Question: Why require a mavcard to receive tutoring services?

(If worried about other university

students using tutoring, this=sign of success and should = word of mouth good advertising) Is there a
high demand for tutoring services? Are students always required to sign up?

Involvement fair – booth with CAS info?

Note to self: What if MNSU’s tutor center used Twitter to advertise open tutoring spots? Ie, an hour
before an opening, one of the tutors would update Twitter status similarly: “5-16-09 open writing center
appt avail 1PM”

Could be useful during peak sessions (midterms, finals) and could also make the CAS more visible.

CAS Mobile!

I have a lot of admiration for the kids that come to the tutor center. They’ve got guts. Because there’s an
inherent power dynamic in the tutor-student relationship that doesn’t favor the student. The tutor
knows something, has something that the student doesn’t know, wants. The student is the supplicant,
the less-powerful partner in the relationship. So to voluntarily go to a tutor, to voluntarily put yourself in
that kind of position, takes a lot of courage, even for someone who doesn’t have a big ego. Who goes to
the tutor? The stupid kid. The one who’s behind in class. Right?

I have a special sympathy for the students who come to the tutor center, because at my last job, I was
on the wrong side of the power dynamic. I had a supervisor who had been around, who knew
everything, who was responsible for my training, but my initial training didn’t cover even a third of what
I needed to know to do my job, because it was so complex. And because it was so complex, in a lot of
cases, the only way to know how to do my job was to ask my supervisor. So I spent a lot of time asking,
and the end result was that I really resented my supervisor and I didn’t get work done as quickly
because I would spend the time to figure things out on my own rather than ask her, and that ended up
being pretty stressful because the job was very fast-paced.

Putting yourself in that subordinate position is unnatural. People don’t want to do it. So they try to
figure it out on their own, and they procrastinate getting help when they know they need it. I’ve always
tried, whenever I help someone with something, tutoring or anything that someone’s asked me for help
with, to downplay my knowledge, to emphasize where my student’s strengths are and how I’ve just
tweaked what they have, not added anything magical.

So the CAS starts with an initial handicap: people don’t want to come, because they don’t want to put
themselves in that subordinate position. Add in a location that’s a little out of the way, and you’ve put
another obstacle in the way. And if the first time that someone comes in, say, around finals or midterms,
when it’s naturally crowded, and when someone might finally acknowledge to herself that she needs
help, if she sees its crowded and can’t just walk in and get help, well, she may never come back. Her first
impression is that the tutor center can’t help her.

Let’s take down the barriers. Students don’t just study from 9-5, m-f, right? They study at night, they
study on the weekends. They do a lot of homework on Sunday right before it’s due. What if we bring
the tutors to them? 6-9 or 6-8 on Sunday night, in the lobby of the residence hall. Maybe start with the
freshmen dorms, where the students may not be as familiar with the CAS resources, may be having
more academic adjustment issues. And what about setting up a table in the middle of the Union during
midterms and finals? Drop-in sessions, fifteen minutes to talk about whatever problem’s vexing you. Big
time visibility – tape a sign to the edge of the table that says that this is CAS Mobile, and the main
location is ML, the services offered, and the hours.

The most important part of this is that it’s reversing the power dynamic. I’m coming to you, because
you’re important, is what this is saying to students. The CAS isn’t for dummies, it’s not here to “teach”,
it’s a service of PEERS. Students helping students – maybe there’s even a subversive edge of students
banding together against teachers, administrators. It’s to make your life easier, not because you “need”
it to get by.

“45 minutes in the tutor center, two hours at the game. Or you could spend three hours staring at the
computer screen. Your choice.”

The “makes your life easier” angle only works if the tutoring is easy to access, though. Hence, Sunday
nights at residence halls. Although it would be a very, very small percentage of the total hours of
tutoring that the CAS provides, the message it sends would be big, and would encourage students to
find ways to fit tutoring into their schedules.

“Studying at the library? Drop by the basement. We’ve got ideas that’ll help that essay get written
faster. So you can be bowling in the Union sooner.”

Poster images: people doing non-study stuff, like watching hockey, bowling, etc. Message: tutoring gets
your work done faster, so you have more time for fun stuff.