As the creator and host of The CLASSroom, my mission has always been to spotlight the incredible achievements of students, staff, and faculty while fostering conversations about academic success and student wellness. This semester in Season 3 of The CLASSroom, I aimed to elevate the show's impact by turning these conversations into actionable initiatives for academic success. In each episode, I brought on student organizations, peer tutors, faculty, and staff to hear their perspectives on what they would like improved on campus and how CLASS can help support them better. The result has been incredible and has created some of our best interviews, expanded the show's reach (over 3500 views this season!), and sparked lasting relationships with various student organizations and departments on campus. It was a jam-packed season full of valuable insights, let me walk you through a full recap of Season 3!
I kicked off the season with an insightful interview with Rhea Sharma, Shaan Mody, Cindy Do, and Simarjeet Kaur of Active Minds, a student organization dedicated to mental health and wellness. Our discussion delved into mental health's crucial role in academic success and how the campus can better support students in this area. The group specifically cited fostering a sense of community as critical to raising more awareness of support resources for students, academic or otherwise. As a recent graduate myself, I resonated deeply with this conversation as academic stress and anxiety were one of the main challenges that I faced as an undergraduate student. As an undergraduate, I regularly turned to CLASS peer tutors and mentors to help navigate academic challenges and improve my studying and time management skills. Taking these measures was an essential step in placing myself in the best position to succeed academically and allowed me to create more space to address any other personal matters that needed my attention. I left this interview excited about the possibility of CLASS creating more opportunities for students to learn about the variety of incredible support offices on campus through collaborations with student organizations and various departments.!
The following week, I brought Matthew Brodsky, Justine Quitola, and Orgeyls Vasquez of the Student Government Association (SGA) on to the show. The group shed further light on how campus involvement collaboration between staff, students, and faculty is key to enhancing academic support on campus. Points of emphasis included increasing in-person communications of academic resources through tabling in the campus center and at events, creating more awareness for the challenges commuter students face, and increasing student wellness-centered events and resources.
As the season progressed, I continued to invite student organizations deeply plugged into the campus to further these conversations surrounding student engagement and academic success. I spoke with Doris Bru, Tyrone King Jr., and Trinity Miskelly of the Raptor Ambassadors, an organization of Rutgers Student Ambassadors. In the following episode, I spoke with Dameek Sumter, Francis Hill, and Jada Pulley of the B1GS E-Board, a student organization dedicated to recognizing and resolving the needs of undergraduate first-generation students on campus. Then, I spoke with Emmagrace Gerbavac, Presley Albadine, and Isabella Witting of Delta Phi Epsilon, a student sorority on campus. Throughout these episodes, themes of collaboration between departments and mental health support consistently emerged, cementing these topics as crucial areas for CLASS to focus on for the remainder of the semester and heading into 2024.
After five episodes of the show, I found myself squarely in the middle of the semester, with midterms having just passed. As a student, midterms were always such a stressful time – especially when there were assignments that I didn't perform as well as I'd hoped. So, I set out to dedicate a CLASSroom episode specifically for leveraging Progress Reports and rebounding from poor performance during Midterms. I thought who better to bring on the show than CLASS Peer Tutor Hagar Ezzo! Hagar, a math and calculus tutor, spoke with me about overcoming grade-based anxiety and applying effective time management and studying practices. We also discussed the value of Progress Reports and how to leverage individual feedback from professors!
As the semester continued on, Director of Student Academic Success Randi Mayers reached out to me, hoping to create another 1st-Gen-themed CLASSroom episode to celebrate 1st-Gen Week. Given how successful the episode with B1GS went, I was excited to take on the task and learn more about the first-gen perspective. In fitting fashion for the Week, we pulled off the biggest episode of The CLASSroom EVER with 3 rounds of interviews! First, I spoke with students Nicoletta Troilo, Shaion Brown, and Alexander Ray, then with Rashein Chandler and Paris Correa, and then with Professor Silvia Perez-Cortes, a first-generation professor. I learned that for 1st-gen students, building community is especially critical as they enter college with no prior frame of reference of how it will go. Creating a sense of community of like-minded, supportive faculty, staff, and students helps them know where to go when they need help and who to turn to when that time arises. Prof. Perez-Cortes even spoke of seeing an increase in tutoring performance "100% of the time" when students come to CLASS to receive academic support. It was incredibly rewarding hearing from a faculty member that we're truly making a difference, and our conversation left me excited about where things were headed going forward.
Following the 1st-Gen Special Edition CLASSroom Episode, we transitioned to a STEM-themed episode featuring CLASS Peer Tutors Leyna Nguyen and Aiman Nadeem from the RUC STEM Olympiads. This dynamic student organization strives to extend STEM education beyond the classroom, organizing events and initiatives focused on experiential learning. Leyna and Aiman shared insights into the annual STEM Olympiad Event, a unique competition where STEM majors spend a year training for fun, interactive STEM challenges. This event provides students with hands-on experience and fosters a sense of camaraderie among STEM enthusiasts. The Olympiads also host study break events with drop-in tutoring from CLASS peer tutors available, creating relaxed environments for students to study together.
After this episode, I continued the STEM theme with an episode featuring biology professor, MARC founder, and Driving Change Director Dr. Kwangwon Lee. Dr. Lee shared insights into the Driving Change initiative, a grant awarded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This multi-institution program aims to connect research universities working towards building inclusive learning environments for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students.
Driven by a team of faculty, staff, and students, the Driving Change initiative seeks to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM programs at Rutgers Camden. Dr. Lee emphasized students' crucial role in effecting systemic change within STEM education. Including students in the initiative is a model example of how collaboration between faculty, students, and staff can positively impact the academic success and empowerment of students, particularly the high number of 1st generation students on campus.Further discussing the MARC undergraduate research program, Dr. Lee highlighted the significance of direct student mentorship provided by professors in his lab. This hands-on research opportunity allows students to explore STEM research programs of interest, underlining the belief that experiential learning is a key factor in academic success.
In essence, the RUC STEM Olympiads and Driving Change initiatives underscored the importance of fostering a collaborative, experiential learning environment in STEM fields. These conversations showcased the exciting opportunities available to students and highlighted the vital role of collaboration in creating an inclusive academic landscape.
After a season of conversations centered around building community through student engagement, experiential opportunities, and collaborations, I decided who better to finish off the season than Zac Lomas, RUC WCCR Advisor, and Program Coordinator for the Office of Student Involvement! As program coordinator for OSI, Zac plays a crucial role in advising and managing all student organizations on campus and is passionate about keeping students involved and engaged on campus. In our conversation, he shared his experience of involvement in student organizations, providing him leadership opportunities and increased his desire to stay on campus. He grew more familiar with other undergraduate students and professors by increasing a sense of belonging on campus, which provided him more awareness of academic support and resources. We spoke at length about how CLASS and other support offices on campus can encourage this kind of belonging on campus, specifically by supporting student organizations by attending their events and communicating to their members the academic support we can provide to make their undergraduate experience smoother. This interview was the perfect note to end on; it nicely wrapped up the themes of engagement and community that I heard from every guest who came to the show this season.
With 10 more episodes of The CLASSroom in the books, I can happily say that the show is better than ever. For the first time since the show's inception, CLASS has genuinely been able to start the process of taking The CLASSroom beyond the studio! This semester saw our involvement in multiple Active Minds events, the hosting of a Creative Writing workshop on campus, a collaboration with OSDFA and TRiO for an Open Mic Night, providing drop-in peer tutoring to the RUC STEM Olympiads study hour, hosting a special edition 1st-Gen episode for 1st-Gen Week, and many more more minor activities throughout each week!
I want to thank every guest who came to the show and WCCR for continuing to be an incredible station and platform for these conversations. Heading into the Spring semester, we're incredibly excited to build on the relationships we've created with those who came on the show this semester and to continue developing initiatives that improve academic support on campus. Season 4 of the CLASSroom is going to be even better and I can't wait to see where it goes!
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