Success Coach

In the Fall of 2017, The Center for Success Coaching was born. Formerly aligned with YouCollege, the academic college for The University of Toledo’s undecided student population, the Success Coaches now had their own unit under The Office of The Provost. A result of the restructuring process initiated by Dr. Sharon Gaber our 17th President who upon her arrival, reduced the number of academic colleges from 16 to 9. In a meeting that occurred the previous spring semester with our department, Dr. Gaber said that her long range goals behind the combining of the colleges where to increase efficiency, and cut down on the strain on the University budget by consolidating positions and processes “Strategic decisions are future oriented, concerned
Julie Fischer-Kinney, Assistant Provost for Student Success and Retention, The Center for Success Coaching now has is a mission statement and focus “ The Center For Success Coaching is to empower UT students to thrive academically, personally and professionally from orientation to graduation through a holistic, student-centered approach” (University of Toledo, 2017). All Success Coaches report to and receive direction from Dr. Julie Fischer-Kinney “ the most basic and ubiquitous way of harmonizing the efforts of individuals, units, or divisions are to designate a boss with formal authority” (Bolman and Deal, p. 51). Another change that occurred that Fall was that besides becoming our own center, Success Coaches no longer advised students as two advisors were hired that now take care of our undecided students preparing these students for their transitions to the academic colleges of their majors. Each Success Coach is assigned to an academic college or colleges or set of students, for example, my specialization is working with Student-Athletes, Nursing, and The College of Health and Human Services direct from High School
We set up regular meetings with students who connect with us and a coach has to be able to work with students with a wide variety of issues ranging from academic, to personal or financial. This means that a Success Coach must have the ability to communicate with faculty, advisors, or any office for the benefit of our students. Therefore a Success Coach Needs to be a collaborator or what Bollman and Deal describe a role coordinator, “These individuals or groups are boundary-spanners with diplomatic status who are artful in dealing across specialized turfs….spending much of the day pulling together functions essential to a prodcuts success” (Bolman and Deal, p. 55) or in other words student