This fall, one of the most exciting additions to our campus community is the newly organized Academic Resource Center (ARC). Currently the ARC is located in Main Street West (above Harris and to the left if you are facing the dining hall). Main Street West has undergone an amazing transformation from a room with no defined purpose into a beautiful, bright space for learning. However, once Shain Library’s renovations are complete, the ARC will relocate there and team up with the Roth Writing Center and the Office of Disability Services to create a one-stop shop for your academic concerns. The ARC will occupy 2,500 square feet on the second floor of Shain. The new area will be complete with staff offices, seminar rooms and meeting rooms to accommodate a diverse range of academic needs.
Funded through an anonymous $11 million gift (the largest the College has ever received), the ARC offers several useful services for Conn students. These include peer tutoring, one-on-one coaching with professional staff, group tutoring sessions and workshops.
Peer tutors are selected from every major and receive special training to assist their fellow classmates in all areas of study. One-on-one sessions are also available with the ARC professionals to work on anything from time management and study skills to research projects or theses. Group tutoring sessions meet multiple times a week.
“Just go to the session,” ARC director Noel Garrett encourages students. Students are welcome to “drop in” on group tutoring sessions, no signup necessary.
Before beginning his role as director of ARC, Garrett was the Dean for the Class of 2015 at Wesleyan. He began meeting with Conn students last semester, and is excited to see ARC expand into all the academic areas on campus this year. Garrett wants students to know that the ARC is “not just a tutoring center,” but a place to voice academic questions or concerns.
Keep an eye out for ARC workshops this semester. Past workshop topics this semester have included study skills, time management, active class participation and organization, reading strategies and exam preparation. Later this semester, the ARC has planned workshops on conducting research, project management, mid-semester progress and finals preparation. Workshop times are announced in the daily emails from College Relations and advertised around campus. You do not need to be signed up in advance to attend an ARC workshop. Just drop in and take advantage of some helpful tips.
Currently, six freshmen seminars are working closely with the ARC, the reference librarians and the writing center in an exciting pilot program. This pilot program will enable the ARC to host a conference series on various topics. Future activities include a Power Excel workshop and a senior workshop over winter break. “A lot of our activities collaborate with other areas,” Noel explains. Many of our existing campus resources will be teaming up with the ARC to bring us new and useful programming.
Three other professionals are currently on staff at the Academic Resource Center. Dana Roth serves as the Assistant Director and Learning Specialist. Patricia W. Dallas is the Office Manager, and Alison Rossi ’13 is the ARC Program Coordinator. The ARC is also developing a quantitative skills program dedicated to strengthening students’ skills in areas like statistical analysis and mathematical theory. The search for a director of this quantitative skills program begins this semester. ARC director Noel Garrett thinks this program will allow students to develop “passion for a project” and really dive into research topics of all kinds.
The ARC is open from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, and 3 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Sundays.
