On Thursday, October 2 nd , 2003, in Chicago, Illinois, Baruch College's Student Academic consulting Center received the "Frank L. Christ Outstanding Learning Center Award" for four-year institutions from the National College Learning Center Association at their eighteenth annual conference entitled "Creating Building Blocks for Student Success."  

NCLCA, which was created in 1985, is the only association in the United States and Canada solely dedicated to supporting learning assistance practitioners as they develop and maintain learning centers, programs, and services that enhance student learning at the post-secondary level.   Currently the membership of two and four year institutions rests at just under two hundred.   Among the members are the learning assistance programs at University of Wisconsin, Indiana Purdue University, University of Arizona, Miami University, Ohio, the US Military Academy at West Point, Texas A&M, and the University of North Carolina.

The award has been named in recognition of Frank Christ for his extraordinary contributions and continued commitment over the past twenty-five years to the mission of learning assistance centers nationally.   Frank Christ is Emeritus CSU Long Beach, CA.   He is a visiting scholar at the University of Arizona and an adjunct professor of Educational Leadership at Grambling University where he teaches on-line graduate courses on learning support centers education.  

SACC was awarded this prestigious award for demonstrating a sustained commitment to academic excellence by providing academic support services to its undergraduate student body.   The peer tutoring program, which attained national certification in 2002 from the College Reading and Learning Association, also demonstrated that their training program was rigorous and comprehensive.   All tutors receive extensive, cross-training in areas such as cultural awareness, learning styles, plagiarism, communication skills and self-assessment.

Of the College's 12,000 students, SACC's 100 tutors, adjunct faculty, and staff annually supports over 5,000 students by providing over 21,000 hours of tutoring, workshops, and supplemental instruction.   In addition to traditional methods of service learning, SACC makes available to students instructional software to further assist those who are still in the process of learning the English language at a college level.    Resources are available for student use: instructional video-tapes, books, and graphing calculators.   To track the SACC Operation, Nidzaida Garcia, the technology supervisor, designed and implemented a highly sophisticated tracking system that allows office staff to generate reports effortlessly.

Carol Morgan, SACC's director, said "I am ecstatic that our hard-working tutors and staff have received such a prestigious award.   Truly, it is a well-deserved honor.   I believe this acknowledgement helps confirm that Baruchians receive a first-rate education.   Our tutors are obviously very bright, but they're also dedicated and committed to giving something back, and they do so in a highly professional manner.   It's an honor to work with them on a daily basis."    NCLCA has asked Ms. Morgan to present SACC's outstanding program at next year's conference in Baltimore, Maryland.   "Sharing the knowledge is the reason why I've dedicated my life to education," says Morgan.   "I'm looking forward to the opportunity and intend to bring a few tutors with me.   They're much better speakers than I am."

For more information, visit SACC's website at: www.baruch.cuny.edu/sacc