Instructional Services at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is dedicated to helping the underprepared prepare, the prepared advance, and the advanced excel.

The department provides direct instruction for students and serves as an instructional support and resource unit for faculty, staff, and the community at large.  Several key activities enable Instructional Services to accomplish this mission:

• Academic Development Courses

• Testing Program

• Supplemental Instruction

• Open-Access Tutoring Centers

• Academic Survival Workshops and other outreach activities

• Summer Bridge Program

The mission of Instructional Services reflects the broad range of academic support services that is important to student success.  To address this mission, the staff recognizes the academic strengths and weaknesses of students, assists students in acquiring fundamental skills in a supportive, professional atmosphere, and offers academic support to university students at various points in their university careers.

The mission of Instructional Services supports the University’s mission statement which specifically reads “Consistent with its particular commitment to southwestern Illinois and with its pursuit of academic excellence, the university strives to enhance regional access to the educational opportunities it offers.  It recognizes an obligation to provide developmental opportunities for the educationally dispossessed; it pursues a commitment to meet the special needs of nontraditional students; and it makes every effort to maintain for all its students admissions standards, fees, schedules, and calendars which will encourage their access and support their progress.” (SIUE 2001-2003 Undergraduate Catalog, p. 3 & 4, see Appendix A).

Instructional Services assists the University in enhancing and executing its mission by

• providing access to higher education for students who might not otherwise pursue a college degree;

• supporting academic progress of students at the university, thus aiding retention;

• assisting students from diverse backgrounds, such as those whose parents are not college graduates, those who choose to advance their education after many years on the job or in the home, and those who have learning disabilities of atypical learning styles; and 

• supporting the Desired Characteristics and Capabilities of Graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences:  communication, critical thinking, problem framing and solving, knowledge, integration and application of knowledge, self-development, citizenship, and life-long learning.