Academic Support Services

Our professional academic support staff can work directly with you to create a personalized improvement plan that is designed to capitalize on your strengths, improve opportunity areas and help achieve course and learning goals. Through one-on-one sessions with academic specialists, you will assess and revise your improvement plan over the course of the semester while tracking your academic achievement.

In addition to focusing on individual student successes, the academic support specialists use data and learning trends to work closely with faculty in evolving and improving teaching strategies. This collaborative approach helps ensure student success and is rare among institutions of higher learning.

Academic specialists are always available to help you achieve your goals and can be found on both our Mount Carmel and North Haven campuses.

Progress isn’t measured simply by the memorization of specific content. In the Learning Commons, we know that there are different methods to deliver an education, and that every student’s approach to learning is unique. We also know that academic support means more than raising a few test scores, or turning a B into an A. 

The Learning Commons is a community that provides you with access, support and opportunity from your first day of classes to help you embrace any challenges that may lie ahead. Because we regularly collect data from each of your peer educational or peer support sessions, we are uniquely positioned to help you create a plan to be more intentional about your learning.

Our services highlight 3 key principles:

• Subject Practice: Addressing challenges and mastering course content is first, but by no means foremost. You’ll learn to engage with content, and work both independently and autonomously.
• Subject Reflection: Both peer and professional services teach you to reflect on your experiences to aid current or future choices. In short, you learn how to think, and to learn with intention.
• Subject Transfer: The ability to make connections between and among academic disciplines is part of Quinnipiac’s learning philosophy, and crucial to preparing students for the 21st-century workforce.

These principles come together to make you a stronger, more independent thinker, better prepared to adapt to a variety of situations. This isn’t only what it takes to succeed as a student at Quinnipiac, but as a professional in an evolving, multidisciplinary world. 

Your peers are key partners in your Quinnipiac education. From one-on-one tutoring to weekly study groups, they will support your learning. They also will communicate your progress to your professors as you make strides toward your goals. 

The Learning Commons provides 3 crucial peer educational services:

1. Peer Catalysts: These specialists work directly in First-Year Seminar courses. They lead a range of in-class initiatives, including group discussions and projects, and also collaborate with professors to suggest, design and execute in-class activities.
2. Peer Tutors: These individuals are nationally certified, and support a variety of courses from each of the 8 schools and the College of Arts and Sciences. Peer tutors meet students on an appointment basis, one-on-one or in small groups at the Learning Commons, and help them develop a personalized approach to studying and mastering difficult content.
3. Peer Fellows: These individuals work directly in traditional lecture and exam-driven classrooms. Fellows coordinate weekly study groups that not only review key course concepts but also practice them. They also work with faculty to keep updated on student performance.

As a double major in math and philosophy, Jason Culmone ’17 is just as comfortable tutoring students in calculus as he is in writing. However, Culmone, who is pursuing a career in teaching, doesn’t allow his strengths to invalidate a student’s struggles.

“I always check my majors at the door,” he said. “You have to start from a student’s perspective and move forward.”

Before delving into derivatives and indefinite intervals, before reviewing essay prompts and refining arguments, Culmone first determines a student’s learning preference. He will examine their notes to see if they are comprehensive, color-coded or full of diagrams. He will ascertain whether they are visual or auditory learners, and will find examples related to what they already know to bridge academic disciplines as much as possible.

“We go through a lot of training to be tutors here, but the most important thing we learn is to play to the strengths of each student," he said.

Culmone isn’t in the business of feeding answers to students over one or two sessions. He develops with them over time what he calls a learning arsenal to have behind them, which will help them get through their work independently. In short, he helps them discover more effective ways to learn and think.

“It is incredible to see the results, to really see the impact you’ve had. It’s why I want to go into education," he said.