The Academic Resource Center (ARC), formerly located at 72 Professors Row, is among the many student services that have been relocated to Dowling Hall as part of this year's shuffle. The move has allowed the center to expand and improve the variety of services that it offers to the Tufts community.
ARC Director Nadie Medina said that it is one of the "best and most under-appreciated" programs at Tufts, and reported that efforts are underway both to improve the service and to spread the word about the resources offered to students.
The move to Dowling Hall has provided several advantages, one of the largest being the possibility for students and tutors to meet in one central location.
"The facilities are terrific," Medina said. "That's what I've always been wishing for - a place where tutors can meet." In the past, ARC tutors had to make arrangements with students to meet in other locations across campus, due to the lack of space in the small building on Professor's Row. The tutors now have the opportunity to interact and share ideas with each other.
Thanks to the new facilities, the ARC has been able to institute "drop-in hours." These sessions are held by the ten undergraduate resident tutors at the ARC, all of whom have taken the courses offered in the tutoring program. The resident tutors hold drop-in hours in the Resource Library of Dowling, located down the hall from the ARC, for a set number of hours each week. This way, students don't need to seek an appointment if they would like to see a tutor.
In addition to the resident tutors, there are about 80 to 100 campus tutors, who work for the ARC and continue tutoring students after their initial meeting with resident tutors. If students go to a session with a resident tutor but feel they need more help, they will be referred to a campus tutor who will be able to set up appointments for long-term, one-on-one tutoring. If there are no tutors who have experience in a certain class, the ARC will talk to the class's instructor and recruit someone who has taken the class. "We will accommodate, to the best of our ability, any student in any class," Medina said.
Efforts are also underway to improve the center's student outreach efforts. Medina is concerned that students may be reluctant to ask for help in their classes, or that they may think that the services are only for those students with poor academic records.
"The fact is, we get a whole range of students," she said. "Everybody is very career-oriented and very ambitious. We see people who want to do well, or better, in their courses."
According to senior and tutoring program co-coordinator Erika Waddey, the move to Dowling has helped draw in more students.
"I think that for the most part, it's easier for students to have access to tutors because they're coming to Dowling for something else already," she said. Since students are already in the building, it's convenient for them to drop by the ARC.
The center offers a host of other services, such as review sessions held by resident tutors for subjects such as math, economics, and psychology. One recent physics review session drew 90 students. The ARC also has four tutors living in Tilton Hall to help freshmen adjust to the college workload. Collaborative efforts are underway with resident assistants from dorms across campus for workshops on time management and study skills.
One very popular ARC initiative is posting old exams online. The ARC has a collection of old exams from many of the courses offered at Tufts. Students can photocopy the exams to use as study aids. However, there can be a high demand for some tests in a lecture class with many students, and there is the additional inconvenience of having to pay for photocopies. In response to these problems, the ARC is currently working to put all exams online so that students can have free access to the tests from the comfort of their own rooms.
Sharing Dowling Hall with other student services has additional advantages for the ARC. The proximity of the other various organizations allows ample opportunities for collaboration. For example, the ARC recently teamed up with Career Services to present a joint workshop on how to write cover letters for resumes.
"There's more of a possibility of putting programs together that we might not have done had we been in different buildings," Medina said. Since the class deans' offices are right down the hall, Medina explained, when a dean refers a student to the ARC, they're much more likely to make the trip.
The staff of the ARC has been making every effort to promote the Center's student-designed website, ase.tufts.edu/arc. The site offers a description of services available, tutors' schedules, postings of review sessions, and contact information.
"We want people to use it, because we're trying to spare them the necessity of coming here," Medina said.
