At higher learning institutions, helping students achieve their goals is paramount. Student success is a particular point of pride at New River Community College (NRCC). “Student success and opportunity” is one of nine college goals, second only to “teaching and learning.” Student success is also one of the main goals for the Virginia Community College System’s (VCCS) “Achieve 2015” six-year strategic plan. With those goals in mind, NRCC set about creating the new umbrella program “Partners for Success.”

The vision for the program came from NRCC President Jack Lewis and his staff—in particular, Fritz Streff. In fall 2009, Streff, who serves as NRCC’s director of institutional effectiveness and research, composed a paper outlining some of NRCC student’s needs. In doing so, he offered the concept for a program titled “Partners for Success.” The Partners for Success umbrella program now encompasses the previously existing entities Academic Assistance and Retention Services and a new subprogram called Volunteer Services.

Academic Assistance provides academic tutoring services for subject areas or assignments with which students are having difficulties. Retention Services addresses a variety of barriers to academic success and works to assist students who may be struggling to stay in school. Volunteer Services will link students with trained volunteers who can help with study techniques, educational goal setting, and even providing partnering and shadow experiences for students as an assistance to faculty members.

Don Stowers, director of volunteer services, says the program is designed to be “a mentoring relationship, a longer-term relationship than the tutorial one might be.” Students may be referred to the program by an instructor or may self-refer. Once initial contact is made and a student is assigned to a mentor, he or she can expect to meet with the mentor in a newly refurbished area on the campus in Dublin called the “Connection Center.”

Services will also be available at NRCC’s mall site in Christiansburg. At initial meetings, mentors will work through a specific protocol to discover the student’s needs and conduct a learning style assessment. Once these elements are completed, mentors will help students set both short and long-term goals. “Our goal at the end,” said Stowers, “is for the student to be very confident about his or her learning and then to move on. We want to work ourselves out of a job, ultimately.”

“Having known Don Stowers for many years, I know he brings commitment, energy, and compassion to this new endeavor that will benefit many students at New River Community College,” NRCC President Lewis said. “We’re thrilled he has joined the NRCC family since his retirement as superintendent of Pulaski County Schools.”

Currently, Stowers says the volunteers behind Volunteer Services are local community members who are willing to give their “time, energy, and talent” to students, though he doesn’t rule out the possibility of engaging NRCC faculty and students as volunteers in the future.

Talking to Stowers about the Volunteer Services program, which gets into full swing this fall, is to see the passion for student achievement written into the college’s documents come alive. “I’m so excited for our students and faculty that we can provide this resource” Stowers said, “and we want students to feel good about being able to attain their own goals and life dreams of getting a college education … whatever it is that they want, we want to help them be successful.”