Information for Faculty

Services we offer:

Tutoring
Study skills workshops
Classroom presentations

Tutoring is one of the primary services of The Center for Academic Success (CAS). Any student enrolled at Minnesota State University, Mankato is eligible for FREE individual or group tutoring in most subjects, including Writing and Language/ESL, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Accounting, Business, Economics and Statistics. For courses at the 100 & 200 levels that are not on our regular tutoring schedule, students can request a tutor.

Referring Students for Tutoring

We ask that you not require an entire class to use our services. Similarly we ask that you not reward students with extra credit for using our services. However, we gladly work with students who have been referred individually, as well as students who seek out our services on their own.

All tutoring in the Center for Academic Success, whether for the Mathematics, Science, and Business Center or for the Writing Center is appointment-based as of spring semester 2020. Students can make an appointment online or by calling our office. We have instructional videos available to help aid students in the appointment-making process on the appropriate pages.
The Online Writing center has two types of appointments: synchronous or asychronous. While we recommend synchronous (real-time) appointments, asynchronous (paper drop-off) may also be appropriate depending on the needs of the student and where they are in the writing process.
Our tutoring services involve a commitment on the part of the students. They should not solely rely on our services to get them an A!

Recommending Tutor Candidates

We greatly appreciate and rely on faculty to recommend students for tutoring positions. Below is a list of important considerations:

Candidates must have earned an A in the course they wish to tutor, or a B if they have a high faculty recommendation to accompany it
Candidates must have earned at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA and retain that GPA while employed
Candidates must attend at least the first three sessions of our CRLA training in order to begin tutoring
Candidates must receive a faculty recommendation for each discipline they tutor in
To recommend a student, please email academicsuccess@mnsu.edu.

Requesting a Classroom Presentation

Faculty members wishing to have a Tutoring Center representative visit their class to introduce students to the Center may schedule an appointment by filling out our request form. If you would like to receive Tutoring Center information brochures or bookmarks to distribute to your students, you may email your request to academicsuccess@mnsu.edu.

Take Home Exam Alert

Although the majority of students who seek support through the CAS do so for legitimate purposes, we do occasionally have students who request help with pre-lab questions, online quizzes, or take-home exams. Our tutors are instructed to outright refuse help to students who request assistance with these kinds of questions. However, because tutors are not always given enough information about the assigned work, they may unintentionally help a student do work that they are supposed to be doing alone.

Despite our best efforts, we cannot prevent this abuse of the tutoring center without your help. If you give a take-home exam or assign any other work for which you do not want students to receive tutorial support, please let us know. Be assured that if you do not let us know, we will use our best judgment based on the assignment's instructions, and our tutors will never work out full problems for any student regardless of the type of assignment.

Syllabus Blurb:

Feel free to use the following statement on your course syllabi to inform your students about the Tutoring Center:

The Center for Academic Success is Minnesota State University, Mankato’s on-campus source for free academic support. Located in the lower level of Memorial Library (ML 116), the Center for Academic Success offers one-on-one or group tutoring for most general subjects offered at MSU as well as workshops on time management, study skills, and test- and note-taking strategies.