Access and the Online Academic Success Center

Emily Shreve, Associate Director of Academic Transitions, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

What does it take to move an entire suite of academic support services online? With tens of thousands of students to serve, how can this be accomplished within the 300-person limit of a Zoom room? On many campuses, a wide range of student success programs, from academic coaching to transfer student programming, are easy for students to access via the academic success center. These are welcoming spaces where students can be directed to the academic support services they need. The March 2020 closure of campuses made necessary the transition to remote academic success services. Potentially, such a shift would disrupt the essential work of these centers and hinder their effectiveness at a time when students deeply needed their support. The academic success centers at Arizona State University and Texas A&M University—both large, four-year, public institutions—found viable ways to offer services online and, most essentially, to communicate with the campus community about the new means of access. The impact of the remote shift will be long-lasting, as both centers have begun to reimagine their future program delivery options in light of what this move has revealed about student access needs.

The Transition

The Academic Success Center (ASC) at Texas A&M provides academic coaching, tutoring, supplemental instruction (SI), developmental education courses, transfer student programming, and more for transfer students, students on academic probation, and the general undergraduate population. Staff moved all services online within two weeks of the campus closing. Academic coaches offered appointments through email, Zoom, and phone. Classes, tutoring, and SI sessions were also conducted through Zoom. Transfer student peer mentors held Zoom appointments and live chat sessions. Aside from the time needed to learn the new technologies, there was an additional financial cost associated with the transition as ASC staff had to purchase webcams, digital writing tablets, and other equipment to provide these interactive services.

Similar to Texas A&M’s ASC, the University Academic Success Programs (UASP) at Arizona State offer academic support through SI, tutoring, and more across four campuses and 11 different centers. Though some UASP tutoring services had been online for more than 10 years, staff had to adapt to moving all services online with Zoom. The writing centers were given their own Zoom rooms, while all subject-area tutoring was collapsed into a single Zoom room to provide easy access for students.

An informal collaboration between the Texas A&M and Arizona State centers influenced their similar approaches to online services. UASP took the lead by providing webinars on using Zoom for tutoring and SI, which were attended by ASC staff from Texas A&M.

Reaching Students

Not only did academic success centers have to manage the technical transition, they also had to find ways to communicate with students and campus partners who were now widely dispersed. Informing the broader campus community of the newly online services was a major area of emphasis at Texas A&M and Arizona State. For classes and SI sessions, staff did their best to keep schedules that had been set at the start of the semester; this reduced confusion, as students were already used to accessing services at those times. The websites at Texas A&M and Arizona State were updated, and targeted emails were sent to advisors and students. Students in developmental education classes were contacted by phone due to concerns about access to technology. Special social media campaigns were launched by the ASC marketing director, and several staff members were interviewed for campus publications.

Engaging students was not just a matter of marketing but also of rethinking when and what services to offer. The ASC at Texas A&M added new tutoring times to expand opportunities for students to attend. It also shared tips on how to be successful during the COVID-19 outbreak. At Arizona State, UASP staff developed new content-specific workshops to provide sufficient coverage of topics where students regularly struggled. These workshops were facilitated live via Zoom and recorded, so they could be accessed at any time.

Early feedback from Texas A&M students has been positive, highlighting the ease of use made possible by the new formats. Results from an ASC end-of-semester survey indicated that 81% of students who used online services after the shutdown were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the programs. One student observed, “I enjoyed online coaching a lot because it was so simple.” With email used as a form of academic coaching, a student noted, “I feel like the coaching meetings back and forth through email were extremely helpful.” Another student commented on the convenience of having SI sessions online: “I liked SI being online because I could have a whole hour to study before it instead of getting to campus and having to find a parking spot in time. It made it more accessible to me.”

Future Considerations

These new methods of reaching students are likely to continue, even after the global pandemic ends. UASP staff at Arizona State are confident the content they created in the shift to online services will continue after in-person services resume. Arizona State math faculty are excited about this expansion of UASP’s services and have been offering additional insight into areas that need to be addressed. A next step will be to determine whether content sessions are only offered online or complemented by in-person sessions.

One key consideration for academic success centers is recognizing the value of online academic support as a way to reach a wider audience due to increased service availability and some students’ preference for virtual venues. UASP’s staff noted some students who had never used tutoring services embraced the opportunity because it was offered online. These services have also reached a broader student audience, with more online-only students appreciating the additional offerings.

Work still remains to reach students with limited access to technology and/or the Internet. Arizona State’s plans for Fall 2020 include opening UASP to limited in-person services with socialdistancing requirements, but much of UASP operations will still be maintained via Zoom. Arizona State also plans to hold UASP open houses online for targeted groups, namely first-year and transfer students, in order to introduce them to online tutoring and academic support.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic closed Arizona State’s campus, its University Academic Success Programs offered students academic support through supplemental instruction, tutoring, and more.

For ASC staff at Texas A&M, the online transition forced them to adapt sooner than was planned but with positive impact. Considerations for offering some online tutoring had been a longstanding goal, and ASC staff now see the value in offering in-person and online services. Most ASC programming will remain online-only for the Fall 2020 semester because of campus safety precautions. Students can request face-to-face academic coaching appointments, but the academic coach and the student will be required to follow Texas A&M policies regarding face coverings. Every effort will be made to provide in-class instruction for students who are enrolled in developmental education courses, with classroom seating and capacity limits that follow university and social distancing guidelines. Finally, a virtual magazine has been created for Texas A&M’s transfer peer mentor program to provide new transfer students with updated information and transfer requirements.

Moving forward, a challenge for academic success centers will be to determine the balance of in-person and online services that is ideal to meet their students’ needs. Can, and should, institutions maintain the role of academic success centers as a central gathering place for student support programs as modes of access proliferate and concerns over limited on-campus space grow? Academic success centers will need to ensure academic support is provided in a way that reaches the broadest audience—especially as students come to expect more availability—without compromising quality or stretching its staff too thin. At Arizona State and Texas A&M, the commitment remains to provide quality services during a time of uncertainty.

Note. Special thanks to those who contributed to the development of this article: Sarah Bennet, Associate Director, University Academic Success Programs, Arizona State University; and Kathleen Speed, Associate Director of Tutoring and Supplemental Instruction, Academic Success Center, Texas A&M University.

CONTACT

Sarah Bennett: slbennett@asu.edu

Kathleen Speed: kspeed@tamu.edu