APSU Adult, Nontraditional and Transfer Student Center has new home
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – For many adults – particularly those over the age of 26 – going to college can be a lonely, intimidating experience. Their younger classmates don’t always get their pop culture references or understand their taste in music, not to mention the struggles of balancing parenting and classwork.
“The research shows that these student have a lot of different needs, there are more hoops they have to go through,” Ashley N. Kautz said. “Having a space where we can connect them to resources and let them know they’re not alone in the journey is necessary.”
Kautz is the coordinator of just such a place – the Austin Peay State University Adult, Nontraditional & Transfer Student (ANTS) Center. For about the last five years, the center has served these students in a small, windowless room in the basement of the Morgan University Center. But with 23% of APSU undergraduates classified as adult learners, along with another 25% as transfer students, the ANTS Center quickly ran out of space.
This fall, the center will open in a larger suite of offices on the first floor of the university center, with the newly renovated space offering a computer lab, a quiet study area, a lactation room, a kitchenette with a refrigerator, lounging space for socializing and free coffee.
“We have this larger space, so students can more easily bring their children,” Kautz said. “We have games, they can use the computers. We can now host events in our space. We have an Adult Café lunch program where they eat lunch with only adult students. We can host that in here and make it more of a community experience. Students can recognize and feel a part of the space.”
The center also has a transfer student leader office, where current transfer students will engage with new transfer students to help them feel comfortable and succeed at Austin Peay.
“The leaders are assigned an incoming transfer student – we try to do that by major – and they’ll introduce themselves as a transfer student too,” Kautz said. “They’ll try to get the new student connected and help them build a friend group. The leaders will host programs, have office hours. When the student gets stuck, they can go to their transfer leaders.”
For information on the ANTS Center, visit https://www.apsu.edu/student-life/ants/.
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