2023-24 Annual Report

Mission Statement

The Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center (ASC) provides undergraduate students with opportunities to develop transferable academic skills, enhance learning, increase retention and improve overall success throughout their academic journey.

Vision Statement

The ASC aspires to provide all undergraduate students with services and opportunities to define and develop strategies that help them reach their goals. Driven by a focus on students, the ASC partners with the campus community to facilitate a culture of academic confidence, tenacity and — ultimately — success.

Program Elements

The Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center offers free services that support students’ learning. Available in both West Lafayette and Indianapolis, these services focus on the process strategies and skills that support the content expertise provided in the classroom.

The Peer Success Coaching program (PSC) offers students additional support, campus resources and connections, and accountability as they work toward academic, social and personal goals. Trained peer leaders work one-on-one with students to develop strategies, skills and solutions as they aim for their definition of success.
Study Skills Consultations are individual meetings that provide students with tailored support on study strategies, time management, test-taking and other academic success topics. These one-on-one meetings with a staff member require an appointment. Participating students may voluntarily seek support or be required by an academic program or campus office to meet with a consultant.
Workshops provide an interactive environment for small and large groups to identify and practice strategies for effective studying and learning, including time management, overcoming procrastination and effective studying. In addition to the ASC’s open series of workshops, student organizations and classes can also request workshops for their groups.
Online resources are available to students and the campus community through the ASC website. These include success strategy handouts, a GPA calculator, and a searchable database of course-specific help rooms and tutoring programs available across campus.

West Lafayette-Specific Programs and Services

The Supplemental Instruction (SI) program provides students with interactive, peer-led study sessions for traditionally challenging courses. Trained SI leaders facilitate group activities that encourage students to think critically about course material, apply concepts and learn transferable study skills. In the fall and spring semesters, SI was offered in 30+ courses with 45+ trained leaders. In the summer semester, SI was offered online for a limited number of courses.
Accountability Groups offer students ongoing peer support during 90-minute weekly meetings with an established group of 8-10 peers plus an ASC facilitator. During group meetings, students discuss current academic challenges and successes, share strategies, set goals, and work on individual goals.
Test Drive is a large-scale workshop that gives students in select high-enrollment, first-year chemistry, math and physics courses the opportunity to take a mock exam in Elliott Hall of Music. The program started in 2017 to address a common concern brought up by first-year students: They felt unprepared for their first exams because of how intimidating Elliott Hall of Music can be as an exam venue.

Indianapolis-Specific Programs and Services

The Peer Tutoring program provides students with peer-led study sessions for traditionally challenging courses. Trained peer tutors facilitate individual and small group activities that encourage students to think critically about course material, apply concepts and learn transferable study skills. Students schedule appointments through BoilerConnect, creating more flexibility and more efficient use of tutoring resources.
The Math Assistance Center (MAC) Partnership gives students access to the Indiana University Indianapolis Math Assistance Center for support in all math and statistics courses. In addition to utilizing the MAC, the ASC’s partnership also provides opportunities for students to work as MAC tutors. This partnership aims to provide a seamless academic support experience for students by adjusting schedules to match the Purdue semester calendar, using BoilerConnect for check-in and adding visible Purdue branding within the MAC space.

Outcomes

The Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center has several categories for outcomes. While this report focuses on program outcomes, the ASC student employment outcomes and competencies along with the ASC student-facing learning outcomes are available in Appendix A and Appendix B .

As a result of participating in programs and services offered by the Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center, students will:

Achieve better course outcome (grade) than comparable peers who did not participate
Be retained at a higher rate than peers who did not participate
Complete more credit hours per semester than peers who did not participate
Earn a higher GPA (term and cumulative) than peers who did not participate
Maintain or return to good academic standing status (term and cumulative GPA at or above 2.0) at a higher rate compared to the overall university rate

Assessment Plans

The Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center assesses the outcomes of programs and services on an ongoing basis. In addition to current assessment plans, the ASC staff aspire to deepen their understanding of how programs and services influence students, student leaders, and campus. The ASC staff also aims to make scholarly contributions to the field of learning and academic support. Aspirational assessment and study ideas are available in Appendix C.

Semester Assessment

Feedback survey to Supplemental Instruction participants about session experience
Feedback survey to Peer Success Coaching participants about coaching experience
Feedback survey to participants post-workshop (after each session)
GS 29001 course assignments (individual student assessment)
BoilerConnect case referral metrics
ASC space utilization
[In Progress] Pre- and post-survey for Accountability Group participants
[In Progress ] Study Skills Consultation evaluation/feedback
Standard GPA, standing, course grade (where relevant), retention, etc. reporting for SI, PSC, consultations, and accountability groups
[Aspirational] Sense of Belonging measurement embedded into each program’s semester assessment

Annual Assessment

Student leader performance evaluations on competencies
[New] Student leader feedback on supervising staff performance
[New] Course sequencing ANCOVA for specific SI courses
[Aspirational] Intersectional reporting of current data and metrics (Are we reducing, maintaining or exacerbating a gap in equity?

Rotational Assessment and Studies

Impact of Attending SI Accounting for Self-Selection Bias (study using propensity score matching to evaluate participant and non-participant course outcomes)
Qualitative study on the experience of serving as PSC related to skill development
*See Dufault, K.H. (2023). Peer learning experiences of undergraduate academic coaches. The Learning Assistance Review, 28(2), 1-42. https://nclca.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/TLARVolume28%202Fall2023.pdf
[Proposed] Impact of Study Skills Consultations (explore outcomes of referral cases comparing students who meet with a consultant to students who do not meet with a consultant; understand student experience of meeting with a consultant; identify the values and influences of academic consultations from their perceptive, beyond university metrics)

Notable Changes

Program Updates
- Test Drive expanded the post-mock exam resource fair with representatives from multiple campus partners including COSINE tutoring, Women in Engineering and Science tutoring, and the Disability Resource Center.
- In Summer 2024, the ASC renamed “academic consultations” to “study skills consultations.” This was an effort to provide more clarity to students on what to expect during consultations so they are not confused with academic advising appointments.

Partnerships
- Onboarding New Student Efforts: The ASC continued to collaborate with Orientation Programs on the development and facilitation of Academic Success sessions with a customized session for Indianapolis.
- Academic Notice Support: The ASC continued to work with campus partners in Teaching and Learning and the Office of the Dean of Students on outreach efforts for students on academic probation for the first or second semester. Each week, students received a message about a success tip based on research and quotes from students who had previously been on academic probation and returned to good standing. Additionally, the working group utilized assessment data from the outreach effort to continue the conversation on campus about the experiences of students on academic probation. The working group’s work resulted in the changing of the academic language policy that took effect in Fall 2023. The terms “academic notice” and “academic separation” replaced the previously used terms “academic probation” and “dropped for scholastic deficiency,” respectively.
- UIA Academic Recovery Grant: In Summer 2024, the ASC director became the principal investigator for the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) Academic Recovery Grant and project. Going into its second year, the project aims to support students who need to retake a course that is critical to program progression. In Fall 2024, the project will pilot a proactive academic support approach in courses with high DFW rates by providing targeted messaging and micro-incentives for engaging in the ASC’s services.

Staffing
- With the launch of Purdue University in Indianapolis, the ASC added an assistant director position to serve as the location lead for program efforts and collaborations. In addition to being part of the ASC team, the assistant director serves as part of the Teaching and Learning team in Indianapolis with a dotted reporting line to the Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Programs in Indianapolis. Jo Cardarelli, who previously served as a program coordinator since 2021, stepped into the assistant director role.
- The ASC redefined the two vacant program coordinator positions to have more defined and equitable responsibilities. One of the positions is now in charge of workshops and events while the other position oversees ambassadors and accountability groups. The existing assistant director position was reclassified as a senior assistant director position and serves as the direct supervisor for both program coordinator positions. Both program coordinator positions were filled in Summer 2024.
- In Summer 2024, the functional title of the two senior assistant director positions was changed to “associate director” to better communicate their roles and responsibilities.
- Two graduate assistants (GAs) returned from the 2023-2024 academic year, and two new GAs joined the team in August 2024.

Purdue University in Indianapolis
- An ASC assistant director relocated to Indianapolis with the location’s launch in July 2024.
- The ASC expanded student leader positions to include:
  - Academic Success Ambassadors (ASAs) that promote academic success in Indianapolis through a variety of efforts, including providing Peer Success Coaching, tabling and outreach, and leadership to other student leaders in Indianapolis. For the fall semester, the ASC is employing five ASAs.
  - Peer Tutors that provide appointment-based tutoring sessions for individuals and small groups enrolled in gateway STEM courses. The program recruited and hired tutors in the first three weeks of the fall semester, trained new tutors during the fourth week of the semester and launched student scheduling in the fifth week. For the fall semester, the ASC is employing nine tutors.
  - MAC Tutors that functionally report in the IUI Math Assistance Center but are employed through the ASC.

Contributions to Sense of Belonging and Inclusive Excellence

The Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center works to contribute to a sense of belonging and inclusive excellence in the following ways:

Building community among student leaders through trainings, social events and opportunities for mentorship
Actively providing student leaders and staff with training on DIB topics and strategies
Designing the accountability group program so students can share common experiences and gain a sense of belonging with a consistent group of peers
Facilitating opportunities for collaborative learning and small group connections within high-enrollment courses through the SI program
Actively working to have student leaders reflect more demographic diversity than the campus undergraduate student population and monitoring representation each semester
Connecting with and serving students who are holistically underrepresented at rates similar to or more representative than university metrics, despite documented barriers such as stereotype threat and stigma for seeking academic support ( Massey & Fischer, 2005; Winograd & Gust, 2014), the ASC has been able to connect with and serve students that are historically underrepresented at rates similar or more representative than university metrics gathered through data reports
Developing assessment plans and aspirational evaluation plans to know the ASC’s current contribution to a sense of belonging and inclusive excellence and to identify what actions need to be taken to address gaps