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Student Services Enhancement Initiative to impact ALL Penn State students

By Andy Elder, Student Affairs Writer

A Student Affairs initiative to use new funding to enhance and support student services across the University has already made strides to enhance the quality of student life at all 19 Commonwealth campuses and University Park.

And its work is not yet complete.

The Student Services Enhancement Initiative (SSEI), which started in May of 2004, was based on models of practice established in Residence Life, Judicial Affairs and Career Services. The plan called for new staff to expand the ability to provide centralized support for student affairs functions at all Penn State campuses. Some of the areas targeted included: career services, health and wellness education, counseling, judicial affairs, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and ally services and general student affairs support functions.

In response to the initiative, the Student Services Enhancement Task Force was created and charged with the task of refining plans to maximize new resources, commitment and support for enhancing student services at the Commonwealth campuses.

"The SSE Task Force is the umbrella to all of it," said Andrea Dowhower, the Director of Student Affairs Research and Assessment. "This group received a charge to advise Vice President Vicky Triponey on how some new funding could be best used, primarily to enhance services at campuses."

Dowhower identified three new staff members who have been added at University Park to help coordinate areas of emphasis:

1. Joe Puzycki, Senior Director of Judical Affairs: Puzycki is a person who spends much of his time at campuses, conducting training for judicial boards, consulting on complicated cases and participating in hearings, if that's what the campus needs.
2. Cammie Ressler, Assistant Director, Commonwealth College at Career Services: Ressler assists campuses in their provision of career services needs.
3. Andrea Gregg, Student Affairs Instructional Designer creates online resources and online learning modules, such as a resume-building workshop.
4. Michael Gilbert, Assistant Vice President for Campus Student Services, who is overseeing the project and championing the cause for the campuses.

"The task force is a group of Student Affairs staff from University Park and staff from various campuses in the Penn State system. I'm the convener of this group," Gilbert said. "The committee is comprised of eight University Park staff and six senior student affairs staff from various campuses. The goal is not for University Park to decide what's best for the campuses but to enhance the delivery of that service."

Now that these positions have been created, the group has paused to assess and identify further needs, examining the Student Service Inventory. The SSI was an exhaustive survey that requested input from the campuses to measure which specific areas the campuses felt were a priority to improve.

"Before we made other decisions, we wanted to stop and conduct a study to see where our services were," Dowhower said. "I coordinated a benchmark study to evaluate services across the 19 campuses in areas such as staffing, reporting lines and types of services. We asked the campuses to tell us where they saw their greatest needs."

Gilbert said the group will be meeting soon to establish priorities and goals for the year ahead.

"The purpose of the meetings will be to clarify what has been accomplished to date and also spend time examining findings gleaned from the assessment. We want to make sure we understand the realities of student life. By the end of the fall, we hope to establish a set of recommendations for Vice President (Vicky) Triponey," Gilbert said.

The group has already identified better avenues to pursue.

"Some of the remaining funds were originally targeted toward things the task force wasn't convinced are a priority," Dowhower said. "We think there are more decisions to be made than on just the funding. We want to identify ways to reallocate and share resources and technology and how to share staffing across campuses that are close together. We want to leverage resources to provide consistent services across the university."

And Gilbert, who is heading up the task force, assured the process will truly be a group effort.

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