Number of students seeking ACE tutoring spiked in the fall
Three years ago NDSU founded a program called ACE to help students succeed in college.
ACE stands for Academic Collegiate Enhancement and is a tutoring program set up to help undergraduate students with class work.
Since its inception, the program has grown continuously over the years.
According to the ACE quick facts, in fall 2004 there were 6,589 students participating in the tutoring program.
In fall 2005, the number dropped down to 6,178 and in fall 2006 the number rocketed to 10,173.
The participation breakdown is made up of student athletes, the general student body and Greek members.
“ACE is a free service for all undergraduate students,” said Casey Peterson, assistant director for learning services and athletic academics. “It is meant to be academic support.”
The program is for any undergraduate student, but focuses on the 100 and 200 level classes, Peterson said.
“All of the ACE students are what we call peer tutors. They are mostly undergraduate students,” Peterson said. “We come from a belief that students working with other students is one of the best ways to get the information across.”
Even though the majority of tutors are undergraduates, some students working on their master’s degree are able to tutor, said Peterson.
Students frequently request help with math, although tutoring is also available in accounting, business, psychology, statistics, history, Greek, Latin and even Arabic.
The ACE program began around three years ago when NDSU moved to Division 1.
Before ACE, a program called Super Tutor existed for undergraduates and with Study Tables for athletes.
ACE tutors, as well as tutors from the math department, are available during the day.
“Our offices decided to combine the two programs and combine the budget,” Peterson said. “This has allowed us better flexibility for hiring more tutors and more hours to help the students.”
The math department joined ACE tutoring in the spring 2006.
“This has added another level of convenience for the students because they used to be located in EML,” said Peterson. “Now a student can walk into our space and know there is a math tutor there almost all the time we are open.”
ACE tutoring is located in the basement of the West Dining Center.
“(They) donated an empty space to the program so there would be a place to meet every day rather than having different places every semester,”Peterson said.
Peterson said the ACE tutoring program’s location is also a key part to success because it is located between all the high-rise dorms and across the street from Reid-Johnson and Weible.
Peterson said the numbers of participants have been growing due to all the additions to make it easier for students to succeed.