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The Learning Assistance Center
As I Lived It
Frank L. Christ, Emeritus CSU
Long Beach Visiting Scholar, University of Arizona
In preparation for this presentation, I spent
some time reflecting on my 25 years of involvement with
the learning assistance movement. It seemed to me that I
could best talk about this involvement by focusing on my
experiences at CSU Long Beach where I founded and coordinated
an all- university program Learning Assistance Support System
(LASS). You can read about these early years in an article
that the JOURNALOF DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION conunissioned
when LASS was given the 1983 John Champaign Memorial Award
for Outstanding Developmental Programs, an award sponsored
by the National Association for Developmental Education
(NADE). (1).
Before I discuss some of the attitudes and
activities that I lived and that I see as critical to a
successful learning assistance support program, a brief
description of the CSULB Learning Assistance Support System
as I lived it might be appropriate.
LASS began as an outreach program of the
University Counseling Center, a department in the Student
Services Division of the university. From its very beginning,
LASS followed a systems approach that I had proposed earlier
in an article in which the phrases "learning assistance"
and learning assistance center" first appeared in the
literature. In that article, a learning assistance center
was defined as "...any place where learners, learner
data, and learning facilitators are interwoven into a sequential,
cybernetic, individualized, people-oriented system to service
all students (learners) and faculty (learning facilitators)
of any institution for whom LEARNING is important (2:39).
" That definition became the rationale for LASS.
In addition, the Learning Assistance Support
System at CSULB differed significantly from previous academic
support services by incorporating concepts and strategies
from human development, the psychology of learning, educational
technology, and corporate management into an operational
rationale specific to higher education; by functioning as
a campus-wide support system in a centralized operational
facility; by vigorously opposing any stigma that it was
" remedial" and only for inadequately prepared,
provisionally admitted, or probationary students; and by
emphasizing "management by objectives" and a cybernetic
subsystem of ongoing evaluation to elicit and use feedback
from users for constant program modification. (2). A statement
of LASS's original mission, goals, and objectives can be
found in an article written by the author for the first
volume in a Jossey-Bass series entitled NEW DIRECTIONS FOR
COLLEGE LEARNING ASSISTANCE (3).
As a comprehensive learning assistance support
system, LASS designed and implemented individualized self-paced
learning programs for class assignments, course enrichment,
academic skills improvement, and standardized test preparation.
LASS also designed and presented in-class workshops in time
management, study-reading, [35]
listening/notemaking, and examination strategies
upon invitation of interested faculty. In addition, LASS
presented each semester a seven week series of learning
skill workshops open to all students as well as personal
efficiency skills workshops for senior administrators, university
managers, faculty, and clerical staff. LASS also coordinated
university-wide tutorials, a Math Lab, a Writing Center,
and a Foreign Student Conversation Lab. LASS was also actively
involved in the university required orientation classes
where incoming students were introduced to its programs
and where students participated in a computerized diagnostic/prescriptive
study skills survey to sensitize them to their learning
strengths and potential problems.
With this background in mind, let's look
at ten attitudes and activities that LASS management and
staff lived to achieve not only a successful program at
CSU Long Beach, but a program that has had many of its innovations
and practices adapted by other postsecondary institutions.
1. THINK COMPREHENSIVE SERVICES. It is my
belief that everyone on campus can benefit from a learning
assistance center. It is my belief that every student, not
just students who are regarded as skills deficient, but
every student, regardless of class standing, grade point
average or educational background, can benefit from a learning
assistance center. It is my belief that every faculty member,
every administrator, every staff member, and every alumnus
can benefit from the programs and services of a learning
assistance center.
2. GET AND MAINTAIN ADMINISTRATION AND FACULTY
SUPPORT. Stephen Horn, President of CSU Long Beach during
my years there, was a strong advocate of the LAC. At one
faculty fall covocation, he exhorted the faculty to use
the center not only for their students but for their own
personal and professional improvement. In addition, regular,
scheduled briefings to the School Deans and presentations
at academic department meetings helped give other university
components a sense of LASS ownership. LASS also maintained
a close liaison with the University Faculty Development
Office, the Learning Resources Center, the University Testing
Office, the Computer Center, the Staff Personnel Office,
Office of Minority Affairs, and the Academic Senate.
3. BE LEARNER-CENTERED. Everyone involved
in LASS knew that the reason for its existence was service
to its learners -- not the management of a center, nor the
center's equipment and materials, nor any awards that it
might receive. All its programs and services, its resources,
and its personnel existed to assist learners to become academically
and personally more efficient and effective.
4. USE A MANAGEMENT SYSTEM..As described
earlier, LASS used Management By Objectives, adapted for
higher education by Deegan and Fritz, as its xchief management
philosophy. [4] Other systems such as Total Quality Management
could be used to achieve similar results. Key words in this
type of management are planned programs, user feedback,
accountability, and cost-effectiveness. [36]
5. KEEP RECORDS FOR PROGRAM ACCOUNTABILITY,
ANALYSIS, FEEDBACK, AND CHANGE. In the first two years of
my service at CSULB, I kept a detailed ledger of all LASS
activities and campus interactions. I reviewed this ledger
every week, every month, and at the end of each semester
to be aware of what I was doing and what results my actions
had on the program, its users and other university components.
My chief assistant, then a student assistant (later a nationally
recognized learning assistance expert and a dynamic president
of WCRLA), and I devised a data collection system to count
LASS attendance by class standing, school affiliation, gender,
program status, and ethnicity. These evaluation procedures,
as described in 1973 can still be read as an adaptable model
for learning assistance evaluation (5). A large MBO board,
constructed and displayed in the Conference and Training
Room, served as a weekly reminder of management expectations
and and as a status report on stated annual objectives .
LASS weekly staff meetings were held in the shadow of its
stated mission, goals, and objectives. For LASS staff, a
philosophy prevailed that LASS files, student logs, weekly
program statistics, and annual reports were not worth keeping
if they were not examined and used to increase program and
learner efficiency and effectiveness .
6. MAINTAIN PROGRAM VISIBILITY ON CAMPUS.
This was not a sometime activity. It was a planned campaign
to have the learning assistance program recognized by the
institution. Of the many ways that LASS used to publicize
its programs in print: brochures, bookmarks, and three-hole
punched program flyers; our experience tells us that the
least expensive and most useful were its bookmarks. Bookmarks
are generally not tossed away and can be placed in targeted
textbooks with the cooperation of the campus bookstore.
They can be handed out at presentations and inserted in
orientation packets.
Another strategy for program visibility was
making presentations on learning assistance and its programs
and services to faculty at departmental meetings, to students
at association, club, fraternity and sororiety meetings,
and to incoming students at orientation sessions. Other
strategies that LASS used included eye-catching signage
and program displays, self-guided audio tours of the LAC
(6) program descriptions not only in the major campus catalog
but also in all semester course catalogues, as well as in
faculty and staff handbooks, through spot campus radio announcements,
and sponsorship of a campus/conimunity computer club with
meetings held monthly in the LAC.
A final strategy that speaks to all of the
above and delivers authenticity to a program's attempt at
campus visibility was a LASS Publicity Scrapbook. This 14
" x 21 inch scrapbook became a permanent record week-by-week
and semester-by-semester, of actual publicity in its hundreds
of pages that contained clippings of all printed news releases,
brochures, flyers, bookmarks -- any printed matter that
mentioned LASS, its programs, its staff. For senior administrators
and VIP's visiting the center, this scrapbook itself was
publicity.
7. EXPLOIT TECHNOLOGY FOR INCREASED STUDENT
LEARNING AND FOR A MORE EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE PROGRAM.
From its beginning, LASS espoused a philosophy that placed
technology at the service of the learner. This meant [37]
giving the learner media options, previewing
material with the learner, pairing learners if possible,
having a media and a content/skill specialist available
when the learner has a question or problem, and requiring
feedback or a post-test after the learner completes a module.
8. THINK RESOURCES RATHER THAN MONEY. LASS
was no different than other learning assistance programs.
There was no line-item budget and no recognized staffing.
To overcome this fiscal challenge, LASS adopted a philosophy
that involved rethinking resources. Program materials were
acquired through library funds, reassignment of all library
progrannned texts and learning skills materials to LASS,
faculty and staff donations of course-related learning aids,
and through cooperative grant writing with other departments.
Increased staffing of 50 or more adjunct faculty annually
was made possible through the use of volunteers from the
local conununity, faculty spouses, graduate education students,
and interns. High level management consultants were bartered
for out-of-pocket expenses and exchange agreements to conduct
program and management evaluations.
9. BE A PROFESSIONAL. One of the attitudes
that prevails among postsecondary administrators and faculty
is the attitude that learning assistance and developmental
education people are not as professional as "real"
faculty and administrators. And sadly, at times it is true;
we are not as professional. We would be, however, if we
joined and actively participated in our professional associations.
Everyone of us is capable of becoming an officer in our
association if we get involved with it. Like our peers at
our institutions, we should consider presentations, publications,
community involvement, and consultancies as part of our
professional responsibilities. The LASS staff at CSULB was
actively involved in all these activities making regular
presentations at regional and national association conferences,
publishing articles and reviews in professional journals,
and consulting with postsecondary institutions on learning
assistance and with business and industry on personal efficiency
and managerial skills. If I were still active as a learning
assistance administrator today, I would include involvement
with listserves and World Wide Web sites as significant
professional responsibilities.
10. PERSIST, PERSIST, PERSIST. Credibility
and acceptance do not come innnediately to a new program,
especially a program that is not considered a traditional
academic program. Institutional change to a learning assistance
perspective must be planned carefully. One of the sources
that I found useful as I attempted to institutionalize LASS,
came from an article in a business publication. Entitled,
"Company Planning Must be Planned, " this article
helped me to avoid much of the administrative, faculty,
and student conflict that ordinarily would have occurred
as LASS introduced its programs and services. I have used
its suggestions to help me understand when and how change
was acceptable to my institution and to introduce LASS programs
and services that were academically non-traditional (1).
New administrators of learning assistance
programs may want to consider how they can begin to implement
one or more of the exhortations above. Experienced [38]
administrators might review their programs as to student,
faculty and administrative support, its learner-centeredness,
system of management, collection and use of program data,
program visibility, use of technology, staff professionality,
and finally, persistence in achieving the best possible
program for their institution.
As I lived these 25 years in the learning
assistance movement, I have enjoyed the institutional challenges
and the management crises that seem inevitable in higher
education. I am grateful to have worked with so many dedicated
students, faculty, administrators, campus staff, and alumni.
When I finally and reluctantly achieved Emeritus status,
I promised myself that I would try to stay alive in learning
assistance.
References
Besse, R.M. "Company Planning Must Be
Planned," DUN'S REVIEW, April, 1957.
Christ, Frank L. "An Audio Tour of a
University Learning Assistance Center," T.H.E. JOURNAL,
Volume 6, Number 1 (January, 1979), pp. 50-51.
Christ, Frank L. "Learning Assistance
at California State University, Long Beach, 1972-84, "
JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL EUCATION, Volume 8, Number 2, 1984,
pp. 2-5.
Christ, Frank L. "Learning Assistance
at a State University: A Cybernetic Model" in Kurt
Lauridsen (Ed.), NEW DIRECTIONS FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE:
EXAMINING THE SCOPE OF LEARNING CENTERS, No. 1. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1980, pp. 45-56.
Christ, Frank L. "Systems for Learning
Assistance: Leamers, I-&arning Facilitators, and Learning
Centers," PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
OF THE WESTERN COLLEGE READING ASSOCIATION, 1971, Volume
4, pp. 32-41.
Deegan, Arthur and R.J. Fritz, MBO GOES TO
COLLEGE. Boulder, COLO: University of Colorado, 1975. [change
to new edition bib]
Devirian, Margaret. "Data Collection:
A Cybernetic Aspect of a Learning Assistance Center PROCEEDINGS
OF THE SIXTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE WESTERN COLLEGE READING
ASSOCIATION, 1973, Volume 8, pp. 1-92. [39]
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