October 17, 2022

The Student Success Center located at Room 120 just off the Student Union is a student affairs initiative to help any student who needs support with their academics or daily life at MSM.

Vaughn Watson, Associate Director for Student Success, tells us about the initiative.

Tell us a bit about the Student Success Center.

Vaughn: The Student Success Center is a Student Affairs initiative that supports targeted student groups in their academics and daily lives both inside and outside of MSM.

Students come to Student Success in various ways. Some students register for Disability Services to receive academic accommodations. Faculty also reach out to us about students who may need more academic support. As the Student Success Center becomes more widely known, we’re starting to see a lot more walk-ins from students requesting tutoring.

Tell us about the staff that work with you; how do they work with students?

Vaughn: I have a DMA Assistant, Min Young Kwon, who is a second-year doctoral student at MSM. She works closely with me on Student Success initiatives, and she tutors writing skills. We have several other tutors in other content areas. Mallorie Mendoza tutors musical theatre dance; Francesco Pollon tutors Jazz Theory; and Georgia Lazaridou tutors piano and keyboard skills. We also have Disability Services staff. Jonah Grant works as a scribe, and Nina Pitts works as an exam proctor.

Are there any events coming up you’d like to share with us?

We recently held a first-year vocal workshop and a professional development on metacognition for the Global Conservatoire, which is the digital learning environment presented by MSM, the Royal College of Music (London), the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. This “global classroom” brings together faculty and students from the four partner institutions into asynchronous online studies.

Our next big event will be for finals week. A Student Affairs tradition is hosting programming that helps our students cope with the stress of finals and jury week. I don’t want to spoil the surprise yet, but we have something big coming this finals week!

What do you like about working with the Center?

Vaughn: As someone who struggled with the transition from high school to college, I’ve always been passionate about supporting students from at-risk groups. Creating and directing the Student Success Center allows me to build relationships with so many different kinds of students from various populations. It’s also been fun collaborating with staff and faculty to find out what gaps we have in programming at MSM and what the best solutions are to fill those gaps. I’m really excited for what the second year of the Success Center will bring!