Activating the role of academic advising and giving students a competitive advantage in the labour market
Two years ago, in February 2015, the University established the Student Success Centre (SSC), which integrates all the enrichment efforts for KFUPM’s students. The Centre, which is under the authority of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, includes three units, namely, the learning support unit, the skills and leadership unit, and the academic counseling unit, and its work is organized by a steering committee to develop policies, regulations, and plans.
The idea of the Center emerged from the keenness of the University to enrich the experience of the students and its desire to refine their characters and develop their life and leadership skills through a specialized center that organizes these efforts which were distributed among different departments. This initiative came after studying the status quo, diagnosing it accurately and objectively, and comparing with best practices worldwide.
The Centre aims to achieve a set of goals, namely, to provide many services and academic opportunities, to serve the students effectively by ensuring quality of the student development process in cooperation with all academic departments and other stakeholders, to integrate the curriculum with sustainable programs. Furthermore, the Centre is aimed to provide a wide range of programs that fit the interests and needs of the students, and to achieve integration of activities provided by the University sectors for students.
The Steering Committee of the SSC is composed of the SSC Chairman and a number of faculty members. The functions of the Steering Committee are restricted to setting strategic directions and future plans for the Center, assisting in performance, and developing policies and guidelines for the various units and programs. The Committee consists of the Chairman, Dr. Ahmed Fathi Salem, and the members: Dr. Ahmed bin Dania, Dr. Hisham Khodjaly, Dr. Mohamed Al-Shaib, Dr. Mohamed Ali Hassan, Dr. Bassem Abu Al-Saud, Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Bitar, and Dr. Aladdin Hussein.
The learning support unit seeks to help students to achieve success and academic excellence by developing strategies and the needed qualifications by serving the students effectively through quality assurance of development, cooperation of all academic departments and other stakeholders, supporting curricula with sustainable programs, providing a wide range of opportunities to suit the interests and needs of the students.
A student who suffers from academic weaknesses is contacted to enroll in various learning support unit programs through e-mail. The Student finds a registration link attached to the email, and attendance is recorded during help sessions using the quick response (QR) system.
The Centre cares also about academically outstanding students from the first moment of entering the University (preparatory year students). Currently, the focus is on arranging different contests and competitions with incentive awards for the winners. For example, two competitions were organized for students in mathematics during the academic year 2015-2016. The expected goals of these competitions are to strengthen students’ skills in mathematics, increase students’ understanding of mathematical concepts, teach the methodological way of problem solving, encouraging math talents, discover talented preparatory year students in mathematics, and motivate gifted students. These competitions are conducted in two phases. The first phase includes about twenty multiple choice questions, and the eight students with best scores move up the stairs to the second phase, where the competition among students follows the loser-exit system. Prizes are awarded to the best three students.
The Centre invites faculty members from various departments to propose new ideas for contests that suite all the University’s student.
In the near future, the Centre aspires to design an integrated program that enriches the experience of outstanding students during their time at the University. This program will be designed by reviewing best practices in international universities in order to design plans, lessons and curriculum policies and regulations for outstanding students.
Since the start of the activities of the learning support unit, tens of students who suffered from weaknesses in some academic core subjects such as preparatory year mathematics and physics of got help from their fellow students through the “My Colleague Helps Me” program organized by the learning support unit. Moreover, more than 1300 students participated in approximately 80 online Office hours with the help of 10 faculty members, and more than 6000 students benefited from the evening assistance sessions within the learning support unit’s programs, with a success rate of 68%. The learning support unit's achievements can be summarized by noting the improved performance of students participating in learning support unit’s programs in different materials.
The learning support unit includes the coordinator, Mr. Ayman Akram Ghannam, and members: Mr. Husam Khaled Sharqawi, Yacoub Mustafa Shehadeh.
The skills and leadership unit is designed by the SSC in collaboration with other departments of the University to develop the different skills of students that meet changing labor market needs, and seek to give university graduates competitiveness and prepare them for a successful career.
All University’s available advertising media are utilized to announce events, where each ad is designed effectively and printed and distributed to various University buildings, and all students are contacted through email messages to inform them about the new events.
The skills and leadership unit provides its training programs of short/long lectures and training courses to hone the skills of different students and help them to compete in the labor market. During the academic year 2015/2016, 1492 students engaged in the various programs of the skills and leadership unit, with an average of 68 students per activity. Students’ registration and attendance was recorded using the quick response code (QR Code) technology, and an integrated database was launched to all activities of the SSC’s different units.
The events included a large number of lectures:
- The engineering of feelings and emotions, Dr. Rizq Allah Malkawi.
- Effective negotiation skills, Dr. Leith Aouny El-Hadedy.
- Strategies of dealing with pressure, Dr. Ali Muftah.
- Self-development and management skills in the working environment, Dr. Rizq Allah Malkawi.
- Writing scientific research, Dr. Hussein Mohamed Abed Rabbo.
- Work interview, Dr. Mohamed Al-Zoubi.
- How to manage your time and how to enjoy it, Dr. Akram Reza.
- Effective communication skills, Dr. Mohamed Al-Zoubi.
- Creative machine’s code, Dr. Akram Reza.
- Long-term plans and the nine-year journey to Pluto, Dr. Ashraf Farhat.
- Building personality strength, Mr. Abdullatif Al-Muqrin.
- Positive behavior and self-esteem, Dr. Ali Muftah.
- Rules of excellence to build your career, Dr. Ali Muftah.
- Creative thinking and brainstorming, Dr. Nabil Mohamed Mu’alij.
- Recent trends in time management, Dr. Ali Muftah,
- The young trainer, Dr. Rizq Allah Malkawi, Dr. Akram Reza, and Dr. Mohamed Al-Zoubi.
- How you to design your athlete program, Dr. Hamed Abu Hilal.
SSC provides students with training courses for junior and senior students in areas of importance to all the University’s students of various specialties through the specialized short courses program.
During the semester 161, six training sessions were provided, and the 315 students who enrolled in these sessions. The sessions included first aid by Dr. Ziad Murshid, safety in the industry by Prof. Mohamed Al-Habobi, oil and gas industry by Prof. Adnan Al-Amer, principles of project management by Dr. Bambang sohariadi, scientific skills by Dr. Khalid Al-Azel, and comprehensive quality control by Dr. Leith El-Hadedy.
The Centre invites faculty members in various departments and programs to make proposals for new specialized courses that suit all the University’s students and benefit them in their future working lives.
The skills and leadership unit includes the coordinator, Dr. Akram Reza, and members: Dr. Ali Muftah, Dr. Mohamed Al-Zoubi, Dr. Ahmad Bane’ema.
The SSC is working on designing a program to coordinate and support the efforts of the various University’s departments in research for undergraduate students through the establishment of a special Office for undergraduate research. The office aims to train students on research skills such as scientific reference, writing summaries, research reports and published research, and increase student involvement in research both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Finally, the SSC includes the academic guidance unit, which aims to streamline academic guidance for students with the help of various departments to provide assistance and advice to all students. This unit provides the following programs:
- My Colleague advises me: distinguished students provide guidance and advice to their colleagues.
- The preventive program: assistance for students who are about to get an academic warning.
- The corrective program: help and motivate students to develop after getting academic warning.
List of administrators of the SSC includes Dr. Ahmed Fathi Salem (acting director of the Centre), Dr. Abdul Ghaffar Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar (academic guidance unit coordinator), Eng. Khaled Haidar Abdullah (skills and leadership unit coordinator), Mr. Mohamed Zafar Al-Malek (designer and developer of programs and sites), Esa Bin Fahd Al-Nahed (Centre secretary).