Your Student Success Team is a team-based support service model designed to make sure you succeed, from the moment of acceptance through your graduation. The goal of the Student Success Team is to support you as you navigate your college experience and to provide an environment where you can maximize your potential. You will acquire the ability to flourish and succeed at Goucher College and beyond.
Every student at Goucher is assigned a Success Advisor who works with each advisee before stepping foot on campus and remains a key contact point throughout their undergraduate career. Success Advisors coach their advisees academically, while also helping them identify their passions, goals, and interests.
In addition to a Success Advisor, every student is assigned a Faculty Advisor after the student has declared their major. Faculty Advisors provide discipline-specific guidance about the student's major, including major requirements, mentored research, internship shadowing experiences, professional networking, and graduate school. They work closely with the student's Success Advisor and other members of the student's Success Team.
Success Advisors work closely with other Success Team members and key campus partners to guide their advisees in a self-discovery process. Success Advisors connect students to campus resources if faced with academic, financial or personal challenges.
Key offices such as Goucher's Athletics Department (for student athletes), the LAUNCH Scholars Network (for LAUNCH students), and Goucher's International Student Advisors (for international students) are Students' Success Team Support and Advising members. Success Team Programming members come from offices such as the Career Education Office (CEO), the Office for Global Education (OGE), and the Library. CEO and Library Advisors meet students in their First Year Seminars. Students meet a Study Abroad Advisor from OGE in their sophomore year when they are ready to discuss their study abroad requirement. More information about each is included below.
After declaring a major, students are assigned a Faculty Advisor in an academic discipline. Faculty Advisors provide discipline-specific guidance about major requirements, mentored research, internships shadowing experiences, professional networking, and graduate school. See When to See Your Faculty Advisor.
Goucher's Athletics Department connects each student-athlete to an Athletic Coach who works with them on the field of play as well as serve as important partners in every student-athlete's college experience. Athletic Coaches work individually with their respective students to ensure that they are excelling academically and socially. Often, an athletic coach may be the first person a student-athlete approaches with questions or concerns about college life. Athletic coaches are trained with foundational knowledge of academic processes, co-curricular opportunities, support systems, and other important resources. In many cases, athletic coaches provide advisement but will also refer their students to individuals or offices that can best support their needs.
The LAUNCH Scholars Network aids each LAUNCH student in their transition to Goucher through participation in SummerLAUNCH, a pre-orientation program, in which incoming students arrive to Goucher two weeks early and are connected to campus resources and support services. The LAUNCH Scholars Network is a four-year integrated program that provides academic, social, and personal development opportunities to historically underrepresented students (including First Generation students) that builds upon their experiences. The Director of the LAUNCH Scholars Network collaborates with Goucher campus partners to ensure each LAUNCH student has the necessary support to persist through graduation
The Office of Global Education connects each international student to an International-Student Advisor. This Advisor supports nonimmigrant students with initial adjustment concerns, academic, financial, and personal concerns, as well as relevant immigration regulations, including work eligibility, and government agencies.
Goucher's Career Education Office (CEO) connects every student to a Career Advisor, who works with students throughout their time at Goucher. To help students learn the tools to embark confidently on their career path, the Career Advisor begins working with students as soon as their first year in both major and career exploration, developing plans for internships and helping students develop their post Goucher plans.
In their sophomore year, each student is assigned a Global Education Advisor from Goucher's Office of Global Education who helps them explore study abroad options. Global Education Advisors help students plan their study abroad experience and determine their goals for their time abroad. They assist students in determining how their study abroad experience fits into their larger personal and professional goals, and upon their return, they encourage students to reflect on their time abroad including how to articulate their experience to future employers and/or graduate programs.
Goucher's Library connects every student to an Instructional and Digital Strategies Librarian, who joins students' Success Team to support them at every stage of the research and writing process in their new college home. Goucher's Library and Learning Commons has formalized research support teams in place that provide students with several opportunities to fine tune their research, writing and quantitative reasoning skills. The digital strategies librarian visits students' First Year Seminar to teach Information Literacy sessions.