Academic Labs

In an effort to support the university’s retention-to-graduation initiative, our Academic Labs strive to be dynamic, supportive and student-centered learning environments by offering quality tutoring services and resources, and fostering personal responsibility for students’ individual learning. We aim to help students achieve their learning potential and succeed academically from matriculation to graduation, therefore, increasing the retention and graduation rates for the university. Our desire is to: 1) support the academy by aligning the subject matter content from the colleges at the beginning of each semester with tutoring services offered and decreasing the number of A.C.E.S. students utilizing the labs by 5% annually; 2) engage in the careful selection of tutors for the subject specific lab and who represent our diverse student population (and are trained in intercultural competence and effective tutoring practices); and, 3) upgrade technology (hardware every three years and software annually) to meet the academic needs of each subject area.

Currently, there are four academic subject computing labs located in Paterson Hall: The Math and Science, Reading, Writing, and the History and Geography Labs. There is a general computing lab located in the Life Science Building where our students can go for basic printing and studying. Two academic areas possess specific labs for their students: The Percy J. Vaughn, Jr. College of Business Administration and the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Assessments and evaluations concerning the academic labs and their usage, are all uploaded and maintained in GradesFirst. GradesFirst is a web-based, student performance monitoring system that provides automated student services and communication between faculty, academic advisors, peer tutors, study hall monitors, Student Support Services staff, and students. The program allows for the managing and tracking of students’ advising and tutorial appointments, and monitoring of real-time study hall attendance and tutoring. GradesFirst assists us in facilitating communication between all parties involved in a students’ academic efforts and provides early alerts for students that may be at-risk academically.