5 initiatives make UB more student-friendly

They are part of what Nicolas Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education, calls a continuing effort to make UB a "more hospitable, accessible, friendly, convenient place for students."

UB has "a wonderful curriculum," and students have access to top-rated programs, "but we have not always done everything that we could do to make it possible for students to achieve success in these programs," Goodman said.

Three of the initiatives-Success 2000, the Transfer Student Advisement Center and the Exploratory Program-have been instituted by the Academic Advising Center, which reports to the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.

The fourth is the expansion of tutoring offered by the University Learning Center in a variety of areas, such as chemistry, where there has not in the past been any centralized tutoring. The additional tutoring will be made possible by funds from the undergraduate Student Association.

The fifth initiative is the move of all lower-division mathematics courses to the North Campus, which will occur in the fall as a result of a tightening of the scheduling process for classrooms on the North Campus.

As a part of Success 2000, the advising center identifies all freshmen and first-semester transfer students who encounter academic difficulty and immediately intervenes to help them identify the cause of their problems, said Janina Kaars, director of the Academic Advising Center.

New students may do poorly not because they lack ability, but because they have trouble adjusting to college, Kaars said.

Staff in the advisement center call the students and invite them to visit the center and talk with advisors. Students are encouraged to use the Retention Management System, a questionnaire to identify factors-such as family problems, financial issues, lack of study skills or lack of social skills-that may contribute to poor academic performance.

Advisors refer students to a variety of places on campus for help, such as the Counseling Center, Office of Career Planning and Placement or the Learning Center for tutoring.

"Students respond very positively to that kind of attention," Kaars noted. "This kind of interest and constant contact is what these students particularly need. Intervention early on is the critical issue."

The experience of student athletes, as well as students in the University Honors Program and the Educational Opportunity Center, indicate that there is "better retention and academic success for those student populations who have interventionist advising," Goodman added.

The advisement center tracks the students and monitors their progress, Kaars said, and, if they continue to perform poorly, advisors continue to intervene.

The "interventionist" approach is a change from the way advising has operated in the past, when staff waited for students to come into the office to seek help, she said.

"Now we're aggressively seeking them out," she said.

The Transfer Student Advisement Center is an attempt to deal with the high attrition rate of transfer students, who also may suffer from adjustment problems, Kaars said.

UB now is "essentially beginning the orientation process before they (transfer students) get to campus," she said.

Center staff contact students when they are admitted and monitor their progress through the admissions system, Kaars said. An "800" telephone number has been set up for use solely by these students.

"What we're doing is reaching out to students before they come and making sure that the contacts have been made (with the individual schools and departments in which they want to study) and offering advice and suggestions on alternatives within UB (if they do not get into their preferred major)," she said.

Kaars added that the center plans to set up a club specifically for transfer students, as well as develop workshops to address adjustment issues.

The Exploratory Program is designed for students who need help in determining a major or a realistic course of study.

Advisement may work with Career Planning and Placement to help students interested in a particular career field choose the appropriate major, Kaars said.

Staff also may contact students who were denied admission to a particular school or program and help them find "very appropriate alternatives."

They also hope to identify students "who may be headed in the wrong direction before they even get too far," Kaars said. For example, if a student pursuing physical therapy as a major fails freshman chemistry, "we probably should be intervening with them and talking about alternatives at that point, and not later."

The five initiatives are in addition to Operation Reach Out, a program developed earlier this semester by Goodman's office to aid retention efforts in which all undergraduates received a personal contact from faculty and staff within their academic departments.