Penn State Harrisburg Advising Center aims to support student-athletes

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - A new initiative from the Lambert Undergraduate Advising Center at Penn State Harrisburg aims to make sure new student-athletes have the support they need as they transition into their first year of college.

"Student-athletes face the same challenges as a typical student," said Donna Griffith, adviser for student-athletes with the Lambert Undergraduate Advising Center. "Nothing is different academically, but what the student-athlete faces that other students don't typically face is the time crunch."

Student-athletes have little control over their time each day, she said, and are faced with accomplishing their student responsibilities as well as responsibilities to their team and Penn State.

Griffith has been working for the Advising Center for about three years and last spring, she took on the newly created role focused on student athletes. Most of her advisees are first-year student athletes, she said, and she also acts as a liaison with the athletics department as they work out the best ways to support student-athletes.

This fall, Griffith partnered with fellow professional advisers and the Russell E. Horn Sr. Learning Center to begin holding Academic Success Pods with first-year men's and women's basketball players.

The series of five events aimed to provide the student-athletes with support that they may not have time to seek out on their own - support other students can obtain during the day, but that athletes sometimes have difficulty squeezing in between classes, practices and traveling to games.

Topics included decoding a syllabus and the "unwritten curriculum" of college with the Advising Center, academic success skills with the Russell E. Horn Sr. Learning Center academic success coordinator, health and mental wellness with Counseling and Psychological Services/Health Services, and professional career skills with Career Services.

Men's basketball player Andre Thomas, a first-year student majoring in cybersecurity analytics and operations, said the academic success pods helped the students learn about people on campus who are there to help them, which he said was a big relief.

"I feel that it really helps you get a background of things that happen on campus, connects you with people," he said, adding that it helped to have their adviser - Griffith - at every one of the sessions. "So, you know your adviser cares as well."

Griffith said that building trust with advisees is one of the benefits of the sessions.

She doesn't want students to think something has to be wrong for them to come talk to their academic adviser. Data shows that students who don't have a relationship with their adviser or don't ask for help when they need it are the ones who struggle later.

"From my perspective, (the success pod initiative) was very successful, because they visit me frequently," Griffith said.

Amelia Hemler, a first-year student majoring in communication sciences and disorders and a women's basketball player, said starting college can be stressful, especially with the added element of athletics. The success pods helped her get information she might have otherwise missed because there's so much going on.

"I liked that it was a structured thing of having to sit down and pay attention to something that was very useful information," Hemler said, adding that she's already used information she learned.

Hemler said that when the semester started, she thought it would be easy to manage everything - especially since she was an athlete in high school. But as basketball season approached it seemed more daunting to manage classes, intense practices, additional workouts and more.

"These meetings were just helpful to kind of have a structured time to say 'hey, everything is going to be OK and there are people that are willing to help you,'" she said.

There's hope the success pods will expand to more student-athletes in the future.

"We're happy to work with the advising team to ensure our student-athletes receive the support they need, both in academics and in their sport," said Rahsaan Carlton, director of athletics. "The Academic Success Pods are an important way to help new student-athletes get off to a great start in their college careers. We are hoping to build upon this pilot program in the future to eventually include all varsity athletic programs."

Griffith said she was fortunate to have the support of the athletics department, including the men's and women's basketball coaches Don Friday and Ross Patrick, as well as the faculty athletic mentors, Roderick Lee and Jody Salsman.

"It's a team approach, just like athletics," Griffith said.