Success Program to unveil new digs at open house

A small house with a big heart will open its doors to welcome

the Boise State community, Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at an

open house to celebrate the long-awaited new home of the Student

Success Program.

The original home of the Student Success Program consisted of

several little red houses where the new parking garage stands. For

the past five years the program has been with out a permanent

home.

Last year, the brick and mortar house on 1885 University Drive

became available as a new home. “We never had such an offer

ever before, in terms of getting a space and getting to like, make

it fit what we want it to do,” Greg Martinez Student Success

Program Director said. The only drawback was the lack of a real

kitchen, Martinez joked.

“When I first started the program we had nothing,”

Martinez said. The students were sharing one 1993-era Macintosh.

“It was just totally funny cause now we’re completely

different,” he said.

Better funding in the past couple of years has translated into

technology upgrades; better pay for tutors and a little extra money

for scholarships. “In all respects our program is just

… so much better than it was than even five or six years

ago.”

While the Student Success Program is better known than it used

to be, Martinez still gets the occasional student who has never

heard of the program. “The fact of it is that we don’t

really do a massive kind of ‘spread the word’ about our

program across campus,” Martinez said.

Enough students who qualify manage to find out about the program

with out a lot of advertising.

“Coming here I really wanted to create a really homey

space, that’s one thing we’ve always been pretty good

at,” Martinez said. “The staff makes the time to talk

and develop relationships with the students. That type of

atmosphere builds a social support network.”

Students benefit in their own personal ways, but the benefits

are many. “I think the greatest benefit would be that if

somebody just says, and I think many would say, they wouldn’t

have graduated had they not been in the program,” Martinez

said.

The Student Success Program is part of the Federal Trio Program,

designed to assist disadvantaged students overcome the barriers to

higher education. The Trio Program helps organize funding and keeps

the politics going in Washington D.C., said Martinez. The Student

Success Program and others like it across the nation focus on

keeping students in college once they get there.

The program provides a variety of services designed to help

students say in school including tutoring, educational counseling,

services for students with learning disabilities and career

counseling. “The kind of value that students get in our

program is that it’s very one on one, if you want one on one

services, you get it in our program,” Martinez said.

Students must prove they have need for academic support as well

as meet the guidelines for admission. If all of those criteria are

meet then applicants are interviewed on a one on one basis. With

only 180 seats in the program Martinez admits he has to turn down

students.

Monica Price
News Reporter
The Arbiter

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