ASU works to clear confusion
By Jonathan Bermudez
Vice president of liberal arts and science Ruben Arenas and ASU members met to clear up confusion surrounding tutoring on campus.
President of ASU, Brian Han, and Vice President of Finance at ASU, Amber Arias, spoke to Arenas about concerns of students no longer having access to tutoring.
Han asked why there was a sudden change and how will students get access to tutoring.
Arenas said that the loss of tutoring was incorrect.
Arenas said the reason for why there would be no more one-on-one tutoring in the learning center is because of more funding and an increase in the number of tutors.
He said the timing wasn’t perfect but he is trying to fix it by asking faculty to share more information about services.
Arenas invited Han and Arias to visit the math center and the writing center.
When they visited the math center, they asked instructor assistant Eddie Hidalgo questions about the math center and its services.
Hidalgo said they had one-on-one appointments and book rental programs for statistics books and math 125 books, but the center had a shortage of pre-calculus and calculus textbooks.
Hidalgo plans to change appointment times in order to support all the new students coming from the learning center.
He said the math center had not been doing a good job letting the public know about their services but, they plan to do better.
He also said that during tight periods, they have up to seven tutors but plan to hire more.
Maria Acosta, a learning skills center instructor said that the Writing Center has 30 to 45 minute sessions, online booking, one-and-a-half-hour workshops for MLA format, grammar, thesis statement, in-class tutoring, group tutoring and unlimited computer use.
She said that there are long wait times for walk-ins, but that the center plans to fix that.
Han asked Acosta about how they will support DSP&S (Disable Student Program and Services) students and she said that they had very qualified tutors that help students with special needs.
She also showed that the writing center had more than enough tutors to help students.
Arenas said that with the new budget, the math and Writing Center will be able to provide more services to students.
Arenas said that the tutor funding had increased from $1,074,265 last year to $1,494,756 this year.
“This is the most the college has ever spent and we are excited to do this,” Arenas said.
With the new budget, Arenas plans to fund tutoring for other subjects such as anatomy and physiology.
He said that tutoring was not going away, since it is a state law to help community college students to get help with subjects in entering their first year of school.
This law is called AB 705 and all community colleges in California must follow it.
Arenas is aware of the confusion when it comes to tutoring and wants to ensure students will be helped.