Despite the limitations and challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, Northern Marianas College continues to engage its students by offering a flexible and broad array of services such as online tutoring and mentoring, academic activities, and financial literacy seminars.
Project PROA, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions, aims to help students succeed in high school and college, especially during the pandemic. The program provides tutoring services in a variety of subjects, including English, math, science and other courses. The program also provides mentoring, or guidance from peer mentors to be successful in college.
The services are available on-campus for students that prefer face-to-face learning (by appointment) or virtually through Zoom (appointment or drop-in). The program also holds academic, STEM, financial literacy, and mentorship activities both on-campus and virtually for students.
“Prior to the closure of the campus last March, the program prepared for the shift to virtual learning by training its tutors and mentors on how to provide tutoring and mentoring virtually, and by shifting our services and activities to fit the virtual platform,” said Hedwig Hofschneider, Director of Project PROA.
Project PROA also offers activities which encourage science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career exploration and financial literacy education. We aim to prepare students not just for their college journey, but for life after graduation as well.
“The program was flexible in its delivery of services to adapt to the situation and help our students to continue their classes, and designed its activities and workshops to support students – whether it was tips on how to learn better online, or activities to cope with stress,” Hofschneider said.
“Now that the community is safer than it was last spring, the program is offering on-campus tutoring and mentoring for those that learn better in person, but still offers virtual services for those that continue to prefer virtual learning.”