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History
The mission of the UNIV Student Success Program is to foster a sense of belonging and connection to the AUM community for new students through impactful first-year seminars and mentoring opportunities that will support a successful transition to college and ultimately lead to graduation.
We designed UNIV as a commitment to AUM’s mission to exemplify excellence through education, as well as the institution’s emphasis on increasing retention, persistence, and graduation rates. Our goals and learning objectives for this course intentionally align course content with institutional objectives.
The course addresses the following components from AUM’s learning competencies:
The Four Primary Learning Outcomes
University Success
We have structured the UNIV courses to provide you, as a new AUM student, with opportunities to successfully transition into college, both academically and personally. UNIV is designed to help you foster a connection of belonging at AUM, as well as provide the skills needed to engage with your classes in a way that promotes academic advancement and persistence through graduation.
Specifically, the course will orient you to our academic expectations, introduce you to AUM services in place to support your academic success, guide you through professional, academic, and personal goal-setting processes, and provide you with a peer cohort with whom you experience your first year.
Policy
UNIV is an AUM graduation requirement that we expect you to complete within the first academic year that you attend AUM.
Mentor Collective
The Mentor Collective program enhances the student experience by linking them one-on-one with a peer mentor. Students are paired with someone invested in their success – a person ready to listen, inspire, help navigate challenges and recognize opportunities. Students will learn what to expect in school, how to approach challenges, gain career advise and valuable insights, while mentors will build their networks and develop skills to become better professional and leaders.
Paul Arrington
Coordinator/Lecturer | University College
Paul D. Arrington joined the AUM faculty in August 2019 as a Lecturer & Student Success Mentor in the UNIV Student Success Program and became the Program Coordinator in 2022. He is passionate about working with college students and finding ways to remove institutional barriers that impede student flourishing. Before coming to AUM, Paul enjoyed a 10-year career in the Texas public schools. During that time, he taught secondary social studies courses, coordinated campus-level college readiness systems, and was a member of the team that established the Tyler ISD Early College High School. While at ECHS, he served as a teacher, advisor, webmaster, and program and branch campus coordinator. He also spent a year as an adjunct professor of Learning Framework at Tyler Junior College.
Paul is a doctoral student at Auburn University where he studies educational leadership and program evaluation and researches high-impact practices in higher education, student belonging and mattering, and curriculum leadership. He completed his Principalship coursework and certification through Lamar University in 2018, and an M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction from The University of Texas at Tyler in 2017. His master’s research project examined secondary-level teachers’ perceptions of using Chromebooks in the classroom. He earned a B.S. in History (Social Studies Teaching, Grades 8-12) in 2009 from Abilene Christian University. In June 2019, Paul married Hannah, and they had their first child together, Samuel, in November of 2023. Their family also includes an energetic and loving Aussiedoodle named Penny.
