Students search far and wide for academic tutors, some even travelling all the way to Atlanta, while unaware of a resource at their disposal right in their dorms: the Academic Mentorship Program. AMP is a tutoring service created by female dorm leaders for female residential students. AMP coordinator senior Stacy Chen is dedicated to alleviating the stress of rigorous academics.

“Lilley Washburn, Emily Edwards and I all put in our Cooper leader self-reflection survey that we wished more girls felt comfortable coming to us for homework/class help. So Mrs. Babb sat us down and told us to brainstorm ideas for a tutoring program. Our goal is to get students who need academic help to feel comfortable asking for help and allow peer-tutors have a set time, place, or subjects to tutor students,” Chen said.

AMP Tutors are trained by learning center faculty in order to best serve the needs of students honorably and efficiently. AMP is a valuable alternative to paying for a tutor, and the AMP network is rapidly growing. However, AMP coordinator, senior Annabelle Scarborough, recognizes that they’ve run into their fair share of challenges.

“I think there’s some more things we could do to get like the involvement more of the people who need help. Cause sometimes I’ll sit on duty at night for AMP, and like I’ll get no questions. So we’d like to increase the amount of people who need help to come get it,” Scarborough said.

Chen hopes that in coming years, AMP will expand even more, and she encourages others to get involved.

“Since all three coordinators of AMP are graduating this year, we are on a lookout for a new Head AMP Coordinator. Her job will be to run the program, keep it going, improve it, shadow a current coordinator for the upcoming year, and take ownership of AMP. I joke with Mrs. Babb that AMP is my baby, and that if it dies when I come back to Dar, I will be very sad. Looking ahead, AMP would like to create a mirror program in the boys dorms. We made an effort last year to start one there, but it did not go through. I’m hoping that AMP will grow and evolve after I leave and become an intrinsic part of the Darlington boarding experience,” Chen said.