Columbia Opens Center for Student Success, Bringing Key Services Together

��Ƶ President and CEO Shantay N. Bolton cuts the ribbon at the Center for Student Success opening on Sept. 22, 2026, joined by students, staff, and community guests.

Students, faculty, staff, and community partners celebrated the opening of a new campus hub designed to make academic, financial, and enrollment support easier to find.

��Ƶ celebrated the opening of its Center for Student Success on Sept. 22 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 33 E. Ida B. Wells Drive. The new space brings academic advising, student financial services, and other support teams together so students can get help without traveling between offices across campus.

“We are pulling together resources from academic advising, student financial services, student belonging, student persistence, all in one space to create a first stop center for student engagement and holistic support,” says Brian Marth, associate provost for academic services.

Students can visit the Center for help with degree planning, registration, financial aid and billing, financial wellness, Campus Cards, and veteran services. The space also offers places to study, work with classmates, or take a break.

Speaking on behalf of the Student Government Association, Mason Lawson, Columbia’s student representative to the Board of Trustees, said the Center could help end what students call the “Columbia Bounce”—being sent from one campus office to another to find the help they need. Lawson also pointed to the student artwork on display and encouraged classmates to use the new space.

The Center was already busy before the ceremony. In its first two weeks, it recorded 175 scheduled appointments, more than 650 drop-in appointments, and 300 students attending programs and events, according to senior director of student success Rachel Horton.

“We’ve seen students working in group projects,” Horton says. “And we’ve seen them just doing their homework, sitting down during class and enjoying a space where they can be themselves and know there is help available in any moment that they need us.”

President Shantay N. Bolton described the opening of the Center as a commitment to supporting students throughout their time at Columbia. “Navigating college should not be harder than necessary,” she says. The Center, she added, is part of a broader effort to help students persist and graduate.

That effort includes Columbia’s new Office of Belonging and Persistence, which brings together Student Persistence, Student Diversity and Inclusion, and International Student and Scholar Services. Its work includes outreach, success coaching, international student support, mentorship, and opportunities for students to build community.

“Student success is not the responsibility of one office,” Bolton says. “It is the responsibility that we all share no matter what title we hold, what office we sit in, what building we primarily stay in.”

The Center was funded through a $5 million grant from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

After the remarks, students, alumni, faculty, and guests gathered for the ribbon-cutting countdown and toured the new space.

President Bolton

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