Welcome
Bienvenue
IRSB
Bienvemdo
oitny
r' „ *
Willkommen
^ & O
Study hard.
Have fun.
Look good.
CLINIQUE
Clinique is available at
13th & Q Street
Lincoln, NE 68508
Tel. 402 476-0111
Store Hours:
Monday-Saturday: 9:00am to 6:00pm
_ Thursday: 9:00am to 8:00pm
Sunday: 12:00pm to 5:00pm
UNL officials question student
success in tutoring classes
By Joel Strauch
Staff Reporter
When the Academic Success Center was shut
down last year, one of the center’s old programs
was restarted to replace it.
That program, Supplemental Instruction, will
expand this fall, but center supporters say it’s a
weak replacement for an excellent university
resource.
Supplemental Instruction classes are taught
by teaching assistants and offered to students in
certain courses, said Elizabeth Grobsmith, asso
ciate vice chancellor for academic affairs.
The program used to be offered through the
Academic Success Center. When former Chan
cellor Graham Spanier closed the center in May
1994, the classes were restarted through the
academic affairs office.
“We’ve run it about two years, and we’re
expanding it in the fall because it’s having
concrete results,” Grobsmith said. “Students in
the SI sections have been getting half to a whole
letter grade better than students not in it.”
During the last school year, six sections of
Supplemental Instruction were offered in Biol
ogy 101, Chemistry 109, History 100, Political
Science 100, Psychology 181 and Sociology
101.
More sections will be offered this fall, and a
freshman learning community will be started
through the Supplemental Instruction program.
“It’s just amazing,” Grobsmith said. “Every
semester we’ve done it, the SI students grades
are so much higher.”
Ken Kiewra, former director of the Academ
ic Success Center, doesn’t find the program so
amazing.
Although Supplemental Instruction Started
in the center, Kiewra said, the classes don’t even
begin to compensate for the lost services offered
by the center.
Supplemental Instruction doesn’t reach the
number of students the center did, Kiewra said.
It doesn’t reach the students who need help most,
he said, and doesn’t teach what it should.
The supplemental classes began as one of the
Academic Success Center’s many services. But
Kiewra said the center became too overbur
dened to continue the classes along with every
thing else it did.
“It’s just amazing. Every
semester we’ve done it, the SI
students grades are so much
higher. ”
m
ELIZABETH GROBSMITH
associate vice chancellor for academic
affairs
f
“We were tutoring thousands of students,
giving hundreds of workshops and teaching four
classes a year—on a staff offour,” he said. “The
math isn’t hard to do.”
So the center offered to train people to teach
the supplemental classes if the different depart
ments would pay the new teachers.
“Nobody took us up on it,” he said. “And now
they are presenting it as a new program.”
The center stopped offering supplemental
classes in spring 1992, and the academic affairs
office restarted them in fall 1994.
Kiewra said it would have been cheaper to
run the program the way the center proposed and
that the classes would have reached more peo
ple.
“When there was an Academic Success Cen
ter, we had at least 10 sections of SI going on,”
he said. “Now they have six, and that’s all
they’re doing.”
Biology professor Richard Boohar, who reg
ularly sent students to the center for help, said the
supplemental classes just weren’t as effective.
“SI reaches a very small fraction of the
students that the center did at a much greater
cost, proportionately,” he said.
“The danger of SI is students
may get better grades because
they spend more time working
with the content, not because
they are learning more
effective study strategies. ”
m \ f
KEN KIEWRA
former director of the Academic Success
Center
Each of the six sections of Supplemental
Instruction reach between 4 and 19 students.
That’s between 120 to 200 students a year.
Kiewra said the Academic Success Center
helped tutor 4,000 to 5,000 students a year.
The classes help, said former supervisor Tom
Meyers, but only in small ways.
Meyers supervised Supplemental Instruction
when it was a part of the Academic Success
Center and after it became part of the academic
affairs office. Meyers left die program in May.
Don Gregory, director of General Studies,
will supervise the program this semester.
“No one is doing the workshops that we did
at the center,” Meyers said. “And no one will see
the students on a regular basis like we did.”
Doug Jose, Academic Senate president, said
eliminating the center was a matter of budget
priorities.
“We think it provided a service, but it was a
matter of having the dollars to do it,” he said.
“There wasn’t as much payoff from the budget
spent on the Academic Success Center.”
Boohar said no one would admit it was
mistake to eliminate the center.
“The official view is, ‘We don’t have a
problem, so of course we don’t need it, ’” Boohar
said. “There is nobody on campus who does
what the Academic Success Center did any
more.
“Believe me, I’ve asked.”
But die supplemental program is still in its
experimental stages, Grobsmith said, and the
expansion will reach a great deal more students.
Even an expanded program would only reach
students in chosen classes, Meyers said.
“The Academic Success Center was avail
able to every student,” he said, “not just any
subgroup.”
tsoonar agreed that supplemental classes were
targeted at a different audience than the center.
“It just reaches people who want to do better
in a particular course,” he said. “It doesn’t reach
die group who is in desperate trouble.”
Delivee Wright, director of the teaching and
learning center, said it seemed the current ad
ministration had given up on those students who
need the most help.
“Our campus is a public institution and
decision makers have decided that we should
only accept able students,” she said.
Beyond that, Kiewra said, the classes are
poorly attended and don’t teach what students
need to learn.
“What often happens is it ends up being a
review session of the content,” he said.
Grobsmith and other administrators say the
classes are increasing students’ grades, motiva
tion and study skills. However, Kiewra said,
there is more to learning than just getting good
grades.
“The danger of SI is students may get better
grades because they spend more time working
with the content,” he said, “not because they are
learning more effective study strategies.”
The problem with the supplementary pro
grams, Kiewra said, is that their main concern is
making the students with problems feel com
fortable.
“The hell with that,” Kiewra said, “Let’s
make them better learners, and then they’ll be
more comfortable.”
NefcJraskan
Editor j. Christopher Hein Night News Editors Mitch Sherman
472-1766 Julie Sobczyk
Managing Editor Rainbow Rowell Matt Waite
Assoc. News Editors DeDra Janssen Doug Peters
Brian Sharp Art Director Doug Kouma
Opinion Paje Editor Mark Baldridge General Manager DanShattil
^ Wire Editor Jamie Karl Production Manager Katherine Policky
Copy Desk Editor Tim Pearson Advertising Manager Amy Struthers
Sports Editor Jeff Griesch Asst. Advertising Manager Laura Wilson
Arts & Entertainment Editor Melissa Dunne Publications Board Chairman Tim Hedegaard, 472-2588
Photo Director Travis Heying Professional Adviser Don Walton, 473-7301
FAX NUMBER 472-1761
The Daily Nebraskan(USPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board. Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St.,
Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions.
Readers are encouraged to submit stoiyideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between
TimlHMl«»ard’472r^BhrOU9h Fnday' pub,ic 3,80 has acc8SS to ^ Plications Board. For information, contact
Subscription price is $50 for one year.
Postmaster; Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34.1400 R St.,Lincoln, NE 68588-0448.
Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE.
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN
