Augustana has a new central location where students can go to get support on academic, personal and leadership issues. Student support resources can now be found collectively on the fourth floor of the Gerber Center.
Offices in this cluster include the Learning Commons, Office of Multicultural Student Life, Office of International Student Life (OISL), and Office of Student Life and Leadership. These offices combined into one common area to help students reach all support resources necessary to succeed.
One such office is the Learning Commons, which includes The Reading/Writing Center, English as a Second Language (ESL) services, and student tutors. Placing ESL services near the OISL puts two of the most important resources for international students next to each other, allowing for collaboration between offices to best suite a student’s need.
Yen Dao, the coordinator of student success services, says that students often focus on the class as the issue, when often times it is their study habits. Dao claims having these resources in a central location means they can determine the root cause and then send them to the resource that would provide the best solution.
The main goal, according to the directors, is that this conglomerate will be better able to assist students.
“It can help an international student learn English, help a science-specific student write a research paper, or just help students find any form of success,” said Dao. “The opportunities are quite literally endless.”