Everyone struggles. What makes the difference is how you bounce back.

At WVU's John Chambers College of Business and Economics, rebounding from academic hardship is easier than ever thanks to a full host of retention programs and scholarships designed to help students boost their GPAs and stay in school.

Boosting a GPA might sound easy, but Charleston native Bodie Allen knows firsthand how hard it can be. It requires patience and grit – and self-reflection, too.

“It was a little bit challenging to get up and be self-motivated and get to class, because nobody’s staying on your case,” Allen said. “It’s a big step up from high school. You have to keep up with yourself, or you can fall behind really quickly. Being put on academic notice, I was like, ‘Man, where did I go wrong this semester?’”

But academic notice isn’t a punishment – it’s an opportunity. Students on academic notice are offered specialized resources to help them remediate, including:

• Academic resiliency workshops, which focus on topics like time management and note-taking

• One-on-one meetings to discuss remediation progress with academic success coaches

• Concentrated study hours in Reynolds Hall

• Tutoring sessions in the Becker Academic Engagement and Success Center

“Coming to WVU from high school is a huge adjustment, especially for students who are first-gen,” said Retention Specialist Marlenea Brand. “The way we approach retention is based on the individual students’ needs, as opposed to one-size-fits-all.”

Along with the Chambers College’s other academic support personnel – numbering close to 100 advisors, academic success coaches, tutors and Chambers Peer Mentors in total – Brand is charged with helping at-risk Chambers students like Allen build effective learning skills and complete their college educations.

Her team's efforts are paying off. In spring 2025, a review of the Chambers College’s retention initiatives found that students who took advantage of academic notice resources boosted their GPAs by an average of 0.75.

“The fact that Chambers offered that much help for me to be able to bounce back from academic notice in one semester is incredible,” Allen said. “They just made it so easy.”

After Allen began taking advantage of the new resources afforded to him, his cumulative GPA jumped a full point in one semester. His success came with an added bonus: in May 2025, he was made the inaugural recipient of the Porterfield Scholarship, which provides financial aid to one student per year who has overcome academic adversity.

“I’m feeling really good about my future at WVU,” Allen said. “I’ve gone through a lot in my freshman year, but now that I’ve learned the tools that Chambers offers and the kind of help I can get if I’m ever struggling, I think it’s definitely going to get easier from here.”

According to Brand, every student like Allen who successfully remediates can have a ripple effect far beyond the walls of Reynolds Hall:

“I have some students on academic notice whose brothers and sisters are coming to WVU because their older siblings are doing so well now. Being able to retain students and prove that they can be successful will help us recruit other students from smaller parts of West Virginia who have been told that WVU is beyond them.

"We want them to come here, feel at home, feel supported, feel like we’re a family – because we are.”

-WVU-

am/6/10/25 

MEDIA CONTACT: 

Andrew Marvin 
Senior Communications Specialist
John Chambers College of Business and Economics
andrew.marvin@mail.wvu.edu