This chapter examines the following support services for students.

Enrollment management services include the Admissions office, the Graduate Studies and Extended Programs office, and a host of retention efforts guided by the Enrollment Management Steering Committee. The Admissions office is responsible for developing and accomplishing the undergraduate recruitment and admissions plan. It generates over 7,000 applications for each Fall's 1500 or so openings. The Graduate Studies and Extended Programs office recruits and admits post-baccalaureate, graduate, and non-degree students. In addition to the 900 graduate students enrolled each semester, the office also admits several thousand graduate students each summer for courses and workshops. The office is also responsible for graduate standards and policies and new initiatives.

The Academic Advisement office supports the academic advisement that faculty provide students by clarifying questions on course selection and curricular requirements. The office offers two programs for at-risk students: the Improve My Performance program (IMP) for students with poor academic performance and the Undeclared program for students who have not yet chosen a major. We are presently undertaking a national search for a new Director of Advising to replace a retiree. While this chapter considers the services provided by the Academic Advisement office, the academic advisement that faculty provide students is discussed in Chapter 4.

The Act 101/PACE program provides access to a diverse group of approximately 250 students who are economically and educationally disadvantaged. Students begin their studies in the summer before their freshman year, with many taking developmental courses in reading and writing. When they begin regular classes in the Fall semester, students are supported with tutoring, supplemental instruction, counseling, skill development seminars, advisement, and extracurricular opportunities.

The Bursar's Office processes approximately 16,000 student bills and payments annually. Its services include the Millersville Installment Payment Plan for payment of tuition and fees and MAP, which allows students to draw on deposited funds to pay for a variety of campus goods and services. The Bursar's Office has noted the need to review methods of service delivery and program offerings and enhance where appropriate.

Career Services aims to help students clarify and attain educational and career goals through counseling, workshops, information, job fairs, on-campus interviews, and other services. During 1998-1999, over 9,000 students and alumni and over 400 employers used these services. Over 4,400 students visited Career Services' Web site for information on career development, job opportunities, and graduate school information. Career Services plans to further develop studies of alumni satisfaction and effective liaison relationships throughout the University community. It also plans to increase student participation in career development and job search strategies activities through a marketing campaign and to use technology to help students in their career exploration.

The Center for Counseling and Human Development aims to help students maximize their college experience through individual and group counseling, psychiatric consultation, workshops, and other services. During 1998-1999, the Center provided over 2,800 hours of counseling to over 1,000 clients.

Dining and Conference Services aims to provide high quality food and service, efficiently and cost effectively, to the University community. In addition to providing student dining, Dining and Conference Services provides a conference center and catering (see Chapter 9), and several shops for purchasing snacks and fast food. Each year Dining and Conference Services serves over 5,000 students and nearly 90,000 catering customers, and its shops see roughly 350,000 customer transactions.

The Financial Aid office provides financial aid information to students and their families to enable them to obtain the necessary financial resources to achieve their educational goals. The office typically assists about 4,600 families annually.

Traditionally we have awarded financial aid packages to students after they have committed to enroll here rather than when they are admitted, when these awards could be used as an enticement to enroll here. For students admitted for Fall 2000, as soon as the Admissions staff identifies a potential scholarship recipient, the Scholarship Coordinator will be notified and will begin gathering information from the family, assembling a tentative financial aid package, and sharing it with the student in the hopes of convincing the student to attend Millersville. The new process will not be simple. Some scholarships are awarded by academic departments, necessitating close communication not only between the Admissions and Financial Aid offices but also with departments in awarding financial aid packages.

The Judicial Affairs office, in the Student Support Services office in Lyle Student Services Building, and the University Judicial Board administer the Student Code of Conduct, stated on pages 48-53 of the 1999-2000 Student Handbook. The Coordinator of Judicial Affairs and the Associate Vice President for Student Support Services hold about 400 administrative hearings annually. The Judicial Board typically holds about half a dozen de nova hearings annually.

Placement testing is offered in several subjects. During our summer orientation program (see Chapter 5), all students are required to take a mathematics placement test, and those interested in biology and chemistry take placement tests in those subjects. At the beginning of the Fall semester, students take placement tests in English composition, and those interested in advanced foreign language study take placement tests in their language of interest.

The Registrar's Office is the repository of all student academic records, past and present, and is responsible for the registration of all students in credit-bearing courses. Each year the office issues some 17,000 transcripts, handles 16,000 telephone calls, and meets directly with roughly 800 students to resolve problems. The Registrar's Office has noted the need to assess both the demand for its services and how effectively these services are delivered.

Tutoring is decentralized; students who wish tutoring contact the tutoring coordinator for the department offering the subject. (Act 101/PACE students are tutored through that program.) A drawback of this model is that writing tutoring is provided by the English department only to students in composition courses; students taking other subjects who need help with writing are tutored by someone proficient in the subject but not necessarily skilled in teaching writing. This is particularly significant at Millersville because we require all undergraduates to complete four courses with writing emphases beyond freshman composition.

The University Police department, a full service police agency, aims to foster a safe and secure environment where diverse values are allowed to develop and prosper. Commissioned police officers and non-commissioned security officers provide 24-hour security, seven days a week. Under Pennsylvania law, our commissioned police officers have the same authority as municipal police.

Witmer Health Services aims to provide quality health care to all students, to help students identify and manage their health needs, and to promote wellness with a focus on prevention. Its primary thrust is providing students 24-hour urgent, maintenance, and preventive medical care. In 1998-1999 over 21,000 students visited Health Services.

Support for special populations of students, including students of color, students with disabilities, women, and veterans, is discussed in Chapter 8. Support for non-traditionally-aged students is discussed in Chapter 9.

Most student support services appear to have developed on-going mechanisms for assessments, including surveys of students and other members of the University community, evaluations of specific programs and initiatives, and maintenance of statistics addressing student satisfaction with services. These mechanisms will continue to help student support services address changing student needs.

For all these support services, this chapter considers their support of the Millersville mission, how they facilitate student learning, and how well they are meeting the needs of a diverse population.

The Millersville University Student Body

Supporting the University Mission through Appropriate Goals

Facilitating Student Learning

Meeting the Needs of a Diverse Student Population

Conclusions and Recommendations
     Strengths
     Areas of Concern
     Recommendations
     Suggestions