Student Support Services

The University of Kentucky (UK) was founded in 1865 and is the state’s land-grant institution. It has a statewide mission to serve the citizens of the Commonwealth with a special emphasis on rural/Appalachian counties. The enrollment for the 2012-13 academic year was 28,034 students, of which 20,827 are undergraduate and 7,207 are graduate/professional students. The proposed SSS project is designed to provide services to eligible undergraduate students whose academic achievements fall below that of non-eligible students. The focus will be on increasing the number of eligible students achieving their baccalaureate degrees and pursuing graduate/professional school. In addition to the normal challenges of transitioning to college, these students must face the additional and overwhelming obstacles associated with coming from counties characterized by high poverty rates, low educational attainment, and few options for broadening social/cultural experiences all of which attest to the non-cognitive concerns many have stated are barriers to graduation. The Student Support Services Program will address these barriers by utilizing services that focus on participants utilizing small group and one-one tutoring (academic coaching), oneone and group peer coaching sessions, and intrusive coaching by professional staff to address advising, academic mindsets and behaviors, and social emotional concerns. The bases of the services will be described in details in both of the competitive preferences using the following researches: Walton, G.M. and Cohen, G.L. (2011) A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331, 1447-1451; Sedlacek, W.E. (1991) Using non-cognitive variables in advising nontraditional students. NACADA Journal, 11-75-82; and Bettinger, E. and Baker, R. (2011) The effects of student coaching in college: an evaluation of a randomized experiment in student mentoring.