It seems that when asked the question of “have you ever used tutoring services?” the majority of Winona State University students will answer with a swift and confident “no.” Why is this, you may ask? Jensen Drake, a second-year public relations major and advertising minor expressed her personal reason for not taking advantage of tutoring.

“[Tutoring Services] is just kind of out of my way,” Drake stated. “I have so much going on that I never really find time and also don’t know where it is.”

Tutoring Services is currently located on the second floor of the Darrell W. Krueger Library, which makes the beneficial amenity difficult to find for many students. Because of this, Tutoring Services is to be moved to the first floor with several other services sometime in the future. 

Kenneth Janz, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Library, expressed that the new plan for the first floor of the Darrell W. Krueger Library is to combine student services such as Tutoring, Teaching Learning and Technology (TLT) and the Digital Learning Center (DLC) into a unified experience for students. 

“The overall goal of the project is to create the library of the future by removing traditional barriers and opening access to the full array of resources designed to support students’ academic success,” Janz said.

The project has been an overall idea for the Darrell W. Krueger library for the past six years and is now in its earliest stages of planning and predesign. Construction would start at the earliest in 2025, and the plan is to have it completed in the fall of 2026 at the earliest. 

The Strategic Enrollment Management Plan and the On Track program have worked together in the past couple of years to improve retention, persistence and completion and to improve the intervention program to help students in academic suspension and/or probation. Tutoring Services is a huge asset to both of these plans, as using tutoring on a regular basis can decrease the number of students on warning and reduce their educational costs of retaking classes and withdrawing. 

“The focus of the On Track program is to move students from intending to use tutoring to consistently using tutoring to help them reach their academic goals,” Janz stated. “[The library remodel will be a] one-stop location for academic student services: research instruction and assistance, tutoring services, writing assistance, library services, technology assistance and exploration.”

This new learning commons and library model will be fit with experimental classrooms, general meeting and informal gathering spaces, study rooms and more ideas that are still in the works. It is set to be a welcoming and inclusive destination for students for whatever amount of time they need to spend there– whether it is a couple minutes between classes or a seven hour study session.

“There is more and more evidence that building a unified learning commons can enhance student academic support,” Janz said. “That is the goal in the end, to enhance students’ academic success.”