ACCESS finds new home in Grant South

by Joe King

For nearly 30 years, the tutoring program run by NIU ACCESS has saved the academic day for thousands of students. Now, at last, they have a home worthy of a hero.

Just opened this fall, the Grant South Tutoring Center provides ACCESS (Access to Courses and Careers through Educational Services) with a spacious, well-lighted and technology-rich facility where students can find drop-in, one-on-one or small group tutoring help for their short-term needs.

An all-campus open house to showcase the new facility will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, in the lower level of Grant South. The event will include tours, door prizes and refreshments.

ACCESS/Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) also operates two smaller drop-in tutoring centers in Lincoln and Douglas halls.

“The services provided by ACCESS are vital to retention efforts,” said NIU Vice Provost Earl “Gip” Seaver, whose office collaborated with Housing and Dining to create the new center. “So often, when you think of tutoring, you picture somebody working out of a little closet of an office. This state-of-the-art facility sends a message to students, elevating these important services to a more appropriate environment.”

The new center comes at an opportune time, said Hillard Hebda, assistant director of ACCESS for Peer Assisted Learning, who points out that the program has seen record numbers of students in each of the last two years (last fall alone, tutors put in more than 3,600 hours) and is on pace to break that record again this year.

“We have worked hard to get the word out about our services through advisers, UNIV 101 instructors and residence hall staff,” said Shevawn Eaton, director of ACCESS. “We also get a lot of positive word-of-mouth advertising from the students who come to us.”

Along with the drop-in tutoring centers designed to help with homework, quick questions and small-group tutoring sessions for specific courses, there are many other services provided through ACCESS.

Students who would like more regular tutoring can apply for up to three hours of regularly scheduled tutoring per course per week.

In a few select classes, such as CHEM 110 and 210, students also can take advantage of the ACCESS/Supplemental Instruction (SI) program. In SI, students attend regularly scheduled group study sessions led by specially trained tutors called SI Leaders who attend class and take quizzes and tests to make them intimately familiar with the material and the teaching style of a particular instructor.

In all ACCESS programs, along with content-based tutoring, students can get assistance with study skills and test-taking strategies.

All of the services are free to students, and Eaton is eager to see that as many students as possible benefit from them.

“We'd love to have faculty attend the open house at the new Grant South facility so that they can see what we have to offer. Sometimes faculty are unaware that we exist and are frustrated that they don't have someplace to direct students who may need more assistance than they can provide,” Eaton said.

“That's our role – to offer supplemental support – and we are open to finding ways to work with faculty,” she added. “Student success is our business.”

For more information on ACCESS, its tutoring services and its schedules, visit www.tutoring.niu.edu.

9-26-05