After much preparation over the course of last year and the summer break, the Student Success Services at the Joyal Administration Building has been reformed.

Changes, including moving the financial aid staff from the second floor to the north lobby, have been made in the effort to create better efficiency.

Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Dr. Frank Lamas said he hopes students find the changes they have made to be an improvement.

“The whole idea of the one-stop shop for student success center was to try to get people through quickly, efficiently and effectively,” Lamas said. “By putting it in a larger location with more windows, downstairs with furniture, a little bit more lively environment, you hope that there’s some positives that comes out of all of that.”

Lamas said they are still working on making more changes for projects and programs. This includes a The Dream Outreach Center that is still unfolding and a planned increase in staff for the Renaissance Scholars program. For the student services center, they’re planning on adding more pictures, logos, and pieces of furniture.

“There’s a lot of different things that we’re trying to tweak and move forward from last year into this year,” Lamas said.

Mary Sauceda, communications coordinator for the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management said she thinks students will like how the reformation will bring better convenience.

“A lot of times students, when financial aid was located upstairs, had to go up there, ask for financial aid and their questions pertained to both admissions and financial aid,” Sauceda said. “So, now they can just go to one place and get both of them answered.”

Sauceda wants to get the message across to students that the Division of Student Affairs wants to do it’s best to help students.

“Just really trying to show the campus community how Student Affairs is really trying to push for student success. Showing students that we’re on your side. We want to help you, we want to make things easier for you. So, if it means us moving financial aid down by admissions to make your life easier, let’s do that.”

Director of Admissions and Records Tina Beddall said she took the lead in gathering and putting the financial aid, admissions, and records offices at the Student Services Center together. Beddall said another major change made was the signage that they have put inside and outside of the North and South Lobbies.

“The effort was to just make it very easy to understand which lobby you needed to go into to get the services you needed,” Beddall said.

Beddall believes this will be a very good change for students.

“I think it’s a really good thing to centralize as many services as we can. Especially for the students, and making it more convenient.”