PASS program wins United States accolade

Dec 15, 2004

The PASS (Peer Assisted Study Session) Program at the University of Wollongong has been recognised by its American counterparts as running the best program of its kind in Australia.

PASS is based on Supplemental Instruction (SI) which began at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) 30 years ago. Since that time, the program has spread to over 30 countries with UMKC hosting the International SI Centre.

In a rare accolade, the UOW PASS Program Manager, Ms Sally Rogan, has been asked by the International Centre at UMKC to be a Certified National Trainer for Australia and NZ. Outside the USA, only a small number of other countries, including Great Britain, South Africa, Sweden and Mexico currently have an accredited national trainer, with these positions normally limited to around 10 in the world.

The new role will involve Ms Rogan in providing training and assistance on the implementation and management of PASS Programs to other institutions in Australia and New Zealand. The possible expansion of PASS/SI into Asian tertiary institutions is also being discussed. Ms Rogan said it was a personal honour and a credit to the University of Wollongong as a whole, that the US had selected her to serve as an official trainer.

As with PASS, SI sessions in the United States are weekly review sessions for students enrolled in historically difficult courses.

SI is provided for all students who want to improve their understanding of course material and improve their grades. The sessions are facilitated by a trained SI leader.

As part of the accreditation process, Dr Sandra Zerger from the International SI Centre will visit UOW for a week in February 2005. Dr Glen Jacobs, the Director of the Centre, will then make the official presentation in July when he visits UOW to support and endorse the work of the PASS Program.

PASS at UOW is entering its 4th year of operation and is continuing to grow in popularity. In 2005 it will operate across five faculties - Informatics, Commerce, Health and Behavioural Sciences, Engineering and Education. Ms Rogan said it had produced very good results for participating students and greatly assisted those students in making a successful transition to university study, with participants being retained into second year in much higher percentages than non-participants. Over 1,000 first year students had participated in the 2004 program.

She said the program has created excellent feedback from the students and the Peer Leaders (senior students) who take the sessions.

Ms Rogan won a Vice-Chancellor's Award in 2003 for developing and managing the program and presented a paper on the achievements of the UOW Program at the International SI Conference in Boston earlier this year.

Ms Rogan can be contacted on 4221 5588 up until tomorrow (Thursday 16 December) and after that only by email on sally@uow.edu.au

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128