The Electronic Writing Portfolio and the Student Success Center will lead the discussion at today’s Faculty Senate meeting.

The focus is going to be checking up on some previously implemented programs, seeing what is working, what is not and how successful the programs are, said Faculty Senate Chair John Pommier.

Faculty Senate meets at 2 p.m. today in Booth Library, Conference Room 4440.

The EWP program was updated at the beginning of the school year, which included allowing submissions of at least 750 words from any class, electronic submissions and a new remedial portion.

The remedial portion requires students who do not pass their first two submissions to get additional writing support by taking an exam and, if they do not pass, a one-credit hour class.

Pommier said after a semester of the new system, the Faculty Senate wants to evaluate it and see if any additional modifications are necessary.

Rebecca Throneburg, from the Committee for Assessment of Student Learning, and Karla Sanders, director of the Center for Academic Support and Achievement, will present the latest information on the status of the new EWP program.

“Making changes to a process is always a challenging thing,” Pommier said. “Some things work and some don’t. Now we are going to have a semester worth of information to look at and find out what worked and what didn’t.”

The other item on the agenda is the Student Success Center that came as a result of a $1.85 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education in the fall of 2007.

The Student Success Center not only helps students who have been placed on academic warning to regain good standing, but is also helpful to students already making good grades, Pommier said.

“There are students with straight-A averages that still take advantage of the program to improve their study habits and time management skills or what have you,” Pommier said. “It is a really unique program that no one else has in the country.”

Cindy Boyer, assistant director of the Student Success Center, will present some information on the effectiveness of the center and the required course for those on academic warning, called Strategies for Academic Success.

Boyer said the reason the program is unique is because not many schools have a required class, such as Strategies for Academic Success and make it count toward a students grade and GPA.

“We have seen a lot of success so far with this program and there is a big difference in the turnaround rate now than there was prior to the program being introduced,” Boyer said.

Brandy Provaznik can be reached at 581-7942 or at DENnewsdesk@gmail.com.