Hiram College to carry on Notre Dame College’s Thrive Learning Center

Hiram College will soon be the new home for the soon-to-be-shuttered Notre Dame College’s Thrive Learning Center, a center aimed at providing opportunities and resources to help students with learning disabilities and neurodivergent conditions. The agreement set up through a memorandum of understanding states that any student who is currently accepted into the Thrive Learning Center with Notre Dame College will be accepted into it again when it is housed at Hiram College.

According to an article on Hiram College’s website, Jeffrey Swenson, Ph.D., who serves as the interim vice president for academic affairs and dean, said of the agreement and the school’s decision to take over the Thrive Learning Center, “Hiram College has long prided itself on our robust student support and engaged faculty. We are excited about how the Thrive Learning Center—with its excellent staff and learning support structures developed at Notre Dame College—will broaden what we can do for students. And we look forward to welcoming Thrive students to our campus; we can’t wait to see all they will contribute to the Hiram community.”

As established at Notre Dame College, the Thrive Learning Center provides students who have learning disabilities or a diagnosis of a neurodivergent condition that affects their abilities to learn or participate on campus with help and resources to better thrive in their college experience. Individuals with conditions with which the Thrive Learning Center can assist include ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, dyslexia, dyscalculia, disorders of executive functioning, and more.

The types of services the Thrive Learning Center offers includes one-on-one tutoring, weekly meetings, an accommodated testing center, career explorations, networking, and coaching in self-advocacy techniques.

In addition to being the new home of the Thrive Learning Center, Hiram College will also be the new home for Denise Brown-Triolo, Ph.D., who serves as the program director for the Thrive Learning Center in its iteration at Notre Dame College. She will make the transition to Hiram College and will continue to serve as the lead of the Center. 

“I am so happy to make this move to Hiram College and bring the services of the Thrive Learning Center to the Hill. Hiram College’s initiatives in neurodiversity and inclusion make it a perfect landing spot for the Thrive Learning Center. Thrive started as the Academic Support Center in 2005 with just four NDC students and has touched the lives of over 600 hundred students since then. I look forward to providing this opportunity to more students, so they can grow and succeed,” said Brown-Triolo.

For more information about Hiram College, visit the school’s website.