Student Success Program

Every facet of this program is designed to assist first-year students achieve academic success. Within the first year, each student is enrolled in the Student Success course and assigned a peer mentor to help build a positive academic foundation as key life skills are explored and developed.

Student Success: Campus to Community Course

This full-year program helps first-year students understand themselves as learners and servants of the community. Program goals include:

• Discovering of strengths and discerning vocations
• Building personal motivation for succeeding in college
• Identifying and understanding reasons for academic success
• Managing time effectively
• Prioritizing responsibilities
• Becoming active learners
• Preparing for and taking tests
• Locating campus resources
• Increasing cultural awareness
• Developing broader cultural and global perspectives

Students will engage in volunteer and cultural activities within the community to support Rivier University’s mission of transforming hearts and minds to serve the world.

Annual First-Year Students Day of Service

Service learning integrates active, socially significant service into the education experience. It offers students meaningful, community-based, experiential learning by adding human depth to the theories learned in the classroom. Annually, all first-year students participate in a day of service, where they go out into the Greater Nashua community and volunteer at a non-profit organization. Service learning reflects our commitment to action and social justice, and it leads participants to consider the ways in which their service links to God, neighbor, and the community.

The Art Gallery at Rivier University

Cultivating cultural awareness sets the stage for an imaginative engagement with the disciplines of theater, painting, sculpture, and music. Art Gallery exhibits create a link between cultural awareness and inclusive education that provides exposure to and fostering of creativity.

Servant Leadership Course

This course helps students become servant leaders by studying leadership theory, learning interview methods, independently researching work on peer leaders, and developing action plans. Students apply servant leadership theories and principles, demonstrate qualitative interview practices, use effective listening skills, problem solve, and make decisions regarding the concerns of their peers, and enact reasonable, practical solutions to problems.

Peer Mentoring Program

Peer mentors seek to establish personal and ongoing relationships with their mentees. They share their own experiences and insights about being at Rivier University. As an informal source of dedicated support and information, peer Mentors serve as advocates to the first-year students. In addition to providing academic support, mentors are bridge-builders between their first-year mentees and the student service departments across campus. This means that students have a ready resource for questions and help with navigating the important aspects of the college experience.