Banner & Torres From Extraordinary to Ordinary: Building Lasting Academic Support

24/F 3:30 PM Owens

Type_Presentation: 90 Minute Concurrent session

PresentationTitle: From Extraordinary to Ordinary: Building Lasting Academic Support Partnerships Between Learning Centers and Academic Departments

ProgramStrand_Primary: Learning Assistant Center Management

Presentation_description:

Communication between learning centers and other academic units is imperative to ensure superb academic services. This workshop primarily discusses ways to create and maintain academic partnerships and how these partnerships can positively impact support services and learning center management. The intended audience includes administrators and academic professionals.

Session_summary:

Most general, multi-subject learning centers across the country are not connected to a specific academic unit and therefore must develop multiple partnerships in order to receive continuing feedback from faculty and administration across many disciplines. Communication at this level is imperative for learning centers to ensure that they are helping students in the best possible way. This workshop primarily seeks to discuss ways to create and maintain academic partnerships at the college and university level and how these partnerships can positively impact services offered at learning centers. This presentation will be of greatest interest to learning center administrators and higher level university professionals who are in a position to collaborate with other departments and units within their college or university. This presentation will present and discuss some of the various partnerships that Learning Support Services at Arizona State University (which administrates seven tutoring centers at the university) has developed and how these partnerships directly affect learning center management; additional time will be spent working with the audience identify potential areas of partnership at their home institutions. The presenters include Jeffrey Banner and Fidel Torres. Jeffrey Banner is a Coordinator of academic support services who has developed and maintained many partnerships for Learning Support Services over the last two years. Fidel Torres is an Academic Advisor with the School of Life Sciences (SOLS) and coordinates the SOLS Learning Resource Center. We use a Powerpoint presentation and handouts/worksheets during the presentation.

Our session will begin by introducing our topic and discussing the specific learning objectives, which include recognizing the need for partnership, positive ways to promote and maintain partnerships, and ways that partnerships can positively impact the types of services a learning centers offers as well as the way those services are delivered.

The second component of our discussion will give background information regarding the institutional culture at Arizona State University and the specific challenges to be confronted in developing partnerships. While ASU represents a large metropolitan campus, many of the obstacles faced are quite similar to those found at institutions of any size, including notions of territorialism, resistance to change, and having staff too overburdened to take on additional commitments. Through discussion during the third component possible solutions to these challenges will be initially developed.

The third component will give the history and evolution of the partnership between Learning Support Services and the School of Life Sciences. By exploring this partnership as well as other developed by Learning Support Services with the session attendees, we will begin to develop some basic guidelines in developing partnerships.

The fourth component will further delineate some basic guidelines in establishing and maintaining partnerships. Guidelines for establishing partnerships will include identifying complimentary and mutual needs, becoming familiar with potential partners, focusing on the needs of partners, and recognizing your partner’s expertise. Guidelines for maintaining partnerships will include normalizing communication, creating a casual feedback loop, and consistently using partner feedback to improve learning center management.

The fifth and final component of the presentation will focus on participants identifying potential partnerships at their home institutions, beginning to think about the needs of their potential partners, identifying potential challenges, and developing creative ways to meet those challenges. We will focus this activity by giving attendees worksheets designed to help them organize and develop their thinking about these challenges.

PresenterBio: Jeffrey Banner is a Coordinator of academic support services at Arizona State University. He has held position for the past two years and has been responsible for building and maintaining many of his departments partnerships during that time. In addition Jeffrey has several years of advising experience.

Presenter2_Bio: Fidel is an academic advisor and learning resource center supervisor for the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He has 9 years of experience in higher education as an advisor and LRC supervisor.