Enter Columbia’s Learning Studio and look around. Students will see a state-of-the-art facility decorated with soundproof panels, computer pods and dry-erase boards to make their study session more relaxing and enjoyable.

Starting this semester, Columbia’s Learning Studio, 618 S. Michigan Ave., will transition into a larger, more interactive community to provide students with a hub to feel comfortable studying while working together with the college’s community. The studio will now offer tutoring sessions for foreign language courses in partnership with the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department.

Prior to the transition, tutoring services were offered in math, science and accounting courses, which are in partnership with the Arts, Entertainment and Media Management Department.

The Learning Studio’s newest joint venture, in partnership with the HHSS Department, offers tutoring in each of the seven languages that Columbia offers through its courses. The languages include Chinese, Spanish, French, Swahili, Arabic, Italian and Japanese. The department will provide eight tutors to assist students.

The only department that is part of the language program not offered at the Learning Studio is American Sign Language. The ASL tutoring centers are located on the fourth floor of the 33 E. Congress Parkway Building.

Regina Wellner, academic manager of the HHSS Department at Columbia, is looking forward to the partnership with the Learning Studio starting this fall.

“One of the things we wanted to be able to do was provide improved tutoring services and being able to have the sessions at the Learning Studio gives us that kind of visibility,” Wellner said. “Having access to the Learning Studio and allowing students to work with each other will be a real plus for our language students.”

Along with the addition of the language tutors, the Learning Studio will offer new sessions to cater to Columbia students.

“We are moving to add what we call Studio Sessions, which are basically group tutoring sessions,” said Julie Redmond, assistant vice president for Academic Support at Columbia. “Students come in with very similar needs or come with friends or classmates and we want to accommodate them.”

Another new element introduced to the studio will be the option of signing up for tutoring sessions online, which will benefit students if they can’t find time in their schedule to stop by and book an

appointment.

“We will have an Oasis ‘appointments tab’ so students can sign up for a one-time session or even a weekly recurring appointment,” Redmond said. “They can even sign up for a group studio session that might interest them. We will still be able to serve people who want to drop in between tests, but we are trying to encourage people to be proactive in their planning.”

The Learning Studio also offers Peer Supplemental Instruction. These tutoring sessions will focus on courses including Science of Electronics, History of Art I: Stone Age to Gothic, Design Theory I, The French Revolution, Introduction to Audio, Basic Audio Systems as well as Sightsinging, Musicianship, and Ear Training III.

The Conaway Achievement Project, which has offices located in the Learning Studio, will be launching a new workshop series this fall in conjunction with Multicultural Affairs.

“The series will cover financial literacy, assistance with finding jobs [and] identifying the true cost of education and how to pay for school, as well as a graduate school workshop,” said Gena Flynn, director of CAP at Columbia. “We see it as our beginning attempt to reach the students with the issues that we want to address.”

The coordinators of the Learning Studio and those involved with the programs encourage students to take advantage of these new offerings.

“A lot of the time what we say to students is that it’s part of the tuition, it’s beautiful [and] most importantly it’s here and should be taken advantage of,” Redmond said.

The Learning Studio is open to students Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To find out more information about the Learning Studio, visit Colum.edu