Henry Zimmerman ’27 and many other students utilize the Academic Skills Center for academic support.
For decades, the Academic Skills Center (ASC) has played a central role in supporting Andover students, offering academic guidance, peer tutoring, and spearheading student disability services. First founded in the 1980s as the Academic Support Center, the center featured both psychological and academic support, ultimately expanding in the 2000s to include Student Accessibility Services.
Originally situated in Graham House, the Academic Support Center was funded by an Abbot Grant from the Abbot Academy Fund (AAF) according to Patricia B. Davison, the Director of Academic Skills and Coordinator of Student Disability Services from 2000 to 2018. Davison explained how the AAF assisted Andover in building an academic and psychological support center.
“When Abbot Academy merged 50 years ago with Phillips Academy, Andover didn’t have any support for anybody. The guys that came here would drop out, and half the class would be dropped out by the time graduation came… When Abbot merged, they said, ‘You can’t just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. You have to give kids some other kinds of support. They’re away from home.’ They gave money first for a psychological therapist, and then they gave money to start academic support,” said Davison.
In 1999, Andover was sued in a lawsuit for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This prompted the school to start the Ad Hoc Committee on Student Disability Policy in the fall of 2001. Davison described her role in developing the policy to address a lack of accessibility in private schools throughout the United States.
“The head of the Dean of Studies Office picked one person, usually the Chair of the department or somebody who’d been here a long time from each of the graduation requirements [courses],” said Davison. “We spent 18 months, looked at all the things you had to do to pass the math requirement, all the things you had to do to pass the language requirement, and we had to write what the rationale was. By the time we were done, it was a very large corpus of work.”
Susanna Buzard, Andover’s Student Accessibility Specialist from 2016 to 2017, highlighted the ASC’s duty to inform teachers about learning disabilities. She clarified that the purpose of disability accommodations was not to reduce the rigor of coursework but rather to ensure a level playing field for every student.
“The most valuable program that the ASC did was outreach to teachers, [which included] connecting, informing and collaborating with them… The big sticking point with academic support is a lot of teachers still think it means that you’re going to water it down and you’re not going to keep the integrity of the rigor. The teachers don’t want their curriculum compromised and made easier, so our big message is to explain that we’re not making it easier. We’re making it accessible. It means kids can do it,” said Buzard.
Today, the peer tutoring programs offered by the ASC have become essential to the lives of many students, tutors and tutees alike. Philip Molina ’28, who is currently preparing to become a peer tutor, emphasized the ASC’s role in easing the academic and mental pressures of Andover.
“[The ASC] is here to lighten the load as much as they possibly can. They won’t give the same support to every student, since they understand they have to approach each student differently, and they do their best to provide every resource they can to help us succeed. But because of how they function, it’s a two-way street. The student must want the help as well. The most important part is knowing about the ASC and what it has to offer,” said Molina.
Having moved to Pearson Hall in 2018, the ASC plans to relocate to George Washington Hall (GW) for the next academic year. Laura Warner, the Director of Academic Skills Center and Student Accessibility Services, highlighted the opportunities the new space in GW will bring to the ASC.
“In 2018, we moved from [Oliver Wendell Holmes Library] (OWHL) after the renovation to the first floor of Pearson Hall, where we are now…We will be moving to GW, which will be slightly farther from the center of campus, and especially from [Paresky] Commons, Morse [Hall] and OWHL. Students will have to plan ahead a bit more to get to their appointments and we anticipate less foot traffic. All of these are challenges, but the opportunities in our new space are many: we hope to have many more small group areas for peer tutoring, more whiteboard, more chairs and flexible seating for quiet work space, and a larger area to meet with advising groups or other groups of students,” Warner wrote in an email to The Phillipian.
