When renovations at the Calvin T. Ryan Library are complete, the second floor will become home to the Loper Success Hub. The Hub will house services meant to help students find support and academic success all in one place.
George Holman, associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs, said the Hub will be a place for students to find assistance with anything.
“We’re trying to build a place where students can connect,” Holman said. “If you’re a student and you’re feeling like, ‘I need something,’ even if you don’t know what that something is, this is a place for you to go. A lot of our academic support is there but we really want to wrap students up in kind of a support blanket to help them be successful here at UNK.”
The Loper Success Hub will unify the services of Academic Advising and Career Services, Success Coaching, Academic Success, Disability Services, TRIO-Student Support Services and the Learning Commons. Holman said the offices already work hand-in-hand to find ways to help students be successful, but the Hub will bring them closer together and allow easier collaboration.
If a student visits one service, they can be walked across the hall instead of being referred to an office across campus.
“We’re all right there together so those referrals will be more like direct handoffs,” said Aaron Estes, director of Academic Success. “We’re just gonna walk you to this office and this person, like this question that we’re struggling with, this person can help with that. We’ll have holistic support but also on an individualized basis. As we get to know students and what their needs are, we can connect them to various things within the Success Hub but also outside of the Success Hub that can help with their individual concerns.”
Holman said the library renovation’s budget didn’t initially have room for the Hub. As the library project developed and came in under budget, the Hub became a reality.
The Hub is meant to help both students and the academic services.
“The Loper Success Hub creates an opportunity for collaboration and creativity,” said Patrick Hargon, director of the Learning Commons. “All of our services are going to become more effective because we’ve got each other to bounce ideas off of all the time.”
Plans are still being finalized for the Hub, but it’s set to open in the fall semester. Holman said the plan is to launch with a ribbon cutting to help students know where the Hub is and feel comfortable visiting it.
The student-focused environment is designed to help with student retention as well.
“What we really want is students to graduate, and this is a big step to get us toward getting more students to graduate,” Holman said. “This is a step and I think it’s going to create a lot of opportunities that we haven’t even realized yet for student success.”
