The Academic Support Program is a combination of the Writing Center, Tutoring Services, Testing Center, Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), Academic Coaching, Transfer Year Experience, Academic Intervention and First Year Experience. This year, there have been a few changes within Tutoring Services and the Writing Center students should be informed about.

Tutoring Services offer a variety of options for students. There is individual tutoring, where a student can get help with a tutor one-on-one and drop-in tutoring, where students can come to the tutoring center and see if there is a tutor available to help them.

“There are about 70 to 90 tutors who help in a variety of courses,” Tutoring Services coordinator Tami Boebel said.

The purpose of Tutoring Services is to help with content and study skills; the tutors want to give the students an opportunity to understand the content more deeply. The tutoring center is unique because there are not many peer services offered at college campus’, so this allows students to get direct contact with other students to help them better understand the material. The tutoring center has great flexibility to work with the students so that everyone can have an opportunity to be helped.

The change that has occurred in the Tutoring Services that students should be aware of is that now to schedule an appointment, they can go to mywconline.com. By going to the tutoring services website, under tutoring-by-appointment, students can see the big orange button that will prompt them to make an appointment.

“This now provides flexibility in scheduling for the students,” Boebel said.

The Writing Center offers help with any project that is at any stage of the process, for any subject. The tutors in the Writing Center can help with anything from understanding the prompt to the final grammar checks. It also does not have to be an essay for an English course, the tutors help with senior design projects, undergraduate research posters and speeches. Not all of the tutors are English majors either.

“We usually have about 8 to 10 tutors, and our tutors are all different majors. They understand different projects better and have most likely been where you have been,” Writing Center coordinator Kathryn Weller said.

There have also been changes within the Writing Center as well. Along with the mywconline.com schedule for easier access to scheduling, the Writing Center now offers evening tutoring. The evening tutoring is Tuesday and Wednesday nights from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Heritage Hall in the Markee Pioneer Student Center. The appointments are shorter, 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes, to make it more convenient to the students who are looking for help. These appointments can be made through the online system, or the students can walk-in and see if there is a free time-spot open.

“We are looking to expand our program to make sure that every student can get the help they need,” Weller said.