By Lauren Steinbok
Staff Writer
Parker McClellan took Chemistry II in the spring of his freshman year. Up until then, he had been getting good grades, despite missing out on the last couple years of high school. He got back a test that he made a “C” on and thought he could probably benefit from tutoring.
“It kind of freaked me out,” said McClellan. “I wanted to actually figure out what was going on. So, I started to get individual tutoring.”
Experts call it “the COVID generation.” Essentially, this year’s freshman class missed nearly two years of in person high school classes because of the pandemic. Now, colleges around the county, including Trevecca, are finding ways to help them catch up and succeed at the college level.
“Virtual learning was a struggle for people who are more hands-on learners like me. It made it hard to pay attention,” said McClellan.
According to an article in the New York Times entitled “The Pandemic Generation Goes to College. It Has Not Been Easy,” all of that time spent outside of the classroom is having a residual effect, negatively impacting grades and overall enrollment for current college freshmen.
At Trevecca, the number of freshmen on academic probation increased this year, and the retention of freshmen is slightly down between fall and spring semester.
“It seems that there is a larger percentage of students who struggle…test scores are lower than they used to be,” said Mark Bowles, director of academic services.
In response, the tutoring center at Trevecca has more than doubled the number of tutors available to students on campus.
“When I first started in 2020, we had 50 or so tutors on the tutor roster. I now have 103,” said Bowles. “That first semester I received less than 100 request forms. This past semester, we had right at 300 requests for tutoring.”
Students can get help even without a tutoring appointment. McClellan has used the group tutoring option for calculus and has found the group work beneficial.
“We also have help sessions on a regular basis so that students don’t have to put in a request, and they can go and receive help in subjects like math, biology and chemistry,” said Bowles.
The tutoring center offers one-on-one sessions, writing services for undergrad, graduate and non-traditional students, academic coaching and tutoring labs.
“Between the labs, and the one-on-one sessions, we had around 2,700 tutoring sessions last semester,” said Bowles.
To set up a tutoring session or find more information, use the academic services tab on Trevecca’s website.
