Department of Academic Success
Ashley Bill, Executive Director
The UT Tyler Office of Academic Success offers programs and services that are designed to improve individual performance and academic achievement through quality academic advising and peer tutoring programs. These Academic Success programs and services exist primarily to provide academic advising to freshman and sophomore level students and academic support to undergraduate students enrolled in freshman, sophomore and junior level courses.
Academic Advising
The University Advising team is dedicated to providing data, resources, leadership, and professional development to all professional academic advisors, faculty advisors, and college/departmental administration to ensure valuable academic advising is an institutional priority. The Department of Academic Success works to create an advising community that unifies academic departments and colleges and supports all undergraduate advisors, and through them, all undergraduate students.
Academic Support
Academic Support provides numerous support programs designed to enable UT Tyler students to be successful in their college careers. Our goal is to make available the tools and resources for students to become independent learners. This occurs though various programs or tools such as Supplemental Instruction, the Pass Tutoring Center, PASSages, MAPS, and Upswing.
Supplemental Instruction (SI)
Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a series of weekly peer-assisted study sessions designed to support students in courses which have consistently proven to be difficult (high failure and withdrawal rates). Many freshman and sophomore level classes, especially in the math and science areas, are among those supported through SI. The weekly study sessions are guided by an SI leader who is a current UT Tyler student and who has previously been successful in the class he/she is supporting. These leaders are given extensive training to be able to lead effective study sessions for the students they serve. The goal of every session is to focus not only on what students need to learn but also on learning the study skills that are necessary to succeed. UT Tyler students who participate regularly in SI have higher grades and course completion rates than those who do not participate. SI is a free service to UT Tyler students. Please visit us at www.uttyler.edu/si to see our complete listing of available sessions as well as the meeting days and times. For questions, please call 903-565-5549 or email supplementalinstruct@uttyler.edu.
PASS Tutoring Center
The PASS (Patriot Academic Success Services) Tutoring Center is a free walk-in tutoring center, with an individual appointment option, for current UT Tyler students. Students also have the opportunity to receive tutoring online through Zoom. The PASS Tutoring Center is located in the Muntz Library, room 401. The hours for the PASS tutoring center are posted on our website each semester (www.uttyler.edu/tutoring). Here students have access to the times when tutoring for specific subjects is available. The subject areas and courses are chosen because of their historically high failure and withdrawal rates at UT Tyler. For questions, please call 903-565-5964 or email tutoring@uttyler.edu.
PASSages Program
The PASSages program is designed to help students achieve academic success. Students enrolling with ACT/SAT scores and high school rankings below UT Tyler’s published admission criteria will be required to participate in the PASSages (Patriot Academic Success Services) program during their first semester of enrollment.
The program consists of three main components: (1) weekly seminars, (2) appointments with an Academic Advisor, and (3) a maximum course load of 12 hours. The seminar portion of PASSages is designed to provide valuable tools to aid in student success. It is a non-credit course and is considered a required part of the weekly schedule. The PASSages seminar will take priority when planning semester schedules.
If, for some reason, a student fails to get enrolled in a PASSages seminar during their initial registration appointment, they will be automatically placed in the appropriate support program’s associated course at the university’s discretion. Students in this situation will be notified through Patriot email of this addition to their schedule. Failure to participate in the required program may result in additional registration and enrollment restrictions.
Mentoring and Advising Patriots for Success (MAPS)
Probationary or suspended students who are first-time freshmen will be required to participate and must enroll in an academic support program such as Mentoring and Advising Patriots for Success in the following semester. Failure to participate in the required program(s) may result in additional registration and enrollment restrictions. First-time freshmen will need to consult with their advisor to plan an appropriate support program and to determine the steps necessary for compliance. A student who fails to comply by the deadline will be enrolled in the appropriate support program's associated course at the university’s discretion and will receive notification via Patriot email.
UpSwing
Online tutoring for undergraduate UT Tyler courses is now available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Through Upswing, an online tutoring platform, students can connect with UT Tyler peer tutors, as well as professional tutors, without having to be present on campus. Upswing services are free to currently enrolled, undergraduate UT Tyler students. For more information, please visit https://www.uttyler.edu/tutoring/online/.