Audra Frady, Campus Carrier Staff Reporter
Berry College recently hired a new director of academic support services, Wilma Maynard. Maynard began her new position as Academic Support Center (ASC) director in January when spring classes resumed.
Maynard has a long history in the education field, with 37 years of experience. She began her career in deaf education and later earned a master’s degree in speech language pathology. For the past 17 years, Maynard worked at Georgia Highlands College as a disability support provider before she took her new position at Berry.
Last December, Martha Van Cise retired as acting director of the Academic Support Center (ASC). Senior Brandi Tyson worked with Martha Van Cise in the ASC and said that she could “write novels” about the work that Van Cise contributed to the students and to the Academic Support Center.
Van Cise came back to Berry at the beginning of the spring semester to train Maynard for two weeks.
Associate provost Andrew Bressette said Van Cise left big shoes to fill but that Maynard has an “extraordinary wealth of experience with working with students” and that is “very student centered.”
Bressette also said Maynard understands the students and knows what they need to raise them to a level of success, and that these integral qualities were important in the search and hiring process of a new director.
With a shift in leadership, it is important to reevaluate the program to see if there are any issues that need to be addressed or given a facelift. Bressette said a really important question to always ask is, “How are we doing? Are we meeting student needs?”
One area that Bressette would like to pay particular attention to is tutoring services. He said anecdotal evidence shows that the tutoring program is successful, but it does not answer how. The ASC needs more research to understand why and how the tutoring program works, especially since many of the tutors have minimal to no training.
Bressette hopes the ASC’s tutoring program can look to the Writing Center as an example to replicate. The Writing Center’s student staff goes through an intensive training process, and Bressette said a similar training procedure would be beneficial to students and student tutors who work with the ASC as well.
Maynard said she feels that she is too new to step in and begin making changes because she prefers to look at the situation and, in time, implement changes that are warranted and will strengthen the overall program.
“I have stayed busy since I began at Berry and have not had a great deal of time to become familiar with the staff and faculty,” Maynard said. “The weather has played a part in limiting my ability to get out and learn the campus as well as I would have liked to do.”
However, Maynard does feel like it will be important to continue to “develop the testing center” in order to improve the turnaround time of getting tests back to professors quickly.
Maynard said she is excited to take this new step in her career and watch it evolve.
“I am looking forward to working with each student at Berry who seeks me out and am dedicated to achieving success with that student,” Maynard said. “I am also available to each professor, the residential life staff and any staff who believe they are working with a student who may benefit from services provided through the Academic Support Center.”