In the wake of lower enrollment numbers, the university during the summer closed down the Student Success Program, an academic division designed to provide remedial courses and specialized assistance to students struggling in their standard university courses. The program offered up to four credit hours in two courses, Learning Strategies and Student Success Seminar.

Provost Jeanine Varner attributed the closure of Student Success to the university’s budget cuts.

Because of Student Success’s closure, two faculty members did not not return to full-time positions: Vickie Cardot, associate director of Student Success and Hilary Walton, instructor. Cardot has continued working as an adjunct professor.

Scott Self, director of the Alpha Scholars Program and former director of Student Success, recognized the cut as “purely a financial decision.”

“The university could not afford to keep running the program with current cutbacks,” Self said.

Faculty and staff involved with Student Success were laid off in the process, Self said. However, some members were rehired in a different capacity.

The effects of the cut on students is still unknown. One Student Success class is being taught this semester.

“We don’t know the effects,” Self said. “The university is admitting fewer students who require those services. We may not have a need in the future that we had in the past for that kind of program.”

The largest class the Student Success program had in the past consisted of 172 students. This semester, only 75 students are part of the program. This drop has to do with the university recruiting more students with a higher GPA and ACT score, Self said.

“With that change in the academic rigor of students coming in, the need has gone down,” Self said.

There are several areas in which the university will make up for the loss of Student Success. Students will continue to have Alpha Academic Development, the Writing Center and departmental tutoring as means of academic aid.

“The university remains committed to ensuring that students have all of the resources needed,” Self said. “Student Success may not have been part of that.”

Aside from the Student Success faculty members let go because of the budget cuts, about 17 faculty members did not return from last year. Those departures came for various reasons, including retirement or job opportunities elsewhere.