No way through it but to do it.

Who does one give credit to for their success?

This blog is for the Success Center. . .  but since this is the last week of summer term and there is nothing of note going on, I’m going to hijack it for a bit and give credit where credit is due.

Without UCC, I may have very well been one of the guys in this song:

But I’m not. No installing appliances for me. UCC has been my home for the past three years, and this week I’ll be leaving. My success came from the help of many; however there are a few that deserve special recognition.

Amy Fair: our distinguished English instructor, who . . . uh . . . encouraged (yes, that'll do) me to become a tutor two years ago. Without her rather forceful insistence I wouldn’t be where I am today. I owe a very large part of my success to her.

Charles Young: taught me the importance of believing in something with true passion. In his classes I discovered just how much of an influence a good instructor can be to overall success of students. His energy and enthusiasm in class is unmatched by anyone else I’ve met on this campus, and that exuberance influenced more than a few of his students.    

Daniel Bates: well, duh. I mean, here is a guy who was but a humble student, and with the arrival of Terrance was elevated to the position of… well, still a humble student. But a student who, in his new position, managed to bring together a fairly diverse and uncoordinated group of tutors and shape them into the shining example of perfection we are today.

Terrance Bradford: brought to the tutoring center new energy, new light, new ideas, new life. Without his guidance we would not be where we are today. Where we are today is a very good thing for so many of us. We have all benefited from our time in the tutoring center and many, if not most of these benefits would not have been realized had Terrance not been at the helm.

All of you reading this: Sounds corny, but I truly have learned a great deal from my fellow tutors in the Success Center. Some people have caused me great pain and anger, some have allowed me to see things in a new, more positive light. In both instances and in innumerable ones in between I have learned so much. This team has shown me just how much good a dedicated group of people can do.

And finally…

Ali Mageehon: our one-of-a-kind dean. I can’t imagine having that kind of responsibility, and am so thankful the one that has taken the role is such a wonderful person. Students come into our center needing guidance and assistance, and receive the help that they need. Ali is responsible for providing the pathway for so much of that success, and does it all with immense compassion and unrelenting heart. Ali’s efforts hit close to home for me: a ninth-grade dropout, I returned to UCC with few skills needed to help me succeed. I utilized the Success Center long before I became a tutor, and without it I surely would have failed and become another dropout statistic. Instead, I graduated UCC with an admirable GPA and I’m off to the big city to study for a STEM degree. Thank you, Ali, so very much for helping make that possible.

So my fellow tutors, with tears in my eyes I bid you all farewell. Whatever you do in life, make sure your reach exceeds your grasp.

And Ali, this is why I’m so glad you’re here. I used to be could have been this guy.

 Nathan Anderson

What success is all about!

I was going to a post another tl,dr page of musings and anecdotes, but . . . nope.

It’s a beautiful day outside. There isn’t much going on campus-wide or in the Success Center, a good portion of the staff is out this week for trainings, so rather than ask you guys to read my usual rubbish I instead invite you to go enjoy the sunshine while it’s still here.That's a type of success, right?

Sláinte!

—N.

We are more than just tutors!

I have noticed, the more time I spend tutoring, that there is something of a disconnect between the tutors and Success Assistants. Both teams work in their own designated areas, working on their own projects, and doing their own tasks. While we all get along wonderfully, I see much room for growth. We are two sides of the same coin, all part of the same team. We all need to take a significantly more egalitarian approach to working together to ensure that students have the best, most rewarding experience possible while attending UCC. The current status quo works for us, but not necessarily the students.

As tutors, we have a wonderful opportunity to utilize the knowledge and experiences of the Success Assistants to better our students. We need to remember that we can utilize the Success Assistants and that they have the ability to provide just as much help as we do.

As tutors, we are the ones who have the primary contact with the students. Our interactions with students can last upwards of several hours. In that time we may hear about the student’s experiences in life and at school, and our knowledge of this builds into the relationship that we have with them. We hear about financial issues, family problems, and bad experiences with the college, often as a subtle cry for help. On top of all this we help them through our primary role as being a tutors. We know the students.

The Success Assistants are also here for the students, but they do not have the same contact with the students that we do. Students will walk quickly through the center and often pass the front desk entirely to sit down with a tutor. After the tutoring session finishes the students will generally leave the center without making contact with the front desk. In their eyes, they have no reason to interact with the assistants because they could easily have a tutor log them in and out. This results in the assistants having very little opportunity to know the students, especially on a personal level.         

With the knowledge of our student’s experiences and the good rapport that we have with them, we have an opportunity to help them like few others on the campus have. The students are more likely to listen to us. With that, the Success Assistants are here for anything that goes beyond our normal interactions. They are being trained to be a “Hub of Information,” having a deep and comprehensive understanding of how to navigate the UCC experience and its resources. This is not a comprehensive list and these are in no particular order, but here are some of the things assistants can help with:

Navigating financial aid, finding scholarships, seeking counseling, seeking academic advise, finding instructors and staff on campus and knowing who to talk to, scaling and surpasses Dev-ed courses to get to college level courses, utilizing center resources like the Writing Lab, tutoring, SmarThinking, Student Lingo, and High-school Homework Help, scheduling tutor office hours, finding apprentice programs and jobs with UCC, finding important dates and school closures, and utilizing UCC resources like TOPS, Peer Mentoring, and the library.

An assistant’s bottom line is to ensure that the student gets the help that they need. Think of them as “everything else.” We can initiate the interaction between the students and the the assistants by walking them over.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. The success assistants, as a team, can provide just as much help to students as the tutors. We need to remember this, and be ready to utilize all our strengths for the benefit of the students at UCC.

Before reading this post, what did you think the Success Assistant’s role was? How did they help students on a day-to-day basis?

*****

A few notes about Success Center operations this week. Clara will have time sheets in our inboxes tomorrow, Aug. 12^th. Remember that hey need to be returned to her no later than Aug. 14^th by 1000. Be sure to put all hours you work or will work for the 14^th and the 15^th on your time sheet.

Also, Daniel needs to have the Fall term availability sheets turned in as soon as possible. Please remember to put all subjects that you tutor on your availability sheet. If you are not planning on returning to tutor this fall, please let him know that as well. 

 

—N (With major addendums by Robert K, thanks!).

What Is Success?

A note: This month, Clara will have the time sheets in our inboxes on August 12^th. These are due on August 14^th (not the 15^th!) no later than 10:00 am.

So.

I’ve decided to acquire a new car. My current ride is a Pontiac Grand Prix. Not a bad car . . .  painted a pretty ruby red, fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror, a glovebox full of disco CD’s, good powerful V6 . . . truly a fine piece of Detroit engineering.

But it’s so . . . common. It doesn’t fill me with pride or a sense of accomplishment. Now obviously many people will claim that a car isn’t exactly something to engender pride. It’s a tool, a necessary part of life, a burdensome expense. Those claims certainly have merit. But for me a car needs to have a certain quirkiness, a sense of style, a certain je ne sais quoi.    

So with a bit of luck this will be my new car!

::waits for laughter to subside::           

There are a couple problems with this plan. First, this beauty is located on an abandoned farm 20 miles down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in northern Montana. I doubt I can hook up a tandem axle trailer to my trusty Pontiac and haul my new toy home, so simply getting it to Roseburg will not be easy. Second, it looks like it has a couple of rust spots and a scratch or two on it that need to be buffed out. Third and most importantly, I’m not particularly handy when it comes to mechanical repairs and I might need to replace a couple of pieces. Thus, this whole thing will be something of a learning curve for me. Add to the mix that I’m a poor college student with no money and no place to store my new wheels, and I’m looking at a serious uphill slog for what, exactly? What would be my reward for such efforts? Would it be worth it? If I decide that acquiring a 96 year old pickup is worth my time and money, will that mean that I’ll be successful in restoring it and driving it? Who knows. Success wouldn’t be easy. Parts haven’t been made since the First World War, and there are only a few dozen of these pickups left in the world today—almost none of them running. Some would say I’m foolish to even consider such a plan. But if I want success, the first thing I need to realize is that success is within my grasp should I so desire.

Success isn’t easy. Those of us in the Success Center know this all too well. We meet people who want to succeed at all costs, and put in the effort to do so. We also meet people who are here for other reasons, people who are here just doing the bare minimum to get by. For students with these attitudes success will be little more than a dream. I returned to school determined to succeed; obviously not everyone shares those goals.

What does success mean for us as tutors? Everyone who tutors here in the Success Center is either a current or former UCC student and we are, almost my definition, at the top of our curves: we couldn’t become tutors if we weren’t. Therefore we have embraced success and reaped the benefits of our hard work.

How do we engender success in our tutees? How can we pass along what we have learned, what we have experienced, what we have gleaned through our experiences?

The answer to that question is up to you. Students who come through our doors seeking help are, more likely than not, looking for that sense of success and accomplishment. Chances are, if they are here seeking help then they have encountered an obstacle of some sort standing between them and that accomplishment.  There are times when the homework load or the term paper or that looming test can seem like such a huge obstacle. The rewards can seem distant and elusive. I think I’ve alluded to this before: I have seen a student drop a class, and thus jeopardize their entire college career, over their inability to complete a single math problem. What can we do to give people facing these kinds of difficulties the confidence to succeed when success looks like such a long, uphill battle? Again, I don’t have that answer. You do. Everyone who reads this will approach the task of inspiring students to succeed differently. 

We all have our successes to be proud of. Our tutees want their own successes; they want that feeling of accomplishment. Like rebuilding an ancient pickup that is little more than a rusting frame, success in school starts early and must be tackled vigorously no matter how daunting it looks. It is our job to see our students tackle those efforts, and be there with them as they do so.

—N.