A new way for students, professors and advisers to stay connected and create avenues for success has been provided for all SUNY Buffalo State students.

The program, Bengal Success, is an online tool where students can request help for subjects that they find themselves having difficulty with. The student can “raise a flag,” choose the subject that they want help with, and be able to schedule a meeting with a tutor to address the problem.

“The whole idea is to create a forum around student success where people would feel comfortable,” said Provost Melanie Perreault. “Where it’s not like you necessarily have to stand up in public and go, ‘Oh, I need help with this.’ A lot of time students kind of walk around campus going, ‘I don’t know where to go to get counseling I don’t know where to get writing help.’”

The system, when it’s fully functioning, will do all that for you, it will set up those appointments and then it’ll remind you.

Every student registered for classes has a Bengal Success account and is able to access the program through a link on their Blackboard profile.

Provost Perreault says the program is also a way for professors and advisers to stay connected and work towards their student’s having success academically.

“This student’s not showing up for my class I have concerns about that,’” Perreault said. “So a professor could raise that flag and then it links off to the adviser so that the adviser knows and can call in a student and say ‘Hey, you know you’ve missed a ton of English class whats going on?’ So the idea is to try to address any issues early before it becomes a big problem.”

Groups on campus were looking for ways to provide greater student success and greater student retention for the school. SUNY Buffalo State jumped on the opportunity to provide this program in particular when the SUNY system offered to pay for its start up costs as well as an extra year of support for the program.

Perreault says that Bengal Success has the ability to build a better future for the college and its students.

“After you use it for a few years, it starts collecting all this data,” she said. “So what it can help us do is say ‘Hey look, we know that, because we’ve seen in these particular classes that students keep raising flags that go ‘I need help with math,’ that would raise to us to go “maybe what we should do is just put extra math help right in the class.”

Bengal Success also serves as a way for professors to endorse progress and positive achievements that students make throughout the semester.