Students helping students through SASC

Students seeking help or feedback on their school work have a good resource on hand in the form of the Student Academic Support Center.

Here, students struggling academically or on probation are reported to SASC by their professors. SASC invite these students to come and benefit from their services. However, SASC is open to all Luther students and should not be considered a place restricted to those in trouble.

“It is vital that Luther College have a strong academic support center,” Nancy Barry, assistant to the Dean for advising and academic support, said. “It is vital that the work that that office does be connected to the advisors at the college, to faculty who are teaching at the college and that there be strong communication among all of the offices from faculty, advisors, coaches and musical directors.”

Aside from helping with student papers, SASC also coordinates specialized services for students with disabilities and assists students to improve their time-management, reading and writing skills.

Any Luther student can request tutoring in any subject for free. Introductory and large courses such as Spanish, math, biology, chemistry and Paideia are usually in great demand.

Tutoring takes places in the SASC area, which is on the library’s first floor. Tutoring happens once a week for 30 minutes and is individually arranged. A student requesting a tutor is matched with one of SASC’s 70 Luther student tutors depending upon the timings working best for both.

However, every once in a while, students study in a group under the supervision of a tutor. This is especially true for the sciences, where group study is encouraged.

“The tutors are recommended by the faculty, so they are typically very strong students who have certainly done well in the courses they are tutoring, and they are typically also recommended because they have a strong personality for working with students,” Anne Craft, coordinator of tutoring and academic support, said. “We provide some training. Sometimes it’s pretty minimal, especially if we’re looking for a tutor and we need somebody to start fast, but we also emphasize the importance of being a friend but also making sure that the student does his or her own work.”

This semester, there are about 320 tutoring arrangements. Since many first year students need tutoring in their first semester but feel more comfortable in the spring, arrangements tend to decrease to 200-250.

SASC also provides a lot of help with study skills. Students, particularly first-years, are encouraged to make use of resources such as the Writing Center, where students recieve help with writing their papers.

“SASC is very significant for Luther College because we try to help all students, not just students that are struggling but anyone who needs academic support,” Gwen Van Gerpen, director of SASC, said. “I think academic support is pretty broad. Some students come in for tutoring, and some just need a little help figuring out how to study for a certain course. It can be just someone to talk through with concerns about classes, it can be someone who just needs to vent because they are stressed.”

Van Gerpen said that being invited to SASC should not be considered scolding for poor academic performance. SASC wants students to know when they are falling behind and that it is time to reach out and try to fix the problem as soon as possible.

“We spend a lot of time meeting with students, talking with professors, making referrals, working with other offices on campus to provide holistic support for students in terms of how are you functioning as a students and how can we help you be a better student,” Van Gerpen said.

As the new director of SASC this year, Gwen Van Gerpen has a number of goals for the future. She is working on finding ways to collect feedback from students regarding satisfaction with the services that SASC provides or any kind of other reflection on how the organization can improve.

“We want students to know that we’re out here willing to help,” Van Gerpen said. “Don’t feel inferior or dumb because you have to come to SASC. All people are invited.”

SASC is going through a number of personnel changes this year. They recently hired a disability services coordinator, Tom Counters, and are in the process of hiring another academic specialist/counselor and another administrative assistant.

“I’m trying to build our staff so that we can do more with our office.” Van Gerpen said. “We’ve been very limited in our staff. so once we have the appropriate staff and once all the positions are filled, then I can really start focusing on the future, strategic plans, marketing and so on so that we can serve the students better.”