Faculty in the Office of Student Educational Services are excited about the relocation to Coughlin Hall. Photo by Maryam Tunio/ [email protected]

To accommodate increased usage, the Office of Student Educational Services relocated to Coughlin Hall from the Alumni Memorial Union.

The move occurred over winter break. OSES houses the university’s academic services, Freshman Frontier Program, the tutoring program, and Urban Scholars.

“(It’s the) best thing ever for the department,” Academic Programs Coordinator Emily Bryant-Mundschau said. “Now we don’t have to worry about space, and students won’t feel crammed in study spaces.”

Karen Desotelle, director of academic services, said that although there were concerns moving to a less central area of campus, the amount of extra space the office would receive at Coughlin outweighed those concerns.

“At the AMU it was difficult with people scheduling on top of each other for the space,” Desotelle said.

Coughlin will be able to host a maximum of 23 to 25 groups of six students at a time. The tutoring program has grown from only 200 students per year when it debuted 20 years ago to more than 1,500 in fall 2015.

“It’s comfortable,” Desotelle said. “There are great glass boards for the tutors to use and less noise between each group. It’s still an open environment, but there will be less distractions between each group.”

Additional space in Coughlin also allows for a conference room shared among the different programs and a kitchen area, neither of which were available to in the previous location.

Desotelle isn’t the only one excited about the new space. The move opened up areas for the Urban Scholars Program and the FFP, a program that allows students to come during the summer and take three courses – one for credit and the other two as prep courses – along with other activities to prepare participants for college.

JohnRaé Stowers, FFP coordinator, said this space will provide study areas for students who don’t want to go elsewhere.

“Before, we didn’t have room in the AMU for many activities that we like to do,” Stowers said. “Now we have the space to do them.”

Darryle Todd, Urban Scholars coordinator, said the extra space created several extra rooms for meetings or a place where students can hang out, something that wasn’t possible with the previous area. Urban Scholars provides full tuition to first generation, low income students who demonstrate excellence in the classroom, leadership and service.

“Now these students have a space to call their home and feel comfortable,” Todd said. “It gives them an open and available space to use throughout the year.”

Todd said since most Urban Scholars students commute from home to campus daily, the new space also provides a place for mailboxes and cubbies for storing their belongings.