Newly renovated Academic Success Center opens at Goshen College

Goshen College's Academic Success Center, which was formerly “a hallway,” according to Michelle Blank, the school’s director of academic success, has been renovated and newly opened to serve students in the Harold and Wilma Good Library. The renovations were made possible thanks to $3 million grant funding from the US Department of Education the school received last year. Along with the renovations, the Academic Success Center now has increased ability to offer more student support services.

According to an article on Goshen College’s website, Jan Kauffman, who serves as the associate dean of student success, was quoted as saying of the newly renovated Academic Success Center, “[It’s] a colocated space, where more people who are connected to student success are all located together. One of the goals was to provide wraparound services, and have this space become a go-to first stop for students.”

Among the services provided by the Academic Support Center are tutoring, first-year advising, testing, writing support, programming that focuses on inclusiveness for Hispanic students, and academic coaching. In addition to the concrete support services the center provides, the space has been imagined as an area where students can relax, congregate, and study. The physical space includes nine staff offices as well as a front desk and several study and gathering areas.

Blank said the improvements have made the center more popular with students. She said, “This space is normalizing. And that’s the big thing. Students see it as their space. So we say: come in and use it, come in and hang out, come in and study, come in and chat, whatever you need to do to achieve more success.” She added, “Other than when I get here at 8 o’clock in the morning. I don’t know that there’s ever a time where there are no students in [the ASC] between 9 and 4.”

On September 12, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held to officially open the new Academic Success Center. The event was attended by the university’s President Rebecca Stoltzfus, Gilberto Pérez, Jr., who is the dean of students and vice president for student life and Hispanic serving initiatives, Ann Vendrely, the vice president for academic affairs, and Dr. Antonio Flores, the president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

“More than ever before, we have greater capacity to journey alongside all our students as they strive toward their success,” said Blank.

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