276 AN MTSU BEST-KEPT SECRET: STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES

Release date: Feb. 20, 2007

Editorial contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-2919
Student Support Services contact: Crickett Pimentel, 615-898-5443

TRiO Open House Set for 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Feb. 22

(MURFREESBORO) — Crickett Pimentel wants to spread the word about one of the MTSU campus’s best-kept secrets: Student Support Services.
“We are a great resource,” says Pimentel, director of the office that serves as a “home away from home” for 175 first-generation, low income and disabled college students. “We have one-on-one relationships with our students. We know them over four or five years. We see success happen every day.”
Student Support Services will be joined by the McNair Scholars Post-Baccalaureate program and Educational Talent Search in a TRiO Open House Celebration as part of National TRiO Day. It will be held from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 22 in Midgett Building Rooms 101 and 103. University faculty, administrators and staff are welcome.
Since 1965, federally funded TRiO programs have helped first-generation college students, students from low-income families and disabled students finish high school, enter college and graduate. The name comes from the trio of original programs created in ’65: Talent Search, Upward Bound and Student Support Services.
The TRiO umbrella has expanded to seven programs, which also include Upward Bound Math Science, Veterans Upward Bound, Educational Opportunity Centers and McNair.
Life rarely becomes dull in Midgett 101 for the SSS staff: Pimentel, counselors Laura Clippard and Susan Johnson and secretary Sherry House. Each semester, SSS provides tutoring, academic workshops and cultural events in order for students to increase their college successes and experiences, Pimentel says.
“We have a computer lab, and a welcoming and supportive environment that our students like,” she says. “In addition to the students, we want to be a resource for faculty teaching our students. The reason we’re here is for retention and graduation. Our faculty has been very supportive. MTSU gives us a lot of support.”
Pimentel said the TRiO program is “100 percent federally funded.” SSS receives $235,689 every year, making it an almost $1 million grant every four years.
Two students in the program were 2006 USA Funds Scholarship recipients, giving MTSU a rare distinction because “many others were from schools like Stanford,” she said.
Pimentel added that Pell-eligible freshmen and sophomores have scholarship grant opportunities. For 2006-07, SSS awarded more than $20,000 in grant scholarships.
To learn more about SSS and TRiO, visit during the TRiO Day Open House, visit the Web site at www.mtsu.edu/~ mtsu.edu/~ssupport/ or call 615-898-5443.
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Media welcomed.