Borrowing from the lyrics of iconic American rapper and entrepreneur (and Beyonce’s husband), Jay Z’s hit song “Public Service Announcement,” ALLOW US TO REINTRODUCE OURSELVES: We are the CEHD Student Success Team, and we are located in the newly designed CEHD Student Success Center in suite 2200 Thompson Hall on the Fairfax campus.
For those of you who have been around the college for a while, “Student Success Team” and “Student Success Center” may sound like fairly new concepts. However, if you’re familiar with Student and Academic Affairs, aka SAA, then there’s no breaking news here!
Our mission is still the same:
We support the teaching, scholarship, and service missions of the College by onboarding new students, facilitating enrollment and retention, addressing barriers to success, adjudicating appeals and grievances, awarding scholarships, coordinating enrichment activities and celebratory events, such as the student research symposium and graduation, and providing a broad range of informational, advising, professional development, financial, and support resources.
We’ve just retooled, rebranded, and relocated.
In summer 2019, the Student Success Team accepted the offer from the dean to move down the hall to the suite most recently vacated by our Admissions colleagues in order to make way for the college to stand up the new TEACHERtrack@Mason office in suite 2300 Thompson, our previous home. Though it was bittersweet to depart our old digs and suitemates, we eventually leaned into the possibilities of what could be in our new, collaborative space. But first, the new space needed some major work to fit our needs and personalities! For starters, we needed an additional office space to fit the full team, and we needed more of an open floor concept given the collaborative nature of our team; thus, out with the cubicles and in with a new front desk workstation and a large conference table and a wall-of-whiteboards to give our ideas room to grow. We also needed color and freshness so the space would be inviting to the students who are at the heart of all we do.
Don’t get it twisted, the “new stuff” didn’t arrive the next day, or for that matter, the next year! We got played a few times and really learned what it means to have pandemic patience!
It took TWO YEARS to finally get the space right and we are ready to share it with our CEHD community, including students, faculty, and staff!
Join us on Monday, August 30 from 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm or Tuesday, August 31 from 9:00 am – 11:00 am for our official CEHD Student Success Center “Open House”. Stop by to grab a treat and some swag; check out the space; and share a few hellos and air hugs.
We are still in a pandemic, so all COVID 19 protocols will be in effect in accordance with state, local, and Mason policies.
Learn more about the CEHD Student Success Center at https://cehd.gmu.edu/saa/student-success-center/.
Dr. Ivory Berry, also known as “Dr. Get-Your-Life-Together,” is the Assistant Dean for Student Success for the College of Education and Human Development. He shares his no-nonsense wisdom every day in the Office of Student and Academic Affairs, and occasionally, here on the Student Success Blog.