Amanda Smith
Managing Editor
For newly named Academic Success Coach and Tutor Coordinator Cassandra Zeiner, tutoring means more than merely helping students pass a class– it is all about making students feel welcomed, united and confident.
With a passion for literature and writing, Zeiner got her undergraduate degree from WSU in creative writing and her master’s in literature. The idea of coaching has always been fascinating to her, so she decided that being an academic coach fit her perfectly.
“It’s kind of poetic, I suppose,” Zeiner said. “My father was an educator, and there was something really powerful about the fact that students thought of him as not just an instructor or teacher, but as someone who could guide their path, so that was already inside of me.”
Another significant factor in Zeiner’s drive is her love for Butler. Here, she got her associate’s degree and met Mark Jarvis, somebody she says has been a guiding light throughout her career and sparked her love for literature.
When a new person takes charge and has a vision, changes are often implemented. A major change with the tutoring lab has been the fusion of traditional students and athletes. In the past, athletics had separate tutors in the gym, but Zeiner wishes to blur that line and have all students on the same page.
Between both the El Dorado and Andover campuses, Zeiner has 23 tutors, eight of them being faculty members, that help make this all run smoothly. Zeiner hopes that having instructors available for students as tutors will allow for relationships to be formed and for students to excel.
Sophomore Ashley Masters, who was strictly a student-athletic tutor last year, notices some issues that could arise with the change, but generally supports it, hoping it brings a “cohesive dynamic rather than a divisive one.”
“The expectations are going to be an obstacle for the athletes,” Masters said. “They already have a lot on their plate and are going to be held to the same standard as traditional students.”
Zeiner is hopeful that this change will further eliminate the stigma with tutoring, a big goal for her in her opening year at Butler. She believes that students often make presumptions about their own skills and calls that out as being a “fixed mindset and simply untrue.”
“We’ve all got our own path,” Zeiner said. “If one can put themselves in a situation where they have the right tutor at the right time, they can be good at anything.”