AACC’s new student athlete success coordinator in January started requiring athletes to spend at least four hours a week in tutoring or other organized study sessions.

Trey Anderson, the student athlete success coordinator, said the athletes may spend their mandatory study hours with online tutoring, peer tutoring or professor tutoring, or in the Writing Center and math labs.

“We put this program in place to one, monitor all of our student athletes academically,” Anderson said, “and two, to allow them to use the full resources of our institution to help benefit them and our department by maintaining and increasing our overall GPA.”

Athletic Director Duane Herr said offering several ways to study could help athletes improve their grades and help them narrow down which careers to focus on.

“In addition to providing help with classes, we want to help athletes figure out what kind of job they want to pursue after college,” Herr said.

Noah Reem, a second-year journalism student and midfield lacrosse player, said he likes having options instead of traditional study hall hours because he finds group homework sessions distracting.

“In the traditional [study hall] setting there’s still so many distractions,” Reem said. “The enrichment hours allow the student to work one-on-one with someone.”

Reem also said he can almost never find time to study, so having a dedicated time set aside for studying is beneficial.

“The enrichment hours encourage the students to strive for set times dedicated to studying and increasing their GPA, which I love because I feel that the biggest issue with studying is trying to find time to do it,” Reem said.

All student athletes, regardless of their GPAs, must complete a minimum of four study hall hours a week. However, Anderson said most students choose to do more or as much as they feel they need.

“We are always thinking how we can encourage our athletes to grow weekly,” Herr said. “This is a terrific way of doing just that.”