New services replace Learning Skills Center

Having a conversation about student services at Pitt is a little like talking about Prince and… Having a conversation about student services at Pitt is a little like talking about Prince and the Revolution. Every reference to an office or program seems to involve the phrases like “the entity formerly known as” or “what used to be called.”

The latest in the chain of organizational changes is the resource that once was referred to as the Learning Skills Center; it’s now the Academic Support Center.

Now under the authority of the College of Arts and Sciences, the ASC will be combining several academic services, according to its director, Assistant CAS Dean Ron Brown. He said the restructuring is only in the organizational phase, and that the physical consolidation of offices and services will take place later, if at all.

CAS Associate Dean Patricia Beeson said that, ideally, the functioning of the ASC will not be immediately affected.

“For this term, we hope that there is no difference,” she said.

Beeson said that while the organizational changes are going on, the administration will try to “keep the front-end toward the students the same.”

As with many of the moves that have taken place this summer as part of Vice Provost and Interim Dean of Students Jack Daniel’s plans for revamping the Office of Student Affairs, positions were created and eliminated. Georgine Materniak, director of the Learning Skills Center, is still employed by the University, according to Beeson, but is no longer working in the same capacity that she was prior to the change. Beeson said Materniak and Brown had comparable positions and only one would be needed under the new office, but would not comment beyond that, saying it would not be appropriate to discuss matters of personnel.

Beeson also said the change was a near consensus decision and that she and Daniel were in complete agreement.

“It just seemed obvious that what we should do is combine our resources,” she said.

In an e-mail from abroad, Daniel said that two or three years ago, prior to his appointment to interim dean of students, he explored different ways to make academic support services more efficient, but that personnel changes kept the matter from proceeding until recently. He also said he rejected two other possible mergers last year in favor of “a better plan” involving the Learning Skills Center: the current plan being put into place by Beeson, Brown and the Provost’s Office, to which Daniel said the center still reports.

Beeson said the transfer occurred because the courses that the center supports are primarily CAS-oriented. But she was quick to add that it does not mean support will be limited in any way to only CAS courses. The motivation, she said, was “to bring [support] closer to faculty and students.”

One of the major changes students will see immediately is a change in the locations of the math and writing centers. The Math Assistance Center has moved from the Learning Skills Office to 322 Thackeray Hall, where the math department is located. In addition to tables and chairs set up for small groups and one-on-one tutoring, the office has space for two staff members to be available for help. The Writing Center, formerly in the English office on the fourth floor of the Cathedral of Learning, will move into M2 Thaw Hall during the next two weeks, Beeson said. The new room is spacious and well-lit, with a tree-lined view of O’Hara Street, which is in sharp contrast to the small, cramped room that the writing center currently occupies in the English office.

“Ideally,” she said, “we’d like to have one huge space … but we don’t have any space that’s big enough.”

She said the centers might stay where they are if no better place can be found, but that she would like to see one, all-encompassing academic service center.

“Whoever the space gods are, we hope they smile on us,” she said.

Academic Support Services for Student Athletes, the office that Ron Brown used to direct, is one of the organizations that will have its services connected to the new center. Brown said the two offices currently have a “dotted-line” relationship that is still being defined.

In his e-mail, Daniel said that Brown, in his former post, had “provided the University with a program of absolute distinction,” and that in matters of recruiting, “the presence of our very high-quality academic support services was as important as factors such as our distinguished coaches and athletics director as well as our athletic facilities.” He also said parents of prospective student athletes were often very impressed.

Also involved in the consolidation, according to Brown, is the University Challenge for Excellence Program, which will move into the ASC office on the third floor of the William Pitt Union in December.

Daniel said the space in the Union, formerly occupied by the Learning Skills Center, is one of the areas that will be looked at in the committee, headed by Robert Houston, formed to prepare a space plan for the Union.

“I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the University’s administration is absolutely committed to the William Pitt Union being a student-centered facility,” he wrote. “I am very excited about the possibility of, in time, having a very fine, student-centered student union.”

Brown said the ASC will be working closely with the Counseling Center and Placement and Career Services, as well as the CAS departments that can provide additional help and opportunities for students that use the center. In his e-mail, Daniel said Provost James V. Maher’s office is “determined to achieve the best possible synergy between academic and student affairs,” and that the ASC is just one of many steps they plan to take in bringing the two arenas together.

Among the operational changes planned is the addition of three full-time academic counselors in the ASC, according to Brown.

“We in the past did not have what you would consider academic counselors,” he said.

The supplemental instruction program, conversely, will be reduced because of its lack of use, in favor of more one-on-one instruction. Supplemental instruction will be organizationally moved to the Office of Experiential Learning, while undergraduate teaching assistance, student academic counselors and tutoring programs will all remain under the ASC.

Both Brown and Beeson said that no information about the center has been made public yet because of the in-progress status of the project, but that the University community will be kept informed as more changes take place. In the meantime, Brown said the immediate challenge is to make the transitions, both organizational and geographic, as seamless as possible.

“We felt it was important to keep some things in place as they existed,” he said.