The Center for Student Success is a joint effort of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs.
In Field of Dreams, a supernatural voice emphatically repeated, “Build it, and they will come.” For the Center for Student Success, we’re planning on the same results.
Pratt Hall is gaining identity on campus as the Center for Student Success, and our students and staff are learning to depend on the resources within Pratt to enhance their IUP learning experience. From its initial opening in 1969, the building was intended to be the University Student Center resource location on campus, and the cement capstone at the top of the exterior front of the building proclaims it as such. Over the course of forty years, there have been changes to the building’s occupants, but the overall concept has remained.
It currently houses the IUP Developmental Studies department, which provides students with tutorial services, supplemental instruction, CUSP, and developmental instruction, as well as the Act 101 program.
The Advising and Testing Center delivers the orientation programs for new students, provides an career exploration laboratory for students to help determine their major program of study, teaches a credit course on career exploration, and houses the university’s Disability Student Services Office.
The Career Development Center assists students in their ultimate quest for career selection.
New in the Pratt Hall mix is the Center for Civic Engagement and Student Leadership, which gives students opportunities for volunteer service, internship experiences, and civic leadership development.
The Center for Student Life promotes organizational membership and activities and defines student behavior. It also offers educational enhancing experiences through the Six O’Clock series.
The basement area of Pratt Hall is under transformation to include new programs which will lend support to the existing student services on the upper floors of the building. A peer mentorship program for first-year students is in the works, and twenty upperclassmen who have already demonstrated their abilities to be highly successful are in place as the first group of peer mentors.
Also, space is being devoted to special student groups such as veterans, nontraditional students, and Hispanic students, where they can come for informational assistance and resource needs.
A thrilling development in the basement level of Pratt Hal lis the new technology help center, the PATH Lab. This technology center has been designed specifically for students who are using standard university software programs for designing classroom presentation projects. This special computer lab is currently under construction and is founded on the same principle as the highly successful IUP Writing Center lab. Regardless of whether a student is a freshman, senior, or graduate student, if she or he needs assistance with a class project or assignment where technology such as PowerPoint, Vegas Video, or some relatively standard presentation software being utilized, she or he can benefit by coming to this lab for direct individual assistance. This lab also features a special conference-type workroom for students who are designing a group project presentation. Crossing our fingers, this lab should be ready to be open to IUP students in early Spring 2010.
Our goal for Pratt Hall is simple: Take care of the academic support needs either through direct service or by pointing the student to the correct resource. It is our goal for the Center for Student Success to take a more proactive role in seeing that our students succeed at IUP.
