When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go to the Learning Resources Center
By Professor Christopher Hartley
I am grateful for the full support of everybody who works in the Learning Resources Center. Without their help, I could never have finished my projects on time.
--Tyng Hoi, A.A.S., B.B.A. Class of 2011
Plaza students are some of the most resourceful and remarkable in the country. Not only do they successfully balance hectic work and home lives, but they also somehow find time to complete the challenging coursework their classes demand. Our students don’t always do it alone, though. For many of them, when the going gets particularly difficult, they turn to Plaza College’s not-so-secret weapon: the Learning Resources Center.
Begun in the late 1990s by Carol Napolitano, the Learning Resources Center of the past was considerably different from the one our students are familiar with today. To begin with, back then the LRC had a grand total of zero computers and featured only a single tutor (Ms. Napolitano herself). Since then, the Learning Resources Center has grown by leaps and bounds to become the state-of-the-art tutoring center it is today: the LRC currently features eight computers equipped with LCD monitors and all of the latest software, a fifty inch flat-screen television, and, most importantly, a rotating staff of between twenty and thirty tutors every semester. This year the LRC was pleased to welcome Richard Melara and Elizabeth Hicks to its staff, both of whom have already become a success with the students. (Mr. Melara is a graduate of Plaza’s Associate’s and Bachelor’s programs and was a familiar presence in the LRC long before he became a tutor there.)
Since 2009, the Learning Resources Center has been ably run by its director, Kathleen D’Aprix, with assistance from the center’s academic leader, Christopher Hartley. Together, they have been responsible for many of the useful initiatives and programs that help our students succeed on a day-to-day basis, including the Academic Honesty and MLA workshops, the grammar and rhetoric study groups, and many others. The center is also the source for many helpful study guides and handouts, covering everything from resumes and cover letters to Works Cited pages and in-text citations. Whether students need to take a test, receive help from a tutor, or simply find a quiet place to study, they can find whatever they need in the LRC. As Stephanie Zouain, another Associate’s alumnus and a recent graduate of the B.B.A. program, noted about the center, “For anything that I needed extra assistance with, I knew where to go and whom to get help from…doing homework in my free time in the LRC helped me to concentrate as no one bothered me and I could therefore come up with better results.”
The Learning Resources Center is not only a rewarding place for students, though. Many of the tutors also find a great deal of satisfaction helping students who are in need of their assistance. This is certainly true of Asmaa Abbas, a third-semester Plaza student and one of the center’s newest and most promising tutors: “I found it an extraordinary experience working with students from different semesters,” she explained. “The most rewarding experience was when they would come back and tell me how well their assignment or research project worked out.” These thoughts are echoed by Ms. D’Aprix herself. Although the library, GED, and Compass testing all keep her very busy, Ms. D’Aprix thinks of her time spent assisting students in the LRC as “the very best part of my job.”
As the Learning Resources Center continues to grow and change, who can say what it will resemble in another ten years from now? Only one thing is certain: as long as there is a Learning Resources Center at Plaza College, there will be a place where students are welcome and where they will find a dedicated team of tutors waiting to assist them!
