Information

  • Working with Students in Academic Difficulty

    At the end of every fall semester the Honors Program gathers a list of first year students who earned less than a 3.0 GPA. Traditionally these students are sent an e-mail expressing concern and listing resources. The students’ advisors and UNIV instructors are also sent e-mails to make them aware that these are students who could benefit from some extra support.

    This year Kaitlin Heenehan, STEM Scholar Advisor, Christie Soltys, Honors Program Graduate Intern, and Jess Hoffmann, Assistant Director, are beefing up Honors’ efforts to assist these students. The fall e-mail included an Academic Self-Assessment that all students were asked to fill out. (This form is available in the Honors Advisor Toolbox for your reference in case a student asks you about it or in case you have a student who you feel might benefit from some reflection.) Students who earned less than a 2.5 were asked to fill this out and bring it to a meeting with Kaitlin, Christie, or Jess. All of the first years with less than a 3.0 were strongly encouraged to attend a newly created series of four workshops.

    The Academic Reflection workshop on January 20 provided students with a place to work on and discuss their Self-Assessments. They created a product to take home to remind them of their goals, but more importantly, as a function of their conversations they found a peer support network. On February 24 and March 3 there will be workshops open to the entire Honors population, the former about asking for help and the latter about stress and perfectionism strategies. In March we will also be holding a midterm check-in workshop. The objective of these efforts is to encourage students to set goals and create action plans as well as make them aware of resources in order to increase their chances of reaching the minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA required to avoid dismissal from the Honors Program this summer.

     

     

    For more information, contact: Jess Hoffmann at jessamy.hoffmann@uconn.edu

If you have any questions, please contact Anne Kim at 860-486-2998.