Cooper Center 25th anniversary celebration
Join the Cooper Center at their open house event to look back at how it all started, and how collaborative learning is shaping the future at ߲ݴý. Featuring food, giveaways, and cameos from staff and tutors both past and present! This drop-in event will be Wednesday, October 27th from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Cooper Center, located on the first floor of the Cochrane-Woods Library.
The Cooper Center for Academic Resources was founded in 1996 to help students strengthen essential academic skills like writing, speaking and researching. Its faculty and trained student consultants have worked out of a converted classroom on the third floor of Cochrane-Woods Library ever since.
Thanks to a move this summer, ߲ݴý’s “hidden gem” of a resource for students is now far less hidden. After 25 years upstairs, the Cooper Center now stands just off the library’s main entrance on the first floor. This new prominence means one of the first things visitors see as they enter the library is students collaborating with students at the Cooper Center.
"The Cooper Center is a destination for proactive, engaged students— students who see collaboration as an important part of how we learn here.”
The new location coincides with new leadership and a new vision for the center.
“Historically, the Cooper Center has been seen primarily as a writing center,” said Cooper Center Director Melissa Hayes. “We’re moving toward a fuller scope of academic resources, without divides between the work of a writing consultant and a physics tutor. They’re all peer tutors collaborating with students in every subject.”
Hayes is excited to put that collaboration on full display this semester. “We want to change the assumptions on campus. We’re not just for ‘students who struggle with writing,’” she said. “The Cooper Center is a destination for proactive, engaged students— students who see collaboration as an important part of how we learn here.”