Our Rich History: David Armstrong established the meaningful Thomas More Success Center

By Tom Ward
Thomas More University

Part 74 of our series, “Retrospect and Vista II”: Thomas More College/University, 1971-2021

Dr. David A. Armstrong was a man with many ideas for the future when he began his term as the fourteenth president of Thomas More College in the fall of 2013. Among those, a very meaningful and instrumental achievement was the Thomas More Success Center.

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ICG Internship Fair. (TMU Archives)

While the college had always assisted students through various tutoring and career counseling programs, the Success Center was conceived to provide a broader basis of services. The center could have been no more than a dream, however, without the necessary financial resources.

President Armstrong took advantage of the opportunity to reach a large audience when he chose the May 17, 2014, graduation ceremony to make a special announcement: an anonymous donor had pledged the largest donation in the college’s history—$4 million—for “the creation of the Benedictine Endowment for the Thomas More College Success Center” (Moreover, Fall 2014, p. 10). The donation came with the stipulation that it had to be matched by TMC within the next four years. This total endowment of $8 million would be for the exclusive use of the Success Center (TSC). This challenge goal was achieved in 2018, which President Armstrong announced on March 1 (Moreover, Spring 2018, pp. 13-14).

The Success Center would be comprised of three institutes:

• The Institute for Academic Support, later called the Institute for Academic Excellence (IAE), which would include tutoring, academic counseling, and counseling at-risk students.

• The Institute for Learning Differences (ILD), which would support students with documented learning differences to provide them with study skills support, quiet test-taking environments, and adaptive equipment.

• The Institute for Career Development and Graduate School Planning (ICG), which would assist students with resumé and interview skills, experiential learning, plus graduate and career placement (Moreover, Fall 2014, p. 10).

The Success Center was launched in the fall of 2014. Dr. John Ernst, an adjunct professor of Psychology at TMC and assessment coordinator of the Quality Enhancement Program (QEP), was named as its first director. Dr. Ernst not only had experience teaching, but also with student engagement, a very beneficial skill for this new position. It would be his responsibility to develop the various tutoring and counseling services for TSC.

In one of his first messages for TSC, Dr. Ernst stressed that “Our goal is to help all students succeed at Thomas More College and beyond.” A more fully developed mission statement would declare that it supported “a culture of student persistence, graduation and life-long success” (Overview of Institutional Advancement, July 25, 2016, TMU Archives).

Many ways were being developed to fulfill this goal and were assigned to their respective directors. These included Disability Services, and Academic Support and Coaching, both under John Hennessey, with Barb Amato soon hired as Academic Coach (she would be joined in 2016 by Greg Celic); Career Development and Graduate School Planning, directed by Julie Mueller and coordinated by Amy Marcum; and Retention and Student Support, headed by Noah Welte (TSC Bulletin, Jan. 2015, TMU Archives). Alumnus Jennifer Bravo joined in 2015 as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) intern to do research “on community needs for financial literacy” (Ernst Timeline, TMU Archives).

The Institute for Academic Excellence was soon named for Dr. Anthony and Geraldine Zembrodt, the first donors to contribute to the matching grant. Other early donors were the R.C. Durr Foundation and the Haile Jr. US Bank Foundation (Ernst Timeline, TMU Archives). This institute would offer a variety of tutoring/mentoring programs, including on-line tutoring, peer-to-peer tutoring and academic coaching that would help students learn basic skills such as note-taking, study habits, and organizational skills. Some academic departments, such as Math and Physics, assisted by offering their own tutoring center (though IAE would assume operation of it in 2020), and the English Department had a writing center directed by Dr. Julie Daoud (Student Bulletin for TSC, Oct. 2015, TMU Archives). Some offerings that proved popular were career and internship fairs, where local businesspeople from as many as 50 companies participated (TSC Bulletin, Mar. 2016, TMU Archives).

Robinson Family Mentoring Center, named for William T. and Joan Wernersbach Robinson, with President Armstrong. (TMU Archives)

The Institute of Career Development and Graduate School Planning promoted student experience by offering relevant workshops, including Resumé preparation, Interviewing skills with mock interviews, and Professionalism. Experiential Learning would constitute an important element of the ICG after the Faculty General Assembly (FGA) voted during the spring 2015 semester to make it a college requirement for all traditional undergraduate students (TSC Bulletin, Mar. 2015, TMU Archives). This was considered important as a means to connect classroom content to “real” world work experience. It would allow “students to enhance their learning by applying academic coursework to life experiences, potentially in their field of study.” They would be required to “reflect on the meaning of the experience as it relates to their understanding of the college’s mission statement and on how they will integrate their experience into future coursework or their career” (Proposed catalog changes for Experiential Learning, ca. July 2015, TMU Archives). Mark Bartram was hired in the fall of 2015 to serve as career coordinator to assist students to establish a learning internship (TSC Bulletin, Oct. 2015, TMU Archives). Some general college courses, such as study skills, were also added to the curriculum.

TSC also tried to guide faculty in assisting their students. They encouraged faculty to use the early alert system for students who might be at risk (Mar. 2016 for Early Alerts, TMU Archives). Such students could be assisted through TSC retention services. Faculty Cate Sherron and Kim Haverkos, with encouragement from Academic Dean Kathleen Jagger, worked with John Ernst to start a local chapter of the Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society for first year students (Success Center Update, June 8, 2017; Ernst Timeline; TMU Archives).

Many of the offices for TSC were placed in the library, so that the library staff had to make changes in some of their spaces to accommodate the new entities. One of the more noteworthy developments for TSC was the Robinson Family Academic Mentoring Center, the launching of which occurred on August 31, 2016. This was named in honor of William T. Robinson, a distinguished Villa Madonna alum (1967) who long served in the legal profession, and his wife, Joan Wernersbach, a 1969 alum. The Robinsons had become personal friends with Dr. Armstrong, who was pleased to have the Robinsons present for the dedication of the center, especially because Robinson would succumb to cancer shortly thereafter. The center was located inside the entry level of the library in an area that had once housed the government documents section. Then, in the fall of 2017, the IAE moved from the mezzanine above the dining commons to the library, which provided a “distraction-limited testing area” (Success Center Update, Dec. 1, 2017, TMU Archives).

In the spring of 2017, TSC began planning for what would be called the “4Cs” Scholars Program, though the program did not actually begin until 2018 –2019. The four “Cs” stood for Classroom, Character, Community and Career. The program was targeted at the “marvelous middle,” that is, those students whose grade point average (g.p.a.) was “between the 2.5 and 3.2 range, but is not limited to those students.” Also that spring, Amy Osborne became the founding director of ILD, and Emily Hellman the leader of the ICG (TSC Bulletin, Early Spring 2017, TMU Archives).

Robin Norton began what would be a long-term tenure with the ICG, beginning as assistant director in the fall of 2017. She had a relevant background from the University of Kentucky’s Next Generation Leadership Academy, and would take charge of “setting up new pipelines for TMC students to employers for careers and experiential learning” (TSC Bulletin, Fall 2017, TMU Archives). She was joined the following year by Samantha Palmer as ICG Career Coordinator, and Angie Brinkman as director of ILD.

Success Center Staff, 2016: Jennifer Bravo, Greg Celic, Barb Amato, John Hennessey, John Ernst, Julie Mueller, Mark Bertram, and Noah Welte.

The “marvelous middle” was not the only student target group for TSC programs. In 2017, TSC began planning for the Cleves Scholars Program (named for former TMC President, Msgr. William F. Cleves) that would attract and retain high achieving students. Modeled after successful programs at such institutions as the University of Maryland and Ohio State University, this would be an honors-type program for first year (based on high school g.p.a.) and second year students with four-year scholarships. It won the first TMU Innovations Award that was initiated under interim president Kathleen Jagger (Ernst Timeline, TMU Archives). The inaugural Cleves Program, directed by Dr. Ernst, with the assistance of Robin Norton, Heather Abbott, Samantha Palmer, Justine Vogel, Lam Pham and Tony Otten, was launched in 2018–2019 (TSC Innovation Proposal Power Point, 2019, TMU Archives).

Another important component of TSC was implemented in 2018—the Office of Student Accessibility (OSA). OSA would later be named for Dr. Judith (Middendorf) Marlowe, TMC alum and board of trustees chair. This office would ensure that students with documented disabilities would be provided with the means to achieve academic success according to federal requirements. As announced in its mission statement, the OSA’s purpose was to provide “equal access to an education and university life through support and accommodations as well as by collaborating with faculty and staff to provide such access and support” (TSC Mission Statements as of Spring 2019, TMU Archives).

Dr. Ernst became involved with a program that was the direct result of planning for TSC. He served as one of two co-directors, along with Dr. Carrie Jaeger, of TMU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) that was part of the university’s preparation for the 2020 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) reaccreditation study. The QEP this time focused on student advising, which fit well with the mission of TSC. SACS would eventually accept the QEP Proposal created by TMU (Ernst Timeline, TMU Archives).

As TSC continued to develop, it introduced more events for students to attend. One innovation that began during Welcome Week in fall 2019 was the “Nacho Average Student Success Fair” that enabled students, faculty and staff to become better acquainted with all that TSC had to offer. The fair was so-named because it offered tacos to entice students to check it out. Around the same time, ICG connected with “Handshake,” the “most up and coming online job platform in the country” that would let students review and apply for internships and jobs online (TSC Bulletin, Oct. 2019, TMU Archives). ICG also began the position of career development with the hire of Kiera Bowman (Ernst Timeline, TMU Archives). The IAE launched an online schedule of peer-to-peer tutoring called WCOnline (TSC Brief Report for 2019-20, April 17, 2020, TMU Archives).

Soon, the use of online programs became an imperative for TSC. When the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic reached Northern Kentucky in the spring of 2020, TMU—including TSC—pivoted to provide online learning for students. Dr. Ernst offered helpful hints for studying in this manner in the spring TSC Bulletin, while TSC introduced additional online tutoring (TSC Bulletin, March 2020, TMU Archives). Even after in-person classes were resumed, masks were the order of the day for a long time yet.

As TMU adapted to COVID, more personnel were added to TSC in 2020–2021. Dr. Andrea Milani became the new Director of ILD. Sarah Dorr, Liz Vagedes and Madison Garrott were brought in as professional advisors as part of the professional advising program introduced under the QEP.

After seven years of conducting TSC through its formative years, Dr. Ernst stepped down in the fall of 2021 (Director’s Letter, mid-fall 2021, TMU Archives). He began a new position as interim director of TMU’s Benedictine Library. Dean of Students Annabelle Bautista took his place at TSC.
The true measure of TSC’s success is gleaned from statistics that were compiled. Some of these include:

1. Traditional undergraduate student use of TSC programs:
a. Fall 2020 – 616 students used services (46.7% of all students).
b. Spring 2021 – 501 students used services (43.45%).
2. Year-to-year retention for traditional undergraduate students:
a. 67.2% for students using TSC resources.
b. 63.3% for students not using TSC resources.
3. Spring to fall persistence:
a. 86.0% spring to fall returning students persistence as of July 1, 2021 benchmark. (Highest during last five years).
4. IAE:
a. 40% of students using peer tutoring in fall 2020.
b. 66.34% of students using peer tutoring in spring 2021 improved their cumulative g.p.a. (Statistics provided by Dr. John Ernst).

These statistics demonstrate that Dr. Ernst and the staff of the various institutes over the years dedicated themselves to the mission of the TSC. They enabled many students, through tutoring, experiential learning, and career counseling, to attain a measure of success at the university that they could then carry into their chosen paths upon graduation.

Tom Ward is the newly retired Archivist of Thomas More University. He holds an MA in History from Xavier University, Cincinnati.

We want to learn more about the history of your business, church, school, or organization in our region (Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and along the Ohio River). If you would like to share your rich history with others, please contact the editor of “Our Rich History,” Paul A. Tenkotte, at tenkottep@nku.edu. Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD is Professor of History and Gender Studies at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) and the author of many books and articles.