Contact Information
Location: Pelletier Library
Phone: (814) 332-2898
Email: studentsuccess@allegheny.edu
Website http://sites.allegheny.edu/maytum-center-student-success/
Professional Staff Services
The professional staff are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for assistance with study skills, time management, and academic advising. Students often meet with the Student Success staff to complete a four-year academic plan, develop a daily study schedule, get help understanding the nuances of syllabi, and discuss effective study strategies.
Academic Alerts
Academic Alerts allow faculty to share concerns with Student Success, Class Deans, and other appropriate staff in a way that is easy to track and archive. Academic Alerts are the primary means through which Student Success and others become aware that a student may need additional help understanding course material or developing better study skills. Once submitted, Academic Alerts become part of a student’s official educational record and are subject to FERPA. For more information see appendices: Academic Alerts.
See Academic Alerts for an elaboration on these points.
Tutoring
Student Success coordinates tutoring support in a variety of disciplines via individual, drop-in, and course specific formats. Peer tutors are recommended and trained by faculty and Student Success. Tutors are either paid through the work study/campus employment or receive academic credit. There is NO additional charge for tutoring. Students interested in tutoring should connect with their course instructor and Student Success.
Writing and Speaking Consultants
Drop-in consultation hours are from 3-5 pm and 7-11 pm Sunday through Thursday. Students may schedule appointments through the Google Calendar online scheduling service or go to the Maytum Center for Student Success and ask to meet with a consultant on a first-come, first-served basis. Writing consultants also offer synchronous on-line consultations through the Google Suite. Drop-in consultations last for 30 minutes and begin and end on the hour and half hour. Consultants are available to do brief (5-10 minute) class presentations in which they offer an overview of consultations and the processes for drop-ins and matches.
Writing Consultants
Writing Consultants assist and support writers of all skill levels at any stage of the writer’s process. Consultants are peer educators, not professional editors or proofreaders; by acting as skilled audience members and rhetorical listeners, they help writers see their strengths and give them strategies to improve their challenges. Consultants actively engage with writers by asking questions, giving feedback, and demonstrating techniques that writers can apply to future writing tasks. Another option is to request a matched writing consultant. A writing match is a semester-long commitment, and works best for students serious about meeting regularly with a consultant to work intensively on their writing, whether they have a writing assignment due or not.
Faculty may contact the Director of Writing, Alexis Hart, to schedule in-class consultations in which two or more writing consultants conduct group and/or individual consultations with students during a regularly scheduled class meeting. Consultants are available to conduct workshops in class or outside of class on focused topics such as invention/brainstorming, thesis statements, organization, documentation, etc. Please contact the Director of Writing to request a workshop.
SWS 105 faculty may request to be partnered with a “connected consultant,” a designated writing consultant who is connected to the SWS 105 section and commits one hour a week to individual and/or group consulting appointments reserved for the students in their connected SWS 105 section. The SWS 105 students are also welcome to make appointments with their connected consultant during the consultant’s drop-in hours in the Maytum Center for Student Success. Connecting a designated consultant to an SWS 105 class can facilitate first-year students’ access to peer educators. In addition, by introducing and collaborating with the consultant (e.g., sharing writing assignments ahead of time, having the consultant facilitate writing workshops – either during class, if available, or during their designated consulting hours) faculty can also benefit. Interested faculty should contact the Director of Writing.
Grammar Tutors
Grammar tutors are available in the Maytum Center for Student Success to assist with specific concerns regarding surface-level grammar and mechanics, but they are also not proofreaders.
Speaking Consultants
Speaking Consultants are trained to assist students across the curriculum with crafting and improving an array of oral messages such as speeches, class presentations, and leading class discussions. Consultants are not trained to teach public speaking; rather, they act as an audience with knowledge of effective oral message design and performance, asking students to consider the efficacy of the communicative strategies in light of their audience, the occasion for the presentation, and its purpose. Consultants do not just address the performative dimensions (delivery) of oral messages, they can support and assist students at any point of the inventional process including: selecting a topic, generating supporting ideas, organizing ideas and questions. Faculty may contact the Director of Speaking, Jon Wiebel, to schedule a mock consultation in which two speaking consultants demonstrate the consultation process. Mock consultations, lasting (15-20 minutes), model the process students will engage in during a speaking consultation.
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