| Critical Information, Notes, Justification, Rationale | Both the Middletown Tutorial Center and Newburgh Learning Centers have experienced a consistent increase in student use of support services over the past three academic years. This steady increase in attendance has also spiked for the Fall 2019 semester from a roughly 13% increase to a 24% increase (both centers combined). Likewise we continue to experience an increase in spending for the Academic Support program to maintain pace with student demand. Further, we continue to proactively work to expand Academic Support programming offered to students to anticipate changing and increasing student needs.
Currently, tutoring across campus is siloed by "session type" (for example, the Math Lab is drop-in help, whereas Math tutoring in the center is scheduled). Scheduled tutoring within the Academic Support centers is currently application-based for a recurring, weekly session. Beginning in Fall 2018, we have begun offering drop-in options for students within the centers, which accounts for part of our significant increase in attended sessions. In order to continue to reduce barriers to support access, Academic Support aims to standardize its support model with comparable college support models (where students are able to book individual sessions on their own via TutorTrac, and students are able to book sessions not just for specific courses but also for session types such as Time Management, or Writing, where our English tutors can support writing across the curriculum). This requires a restructuring of the current tutor schedule model and an increase in funds to support the forecasted increase in student use.
In order to sustain our sharply increasing usage and make much needed program changes, we are requesting an increase of the Newburgh tutorial line to $110,000 (from $93,000) and an increase of the Middletown tutorial line to $160,398.61 (from $133,268.54).
On a final note, the structural barriers of accessing Academic Support is most felt and noticed on the student level. From the Fall 2019 mid-semester evaluation cycle, below are notable comments to the question, "If we could improve one thing about the center, what would it be:"
1) "Fill in no show gaps with drop-ins." (Although we've currently begun outreaching to students to inform them to try for drop-ins, by allowing students to book on their own via TutorTrac they'd be able to schedule with tutors up to 2-3 hours in advance of an opening.)
2) "Knowing what kind of tutor we are receiving when applying." (With students given access to TutorTrac, they'd be able to schedule by availability of specific tutors they prefer to work with.)
3) "I see the tutor sometimes sitting alone since their session no showed or cancelled...It seems like a waste if there are other students that could benefit." |
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| Department Goals | Engage a holistic, student-centered approach to learning and success; expand support services to address the gap of college readiness for First Year students., Identify and reduce barriers to student support services; prioritize the improvement and ease of support access., Develop and utilize assessment instruments and data to make informed support programming decisions that impact overall student retention., Partner and collaborate with departments across the college to create cohesion across support services, maximize the use of internal resources, and eliminate redundancies in services., Increase outreach and awareness of student academic support services., Support the recommendations of the Guided Pathways Initiative. |
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