Learn About the ASC

Fostering a culture of scholarly growth and belonging by providing meaningful academic support and engagement.

Overview of Services:

Academic Success Center services are designed to support the foundation, preparation, and connections principles that often guide the academic engagement support teams. Using a holistic tiers of service approach helps to ensure each student receives assistance that is personalized to their specific needs.

• Foundation (Tier 1): Robust collection of readily available resources and tools. 

• Preparation (Tiers 2 and 3): Services that prepare students to achieve their academic and personal goals.

  • Scheduled Academic Coaching and Tutoring– Includes a variety of synchronous group and individual sessions, as well as asynchronous recorded coaching sessions.

  • ASC Chat (synchronous) – Students can ask quick questions and schedule individual coaching sessions while chatting with a coach.

  • Ask a Coach (asynchronous) – Students can submit questions via text message, a form, or via email.

• Connections: Successful coaching should always include opportunities for students to build strong connections with peers, coaches, and faculty. 

Objectives:

The Academic Success Center objectives are:

• Provide multimodal and accessible resources to the university community.
• Collaborate with faculty and staff to provide students with personalized learning experiences.
• Promote the building of connections (peer, faculty, coach) through academic coaching.
• Challenge students to become active participants in their academic journey.
• Promote inclusivity, anti-racism, accessibility, and interdependence. 
• Serve as a model of expertise for personalized online academic support that is known for inspiring student success by offering collaborative and inclusive student-centered assistance.

Mission: 

The mission of the Academic Success Center (ASC) is to support students through the process of learning and developing their identities as scholars and practitioners.

Vision:

The Academic Success Center strives to promote academic achievement by working collaboratively with students and faculty to promote learning and engagement as lifelong consumers of knowledge.

The Academic Success Center (ASC) launched in June 2014. In the beginning, sessions were focused on assisting students with writing and statistics assignments. In 2016, a major paradigm shift occurred during which the center moved away from a tutoring model focusing on a specific deliverable toward an academic coaching model with a focus on skill development. During the same year, the live chat feature launched, providing students with a venue to ask quick questions and receive immediate assistance. Two years later, the Academic Success Center transitioned the ASC Chat service and website to the Springshare platform. The new platform provided students with more modes (text, email, and live chat) to access ASC services.

The data-driven refinement and expansion of the services available in the ASC is an ongoing process. In FY20, the ASC expanded the hours that the chat service was available to include evenings and weekends. During that same time, the number of interactive weekly group sessions increased from 17 to 25, and individual coaching opportunities were increased to meet the needs of the NU community. One of the most notable additions to the ASC during FY20 was the expansion of support to include legal writing. In addition to the ongoing expansion of services, during FY21, the ASC launched a proofreading service to support students working to prepare their dissertation manuscripts for publishing.