Academic Success
The Academic Success Department strives to help students at Philander Smith College get the most from their college experience. In order to accomplish this, the department provides a number of services, both for students and for their teachers.
Ultimately, responsibility for college success rests with the students themselves. And credit for their accomplishments is theirs alone, as well. But there is more to the college experience than just academics—and much of this can get in the way of academic progress. This is where Academic Success comes in.
FOR STUDENTS, we offer a quiet study space and a team of specialized tutors who provide helpful workshops, in addition to offering one-on-one assistance with homework. Our department offers developmental-level courses in math, English, and college reading. Peer tutors are on hand all day and into the early evening to help with assignments in any college course. Our Summer Enrichment Program helps under-prepared students to be ready for the rigors of college study.
>>STUDENTS: TO CALCULATE YOUR GPA click here.
FOR INSTRUCTORS, our department offers a unique service: when you observe problems with individual students, such as poor attendance or repeated failure to turn in assignments, contact us through our fast and easy Early Alert System. We, then, will contact the students to try to arrange tutoring, counseling, or any other services that seem needed. Our records provide proof that the instructor and the institution are doing all we can to help students get focused and stay successful throughout their education.
COME SEE US! We are located conveniently in the PE building-Room 102. Come see us for any assistance that will help you survive college. When you need a break from your studies, you can just go across the hall and shoot some hoops for a few minutes in the gym.
Staff
Carla Wood
Director, Academic Success Center/Retention Czar
cwood@philander.edu
(501) 370-5255 :TEL
James Steed
English Instructor & Academic Success Coach
jsteed@philander.edu
As the instructor of Developmental English, James Steed uses his broad knowledge of literature and writing to help students discover their own individual writing voice. He believes that only when writing is truly “owned” does it becomes something students enjoy and feel confident about. When students realize the importance of their own voice, that their thoughts can make a difference, they become empowered as citizens and as individuals. Mr. Steed also serves as the Academic Success Coach.
With extensive training and experience in the field, Mr. Steed holds a master's degree in professional and technical writing in addition to a master's in secondary education. His B.A. is in English. He has been a presenter at some of the largest cultural and educational conferences in the world, including the 2008 Popular Culture Conference where he spoke on Screenplay Writing in the Composition Classroom. He presented at the 2009 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) on the topic Comp Class with Dragons: Assigning Personal Narratives in the form of Myth and Legend. The winner of numerous awards for his short stories and literary essays, he has written a children's picture book, American Cowpersons,a novel, Broken Antler, and is currently working on a biography of Carl Sweezy, the Arapaho artist.
Mr. Steed was the 2009 English instructor at Envision U, a summer arts camp funded by the Rockefeller Institute where he taught an intensive one-week workshop on screenplay writing.
A few of his works:
Night of the Living Possum
A Chain Gang in Toyland
The Case of the Pressed Daffodil
Junk, the Musical