Academic Support for Student-Athletes
Academic Study Skills Lab
All freshmen athletes are enrolled in a College Success Lab course for the entire first year. The course is designed to cover strategies for college success including time management, degree planning, test taking, research skills and effective note taking. The class is held in a state-of-the-art computer lab where structured study and homework time is also allotted. Student athletes also have access to tutors and resource centers. Additionally, academically high achieving sophomores have the opportunity to serve as “peer tutors” in an early morning student-lead peer tutoring and mentorship program.
Academic Success Center
The Highline College Academic Success Center is open to all students, who can receive assistance from faculty, staff, and student assistants who are both native and non-native English speakers. The Center has classrooms, group study spaces, computer stations, and a collection of textbooks, solutions manuals, videos, and other resources.
The Writing Center offers one-on-one consultations (25 or 50 minutes) with a writing consultant. The Writing Center also offers weekly workshops on a variety of writing topics. The workshops are group-based and hands-on.
The Math Resource Center offers free math tutoring for all math classes. All the student math tutors undergo rigorous training to prepare them to assist students. The Center offers a variety of workshops designed to help students succeed in studying math.
Other Tutoring Subjects include Accounting, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Physics, Psychology, Reading/Study Skills, World Languages (Chinese, Japanese, Spanish), and more.
Academic Advising
The goal of the Academic Advising program for student athletes is to help our student athletes become as successful in the classroom as they are on the field of play. All Highline athletes meet with an academic advisor prior to enrolling for classes who is very familiar with graduation, eligibility and transfer requirements. As part of our student-first approach to athletics, we carefully monitor our athletes by conducting attendance checks and grade checks throughout the quarter. Each of our freshman athletes are also required to attend study hall 4 times per week/ 50 minutes per day. By holding our athletes accountable academically, we have increased our retention rates and helped our student athletes raise their GPA. These high standards have resulted in many academic awards and education scholarships earned.
Each year multiple T-Birds are recognized by the Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) for their efforts in the classroom and earn All Academic Team honors. To win this award, student athletes must be sophomores of good academic standing with a GPA above a 3.25. Several athletes have also won the Highline Academic Achievement scholarship which is awarded to students with a 3.5 or higher GPA. This scholarship awards a one quarter tuition waiver. In addition to academic recognition our athletes continue to graduate at exceptional rates.
Highline College is committed to the success of our Thunderbird athletes. The goal of Highline athletics is to retain 100% of our student athletes, help them graduate in a timely fashion and help them earn opportunities to pursue their degree at a 4-year institution. Every year we improve our retention statistics, and we are constantly seeking new and innovative strategies to help our athletes become top students. As always, classroom performance and academic participation will be carefully monitored. We want our Thunderbirds to win on the court and be recognized for their academic achievement in the classroom.
Athletics Department Academic Advisor
Laura Rosa is the Athletics Dept. Academic Advisor. Please email Laura to schedule an appointment.