November 10, 2019

Kate Capodanno
Reporter/Weekend Anchor
WDBJ7
Roanoke, Virginia

Subject: Ferrum College to launch graduation guarantee for transfer students

Hi Kate,
Thank you for the excellent piece you broadcast last week about the success of our Education
students finding employment after graduation. As you continue to inform your viewers about
Ferrum’s impact in our local community, I thought you would be interested in an innovative
initiative Ferrum will launch in January 2020: Ferrum will guarantee transfer students will
graduate in two years with a bachelor’s degree. If any students fail to graduate, Ferrum will pay
for any additional coursework needed. We will call this initiative “The Ferrum Promise.” Ferrum
will be the first of any private college or university in Virginia to establish such a guarantee.

The Ferrum Promise will apply initially to the following programs:

• Agricultural Science, B.S.
• Business, B.S.
• Criminal Justice, B.S.
• Environmental Science, B.S.
• Pre-Professional Health Science, B.S.
• Recreation Leadership, B.S.
• Teacher Education, B.S.

The goal is to expand the Promise to all majors offered at Ferrum.

The Ferrum Promise is part of the college’s efforts to make it easy for students to transfer from
community colleges to Ferrum. The college features seamless credit transfer and timely credit
evaluations. The guarantee is conditional on transfer students entering with an appropriate
associate degree from a Virginia community college and meet certain academic requirements. This
initiative corresponds with a statewide push to align community college courses with four-year
college requirements.

Wilson Payne, the college’s Vice President of Institutional Advancement, can speak extensively
about how the college developed this initiative and what we hope to accomplish. Please contact
me if you would be interested in speaking with Wilson, and I would be glad to make the
arrangements.

Sincerely,

Parker Gunn
Communications Coordinator
540-365-5057 | pgunn@ferrum.edu