UW’s Student Success Services TRIO Program Receives Five-Year Renewal Grant

The Student Success Services (SSS) program, housed in the University of Wyoming’s Department of Student Educational Opportunity, has been awarded a five-year TRIO grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant, in the amount of a little more than $2.3 million, was awarded from among 1,702 proposals submitted in a nationwide, discretionary grant competition.   

 

Student Success Services, a TRIO education program funded by the U.S. DOE, provides individual advising services to support participants’ academic, financial, major/career and personal success at UW. All services are delivered through an individual, holistic advising relationship with an assigned adviser. The program serves UW undergraduates who are first-generation students (neither parent has a four-year degree), those from limited-income families and students with disabilities. 

 

“The grant is necessary to continue the SSS program, which has been continuously funded at UW since the 1970s,” says Michael Wade, associate director of Student Educational Opportunity. “Every five years, the SSS program must submit a proposal to the U.S. Department of Education and obtain funding for the program to continue for another five-year grant cycle in a discretionary, competitive grant competition.”

 

All grant proposals are read and scored by panels of three peer readers. UW’s SSS grant proposal received a perfect score of 113 from all three of its peer readers, Wade says.

 

The grant, which begins Sept. 1 and runs through Aug. 31, 2030, covers the entirety of UW’s Student Success Services program in the Department of Student Educational Opportunity, including funding all staff. These include a full-time project director and four advisers, two of whom are 12-month appointments and two who are on 10-month assignments.

 

The goal of SSS is to increase the persistence, good academic standing and graduation rates of its participants. Most recent program data shows that SSS participants are 10 percent more likely to finish their first year of college in good academic standing; 18 percent more likely to persist in college at all levels; and 19 percent more likely to graduate within six years than eligible nonparticipants.

 

For more information, to refer a potentially eligible student or to apply to the Student Success Services program, go to www.uwyo.edu/seo/sss, email sss@uwyo.edu, call (307) 766-6189 or visit Room 330 in Knight Hall.