Mission Statement
 The Academic Skills Center (ASC) is committed to student excellence, providing the skills-based tools, techniques, and practice for enabling students to achieve their highest potential in written communication, reading competence, study methods, and other academic success ventures. Equipped with qualified writing consultants of diverse skills and expertise, the ASC makes every effort to help students advance their critical writing, reading, and thinking abilities. The ASC values writing and reflection as a process and encourages students to appreciate this process as they develop their competence and confidence through written expression.
Our Commitment to You
Writing improvement is a key component of the ASC mission. We welcome you to come in at any stage of the writing process. From brainstorming, thesis development, and organization to grammar, punctuation, and documentation, we have a number of student and faculty writing consultants who look forward to helping you achieve academic competence. We also have reading and study skills specialists who will work with you to refine your reading confidence and studying success. We can also work out a customized writing consultation or study plan, especially if you are seeking on-going instruction for the Praxis, the GRE, or a longer independent-study project.
The ASC is a teaching/learning facility. When working with you on papers, we strive to help you understand both your strengths and weaknesses so that you can work on becoming a better writer—both in the ASC and outside of it. We encourage you to bring in your assignment, especially if you are working in the early stages of drafting. If you have difficulty just getting started, don’t fret. Set up an appointment and come in as soon as you can! We look forward to giving you strategies for articulating your ideas and putting them in writing. If you are in the finalizing stages, please come in to work on editing techniques.
Appointments
If you would like to set up an appointment, please come to the bottom floor of the J. Drake Edens Library and sign up. Because we serve such a high volume of students, we offer only 25-minute appointments and ask that you sign up for only one session per day. Nevertheless, if you need to work with a writing consultant for more than the duration of your one session, we will be happy to continue working with you if no one else has signed up after you. We also welcome you to drop in at anytime during our regular hours. If no other student has a scheduled appointment, we would be happy to work with you.
If you need to cancel your scheduled appointment, we request that you make every effort to come to the library and reschedule your initially scheduled appointment. We want to help as many students as possible. Please realize that if you do not come for your scheduled time, you prevent another student from having that opportunity to plan in advance.
Please see the attached schedule for our hours of operation. If you need to make a last-minute cancellation, please contact Patti Scurry at patti.scurry@columbiasc.edu or 803.786.3633.
More About Us
If you would like to find out more about our writing consultants and their specialties, please visit our profile page.
If the ASC is closed and you need immediate assistance, please visit our “Handouts” page or “Helpful Links” page at for useful information to help you with various stages of the writing or studying process. We also encourage you to visit the Pearce Communication Center for additional resources to help you refine you oral and written communication.
The ASC offers several in-house workshops to help you with mechanics, grammar, punctuation, and documentation (MLA, APA & CMS). Please visit us again for an updated schedule, check us out on Facebook, and/or keep an eye out for our emails notifying you of dates and times.
We also offer several interactive programs, such as ASC Lingo and the ASC Grammar Blog. If you would like to improve your reading vocabulary and verbal expression so you can not only sound smart but be smart, keep an eye out for the ASC Word-of-the-Day emails. We hold several fun events throughout the semester to help you practice and apply your lexical competency.
Visit us on Facebook to stay abreast of customized workshops, ASC Bingo, and ASC Win, Lose or Draw!
Visit our grammar blog if you have a question to ask or an insightful tip to share!
Please send additional questions or comments to:
Calley A. Hornbuckle, Ph.D.
Director of the Academic Skills Center
First-Year Writing Coordinator
cahornbuckle@columbiasc.edu
(803) 786-3705 |
