5 campus resources for new students

Serena Bettis

August 17, 2020

In the spring semester, Colorado State University served 26,671 students at all levels of education. No matter where you are from, that is a lot of people to study, work and interact with, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you are new to it.

To help with the transition onto campus, The Collegian has compiled a list of five essential resources for students available online or on campus.

1. The Institute for Learning and Teaching

The Institute for Learning and Teaching, or TILT, functions as a tutoring, testing and resource center for any student on campus.

In addition to free tutoring for many of the sciences and study groups for specific courses across all the colleges, TILT hosts a variety of academic success workshops throughout the semester. Topics for these workshops include time management, exam preparation and procrastination. All the workshops are free.

During the coronavirus pandemic, all workshops, tutoring and academic support centers moved online to Canvas. All students need to do is follow the links provided on the TILT website to quickly register for the Canvas courses and have access to help typically found on campus.

2. The Assistive Technology Resource Center

The Assistive Technology Resource Center works with the Student Disability Center to provide assistive technology to students with disabilities. According to the ATRC website, students who may benefit from their services include those who have difficulties reading regular-sized text, seeing computer screens, taking notes in class, producing written work and more.

The ATRC provides all registered full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students with hardware and software loans that include alternative keyboards, digital recorders, Livescribe pens, text magnifiers and writing tools.

3. The Health Network

On top of providing a wide range of medical and dental services, the CSU Health Network offers counseling and health education services.

Counseling at the Health Network includes one-on-one sessions for individuals and couples, group therapy and mental health workshops. Other services include drug, alcohol and recovery counseling and spiritual care.

Check the Health Network’s website on a regular basis to see what their procedures are during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The YOU@CSU program also offers guided support personalized to each student.

4. Rams Against Hunger

If you are struggling with food insecurity or do not have enough meal swipes at the dining hall, Rams Against Hunger is a program out of the office of Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement designed to reduce food insecurity on campus.

Rams Against Hunger offers three pocket pantries, all free to students, that supply non-perishable food items for those in need. The pantries are located in the Lory Student Center, the Aggie Village Family Center and the University Village Apartments.

Rams Against Hunger has also partnered with the Larimer County Food Bank to offer a food pantry to students. While the food pantry used to come to campus once a month, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the operations, and food pantry hours for the fall semester can be found on the Rams Against Hunger website.

5. Diversity Offices

The CSU Diversity Offices provide space for students in historically marginalized groups to find support and community. Each office has a multitude of student clubs, study spaces in the LSC and other resources geared toward their students available on their websites.

Contact each office to learn more about their policies and operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and check out this Collegian article from February to learn about the history of the campus cultural centers.

To find a full list of campus links, go to CSU’s main website, click on “Resources” in the top right corner and look at the links listed under “Current Students.”

Serena Bettis can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @serenaroseb.

About the Contributors

Serena Bettis, Editor in Chief

Serena Bettis is your 2022-23 editor in chief and is in her final year studying journalism and political science. In her three years at The Collegian, Bettis has also been a news reporter, copy editor, news editor and content managing editor, and she occasionally takes photos, too. When Bettis was 5, her family moved from Iowa to a tiny town northwest of Fort Collins called Livermore, Colorado, before eventually moving to Fort Collins proper. When she was 8 years old, her dad enrolled at Colorado State University as a nontraditional student veteran, where he found his life’s passion in photojournalism. Although Bettis’ own passion for journalism did not stem directly from her dad, his time at CSU and with The Collegian gave her the motivation to bite down on her fear of talking to strangers and find The Collegian newsroom on the second day of classes in 2019. She’s never looked back since. Considering that aforementioned fear, Bettis is constantly surprised to be where she is today. However, thanks to the supportive learning environment at The Collegian and inspiring peers, Bettis has not stopped chasing her teenage dream of being a professional journalist. Between working with her section editors, coordinating news stories between Rocky Mountain Student Media departments and coaching new reporters, Bettis gets to live that dream every day. When she’s not in the newsroom or almost falling asleep in class, you can find Bettis working in the Durrell Marketplace and Café or outside gazing at the beauty that is our campus (and running inside when bees are nearby). This year, Bettis’ goals for The Collegian include continuing its trajectory as a unique alt-weekly newspaper, documenting the institutional memory of the paper to benefit students in years to come and fostering a sense of community and growth both inside the newsroom and through The Collegian’s published work. Bettis would like to encourage anyone with story ideas, suggestions, questions, concerns or comments to reach out to her at editor@collegian.com.

Devin Cornelius, Digital Managing Editor

Devin Cornelius is the digital managing editor for The Collegian. He is a fifth-year computer science major from Austin, Texas. He moved to Colorado State University and started working for The Collegian in 2017 as a photographer. His passion for photography began in high school, so finding a photography job in college was one of his top priorities. He primarily takes sports photos, volleyball being his favorite to shoot. Having been on The Collegian staff for 4 1/2 years, he’s watched the paper evolve from a daily to a weekly paper, and being involved in this transition is interesting and exciting. Although Cornelius is a computer science major, his time at The Collegian has been the most fulfilling experience in his college career — he has loved every second. From working 12-hour days to taking photos in Las Vegas for the Mountain West Conference, he cannot think of a better place to work. Working as a photographer for The Collegian pushed him outside of his comfort zone, taking him places that he never expected and making him the photographer he is today. As the digital managing editor, Cornelius oversees the photos, graphics and social media of The Collegian along with other small tech things. Working on the editorial staff with Katrina Leibee and Serena Bettis has been super fun and extremely rewarding, and together they have been pushing The Collegian toward being an alt-weekly. Outside of The Collegian, he enjoys playing volleyball, rugby, tumbling and a variety of video games. When in Austin, you can find him out on the lake, wake surfing, wake boarding and tubing. You can expect that Cornelius and the rest of The Collegian staff will do their best to provide you with interesting and exciting content.

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