Students with learning differences can succeed in college. Once a student enrolls into the Achieve Program, our Achieve staff and faculty begin assessing the needs of that student. Achieve staff, tutors and faculty members work together to create an individualized plan to help students with learning differences overcome their challenges and meet their goals. When these individualized plans are paired with the program’s assistive technology and a proven team approach, students with learning differences are seeing higher levels of success at Villa than national averages.
Villa’s Achieve Program trains its students to master assistive technology that help ease the transition from the high school classroom to the college classroom. Achieve students have unlimited access to Microsoft Read Aloud and Dictate, Dragon Naturally Speaking Speech Recognition Software, Livescribe Pens and Notebooks, and other tools they’ll need to complete classwork and prepare for exams. Use of these tools can increase students’ self-confidence in their academic, personal, and professional lives. These software programs mimic real world application and technology students will most likely use in the work place.
Villa’s Achieve Program is headquartered on the second floor of Felician Hall, one of three buildings on Villa’s small and friendly campus, located in Buffalo, NY.
The space consists of tutoring rooms, quiet workrooms and testing spaces and a computer lab. All of these areas are stocked with the assistive technology listed above. The Achieve Program also offers students the ongoing support and training they need to learn how to make the most use out of the technology available to them.
Achieve students have exclusive access to all of these facilities any time campus is open. Students common use the Achieve Center as a place to study between classes and tutoring sessions.
Achieve students have exclusive access to professional tutors who are trained to work with students with learning differences. In addition to building tutoring sessions directly into a student’s schedule to facilitate planning, tutors check in with their students at various times throughout the semester to help ensure they understand what’s being taught in the classroom and that they’re up to date with their classwork. Tutoring sessions are available in both personal and group settings depending upon students’ needs.
The Achieve Program also offers support that assists its students in overcoming common obstacles: time management, procrastination and organization.
”"I am in that unique perspective that I am both here as a professional Tutor, and as a Mom. My daughter’s in her third year here in the Graphic Design program. She recently completed her first internship and is looking for her senior one. And, just seeing the growth in her, I believe that if she didn’t have this program, I don’t think that she would be as successful as she has been, or that I would have seen the growth that she’s had because of the one-on-one that she gets through the Achieve Program. It’s my philosophy that anybody can get that college degree if that’s their dream to do it, if they have the correct supports. It’s a phrase I’ve always said because my children also have learning disabilities, is that there’s no disability when you notice ability."
Mary DugganAchieve Tutor