This story originally appeared in the 2016 issue of Arising, the Research Journal of Savannah State University.
Story by Amy Pine. Photography by Hon Low.
When Aaron Johnson first arrived at Savannah State University in 2012, the Augusta, Ga., native was overwhelmed. While juggling his classes was easy in high school, Johnson struggled to manage his new schedule. One day during his sophomore year, a professor told him about Student Support Services, a program on campus designed to help students succeed academically. Today Johnson is excelling in his classes, tutors fellow Student Support Services participants in his spare time and will graduate in December with a bachelor of science degree in biology with a concentration in secondary education.
Student Support Services was started by the U.S. government in 1968 to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The program is part of TRiO, a group of federal outreach and student services programs designed to help students progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to college and beyond. Savannah State offers three TRiO programs on campus: Student Support Services, Upward Bound and Educational Talent Search.
Student Support Services has been operating at Savannah State University since 1992. Today, the U.S. Department of Education-funded program assists 175 students on campus, facilitating student success by providing services that promote academic excellence, degree program selection and completion, financial and economic literacy, cultural competence, and graduate and professional program application and enrollment. In 2015, Savannah State received more than $1.4 million to continue the program through 2020.
“Our goal is to provide students with the support they need to help them matriculate and graduate,” says Gary Guillory, Ed.D., director of Student Support Services on the Savannah State campus.
SSU’s Student Support Services office serves students who are from low-income backgrounds, first-generation college students or those with disabilities. All of the students must demonstrate the need for academic support.
Once in the program, students attend workshops on an array of topics such as time management, engage with faculty during critical thinking and discussion hours, receive academic advisement and tutoring, attend sessions on financial planning, and learn about graduate programs and the application process.
Student Support Services participants also have access to the Center for Success, a comfortable space in Whiting Hall where students can go to study, have access to resources and receive tutoring services. The space has served as a home away from home for Johnson, who has spent countless hours in the center attending workshops and studying.
“Student Support Services gave me somewhere outside of the library where I could do my work comfortably,” Johnson says. “It also gave me an environment of like-minded people. Everyone is doing homework or working on a project or assignment or doing something business-wise or just trying to do better.”
Johnson excelled in Student Support Services and today serves as one of the program’s three student success coaches, tutoring classmates and guiding them in other aspects of college life.
Guillory says that the peer-to-peer coaching is one of the many reasons why Student Support Services has continued to succeed on the Savannah State campus. Based on recent statistics, 90 percent of students who utilized Student Support Services during the 2014-15 academic year were in good academic standing at the end of the year, and 76 percent of students re-enrolled in the university for the Fall 2015 semester.
“We serve students who are coming out of foster care, many of our students are coming from disadvantaged circumstances [facing] housing insecurity and food insecurity, some have experienced horrific violence in their lives,” says Guillory, who is assisted by a staff that includes Assistant Director Tameka McDaniel, Coordinator of Tutorial and Computer Services Lottie Scott, and Programming Specialist Desiree Johnson. “The program is very successful, even though students are coming from those very difficult backgrounds to achieve their college goals.”
For Shermia Fluker, a junior political science major from Augusta, Ga., Student Support Services has helped guide her on the path to graduate school and a professional career. “I have taken advantage of the free workshops for example [on topics such as] financial aid assistance, critiquing your resume and learning how to pay back student loans,” says Fluker, who has used Student Support Services grant aid money to help pay for school.
Fluker and Johnson are two of many Student Support Services success stories. Program participants in recent years include Jordan Riles-Ogden, Miss Savannah State University 2010-11 who now works as a career development specialist at SSU, and Brittany Bush, an honor graduate who received the university’s prestigious President’s Second Mile Award in May 2015.
“Student Support Services helps students to realize their college success goals, and in doing so, we’re helping to change lives,” Guillory says. “We’re helping students build confidence in their future careers, in their personal and professional lives. We’re helping to produce productive citizens who will advance this democracy of ours.”
