The start of college is especially hard for first-year students as they navigate a new world of courses. The Academic Embedded Coach Program exists to assist students, especially those in 100 level courses.

The Academic Embedded Coach Program covers written and oral communication, and also computational mathematics.

An embedded coach is a student who has already taken the course in previous years and sits in the class a few times during the semester. This allows the coach to give the students assistance that is better tailored to their needs.

Students in courses that have an embedded coach can access their assistance through a few ways.

When the embedded coach is present in the classroom, they are available to assist students in coursework and understanding the materials. Students can even make appointments with their embedded coach, and some will also hold office hours where students can stop by and request assistance.

Dr. Maura Grady described that the program is, “designed to be a collaboration between students and peer coaches and faculty to improve students’ understanding of their writing assignments and getting help with their writing assignments.”

It was originally started as an experiment within the Writing and Communication Center, and later received support from the administration and a few generous donors.

The program officially started when Clayton Chiarelott was hired as the Academic Embedded Coach Coordinator last year.

If a course does not have an embedded coach but students believe there should be one, the program encourages students to come to Chiarelott and discuss adding an embedded coach to the course.

Embedded coaches are a paid position and the program is currently looking for more coaches, especially for the courses coaches ENG 102 or COM 101.

“To anyone who might be curious, but you think; ‘I’m not the best writer or I struggle.’ We all struggle with that. And if you’re always working to improve and overcome, that’s who we’re looking for,” Chiarelott said. “Not necessarily who’s getting the A plus plus on the paper, but the person who is improving over time.”

Some of the benefits of this on-campus job is that it is not a huge time commitment and is higher pay than most on-campus employment.
If you are interested in becoming an Academic Embedded Coach or you believe that your course would benefit from having an Embedded Coach, you can contact Clayton Chiarelott at [email protected].