MISSION AND GOALS
The mission of Southern Methodist University's Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center is to help students become more independent, self-confident, and efficient learners who are able to respond effectively to specific academic challenges, to articulate their own educational goals, and to succeed at any level of the undergraduate curriculum. Rather than primarily responding to perceived academic weaknesses or helping students overcome academic difficulty, we seek to build success from the beginning, offering both developmental and accelerated programs designed to maximize students' learning potential, personal adjustment, and academic performance. We seek to create an environment that encourages students to integrate the academic side of their lives more fully with their understanding of themselves and their goals. We also support students in their efforts to become full participants in a university community in which the life of the mind is developed and valued.
The goals of the staff of the Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center are:
- to support new students in their transition to the academic culture of the university;
- to assist students in developing comprehensive, advanced reading and learning techniques and in applying these global skills to specific coursework challenges;
- to offer services that encourage students to build confidence in their ability to learn and to overcome the challenges they may confront at SMU;
- to offer services that strengthen—and where necessary develop—the foundational skills (mathematical literacy, reading, writing, computer literacy, critical thinking) that are central to every student's continued academic success;
- to offer services that support students' pursuit of the institution's most challenging programs of study and mastery of their chosen curricula;
- to ensure that the Center's administrative practices, operating principles, and staff development activities are designed to further the academic well-being of SMU's undergraduates.
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