Week alone. He works with other campus offices, and each one helps with an event that fits what it already does:

• Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development: internship and résumé workshops
• Campus activities: a sponsored Taco Tuesday lunch
• Residential Life: a transfer karaoke night with food
• Alumni association: a sponsored movie night
• International education: study abroad events
• Tau Sigma Honor Society: a cider and donut giveaway in the student union

The partnerships help both sides. The alumni movie night lets students learn what the association does before they graduate into it. They could "start getting into that fold a little bit," Michael said.

Tau Sigma Honors Society for transfer students gets noticed through its cider and donut giveaway, which is open to anyone while supplies last. How it works is that a local business called, The Cider Mill, donates some of the donuts, and the organizers buy the rest from the same shop. "It's nice to have that relationship," he said, "and get the Tau Sigma name out there for prospective members."

Partners can come from off campus, too. For the week’s community service project, students clean the bank of the Chenango River behind Binghamton’s downtown center. Michael usually ties it to Broome County’s countywide riverbank cleanup and works in conjunction with the Center for Community Engagement in the organization of this event.

3. Make the invitation appealing

Michael’s three essentials are straightforward: something fun, food and a useful giveaway.

Fun. "You need to have some fun, right?" he said. He looks for activities his office does not offer the rest of the year. Karaoke is one. Other years have included mini pumpkin decorating, cupcake decorating and a baker who taught students to decorate Halloween cookies.

Food. "Having food at an event is what gets the attendance," he said. The biggest example is the off-campus transfer dinner at Dave & Buster’s. His office treats up to 125 transfer students and guests, with unlimited games planned for the three-hour return visit. He acknowledged having a "somewhat healthy budget," and the schedule also includes smaller offerings, such as tabling with snacks.

Giveaways. He chooses small items that carry the office’s logo and get other students asking where they came from. Magnetic clips were a hit. "Everybody loves those," he said. Anything left over goes to orientation and open houses, so the purchase does not depend on handing out every item that week.

4. Introduce an opportunity students may have overlooked

Transfer students often arrive assuming some opportunities have already passed them by. Michael uses the week to show them otherwise, in four ways.

Correct a wrong assumption. Many transfers believe they cannot study abroad. "I'm a junior. I'm too late," they tell him. So he holds study abroad events with the university’s international education office. "There are so many different opportunities through Binghamton and the SUNY system that we want them to be aware of," he said.

Wrap the information in something fun. With the Fleishman Center, he has offered internship and résumé workshops. Last year’s version was internships and ice cream sundaes. He called it "trying to do something fun to get students there."

Let students who have done it explain it. At his office’s table in the student union, transfer mentors join Michael and his graduate assistant when they can. The mentors are current transfer students who earn internship credit for working with incoming ones, so the program is an opportunity for both groups.

Preview what comes later in the year. Any transfer student that nominates a faculty or staff member who went above and beyond to help with their transition, the winner receives a Transfer Advocate Award. Michael said he highlights the award nomination process during Transfer Week instead.

5. Promote the week through people and channels students already know

Michael does not rely on one announcement. He gets the word out four ways.

Write to transfer students directly. His office sends a biweekly newsletter to all transfer students, and the week’s events are advertised there.

Ask faculty and staff to pass it on. He places events in Dateline, the daily email for Binghamton’s faculty and staff. Then he asks employees who know they have transfer students to say something simple: "Hey, happy National Transfer Student Week. Here are some events coming up."

Be visible where people already walk. This year his office has a banner for the side of the parking garage by the main entrance. It also sets up a table in the student union with giveaways and snacks. "What college student doesn't stop by for snacks?" he said. The giveaways keep working after students leave the table, because friends ask where they got them. "That helps spread the word," he said.

Start early and invite everyone. He promotes the week at events leading up to it, and at open houses his office shows its events on a large display board. The invitation goes to the whole campus. One of every four Binghamton students is a transfer in some way, he said. "So while a student may not be a transfer, they're going to know someone who was."

6. Adjust the schedule when participation does not justify the effort

Michael likes to experiment. "I'm the type of person who loves to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks," he said. He is also willing to stop when something does not stick.

The transfer advising fair looked like a good idea. Transfer Week falls just before spring registration, so he gathered advisors from Binghamton’s schools to see transfer students on a walk-in basis. The aim, he said, was "to give them a little leg up so they didn't have to wait to see an advisor."

It did not go as planned. "That hasn't worked so well, surprisingly," he said.

He sees two likely reasons. The fair had to be held during the day, because advisors would not stay at night. And students were not thinking about spring yet. "They're still trying to get through fall," he said.

A quiet fair also had a cost, because every advisor there was away from the office. "If they're not meeting students at the fair," he said, "that means they're also not meeting with students who need to schedule appointments."

So he stopped the fair and kept the rest. "Everything else, we're continuing to grow," he said.

Making that call depends on knowing who showed up. The dinner is the easiest event to track, he said, and the donut giveaway can be measured by how many donuts are handed out. Visitors to a table are harder to count.

7. Keep transfer students visible beyond the celebration

Michael’s work also reaches into how Binghamton describes its incoming students.

Each year, new students line up to form the Binghamton “B” for a photograph. It used to be called the class photo for a single graduating year, which left out transfers who will finish sooner. Now it is called the incoming class photo.

"It's something so minimal," he said, "but it really makes a difference."

His next target is the phrase “first-year students.” At Binghamton it means anyone in their first year at the university. A transfer hears it differently, he said: "Well, I'm not a first-year student. I'm a junior." He is working to change the wording to first-year and transfer students.

Being heard on those changes takes a seat near the people in charge. Michael serves on the executive board of the professional staff senate, which puts him in front of the university president once a month. He credits a supportive supervisor and a president who comes to transfer events when she can. It is important to have transfer student representation at the table because without it many time transfer needs aren’t considered.

A vibrant part of campus

For Michael, the dinners, workshops and giveaways all serve one purpose: reminding a university who is on its campus.

"It's such a valuable week, not only for transfer students, but for universities and colleges to keep in mind that we have transfer students here," he said. "They're such a vibrant part of our campus communities."

Keep reading

Interested in the student organizer’s perspective? Read Are You A Student That Wants to Start a Transfer Student Event? Here’s Where to Begin, featuring LSU student leader Joshua Jones.

Michael also hosts The Transfer Table, a podcast for transfer students. Binghamton’s Office of Transfer Student Success links to it from its website.

Resources to get started

Planning a transfer student event on your own campus? These are good places to begin:

• LSU's National Transfer Student Week page shows the full 2026 schedule Jones's committee put together.
• The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition offers a National Transfer Student Week marketing kit and ideas for campuses.
• Transfer Nation is the community where Jones connected with transfer professionals.

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