A Step Toward Student Success.
A variety of student services prepare to set up shop in the heart of Lowry Mall.

Story, Laine Harper
Photos, Laine Harper/Maneater file photo

Tattered fliers--hot pink, electric green, and bright orange flutter in the wind, clinging to the long, curtained window by only a few pieces of scotch tape. On the side of the building, the faint words "Missouri Bookstore" remain from where the steel letters once hung. Although this abandoned, forlorn building serves only as an activities billboard in Lowry Mall, by July 28, 2001, it will house a smorgasbord of student success oriented services--the MU Student Success Center.
Plans to bring the Learning Center, Academic Retention Services, the Career Center, Academic Advising and Minority Student Retention Programs under one roof have been in the works for upward of five years. Since 1995, Vice Chancellr Charles Schroeder has sought to create a condensed home for various academic oriented services.
"The project officially started nearly six years ago with an idea to bring all of these great services together. Not only with the center be a central location to access all of these things, but it will also be open later into the evening, from eight to nine pm, to allow students to take advantage of the services," Schroeder said.
The $2.4 million project will allow all of the individual success centers on campus to interact more easily, and hopefully generate greater use of the programs.
"I believe that the amount of people turning to the Success Center for help will definitely increase due to the decrease in the campus run-around," MSA President Susan Manuel said. "The various components will be able to work together to increase student success."
The Success Center will also include a new campus service--an advising center geared towards undecided majors.
"The advising for undecided students is intended to help students decide what they want to do though vocational testing and information to help them narrow their interests," Schroeder said. "Once they have decided on a major, we can send them down the hall for career planning, or provide help with their current classes in the Learning Center."
The main onjective of the center remains to live up to its name.
"My vision for the Success Center is for it to bring all of these organizations to a central location to help students academicaly," said Student Affairs Director Cathy Scroggs. "I want it to help students plan their futures."
The organizations have been fairly productive on their own, but Schroeder hopes the deliverance of the Success Center will make each even more so.
"I want a student to come in, get help with their major, classes, and career, and later, come back as a successful alum."

"I want a student to come in, get help with their major, classes, and career, and later, come back as a successful alum." Dr. Charles Schroeder, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs

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[two photographs]
[caption]
New Life To An Old Place. Left: Fliers adonr the former Missouri Bookstore, which sat empty for all of 1999 and much of the year 2000. Following five years of intensive campus debate, plans to install a Student Success Center finally hit the works at the beginning of the Fall Semester. Above: The former Missouri Bookstore, early 1999.

How do you spell success?
1) The Learning Center. The Learning Center will move from its current location in Arts and Sciences.
2) Academic Advising. A new division, the SSC will house Academic Advising for undeclared majors.
3) Career Services. The Career Cente, moving from Noyes Hall on Red Campus, provides help with resumes and interviewing.
4) Minority Retention Services. Academic Retention Services, house on the far edge of Red Campus, provides services to minority students.
5) Conference Rooms. The SSC will also provide numerous new meeting facilities and a student lounge.

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