Overview
Research suggests that students who build strong relationships with their professors and utilize campus resources report a more satisfying college experience and are more likely to succeed academically (Light, 2001). This interactive session will challenge you to think about the relationship with your institution as a friendship. Like the beginning of most new friendships, you are likely facing some unknowns; however, you do not have to face these uncertainties alone. “Making friends” with campus resources, departments, professors, and programs that support students inside and outside the classroom will help you take charge of academic uncertainties and the feelings that go along with them. This workshop will help you strengthen your relationship with your professors and your institution, and confront those academic uncertainties.
holds an Ed.M. in Counseling and an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching from Boston University. Laurie's experience with academic support began as a graduate student at Boston University and later as a reading and writing specialist in an innovative, team structured learning assistance program at Boston University. For two years, Laurie served as the Director of Academic Support Services at Becker College, a department which housed advising services for at-risk students, learning assistance programs, and tutoring services.< /span>
Laurie has been the Director of the Academic Center for Excellence and Writing Center at Bryant University for the last nine years. Laurie has been teaching and designing curricula for first-year experience and study skills courses for the last seventeen years. She has taught courses in college reading and study skills, liberal arts seminars, psychology, personality psychology, abnormal psychology, and social psychology. Her area of expertise is the personality traits and attitudes of college students that influence academic achievement and mediate the utilization of newly learned study strategies.
Laurie is a New England Peer Tutor Association Board member and has hosted their Annual Forum at her institution. She has presented at national conferences such as the First Year Experience and Students in Transition, the Conference on College Composition and the College Reading and Learning Association.
Laurie co-authored a text entitled Foundations for Learning designed for study skills and first-year experience courses. Laurie has done extensive work writing about and assessing the effectiveness of learning assistance programs and FYE courses. She has been a Guest Editorial Board member for the Learning Assistance Review. Publications by Laurie and her co-author include: Exploring the Evidence, Volume III: Reporting Outcomes of First-Year Seminars, a monograph published by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and "What Does It Mean to be 'College-Ready'?", an article which appears in Connection: The Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education.
Laurie, an award winning educator, was recently selected by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition as a top ten Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate. In 2006, she also received the Learning Assistance Association of New England’s Outstanding Research and Publication Award.
