Sessions, Online School of Design, Implements Web-Based Student Success Tracker(TM); Virtual Student Support Center Helps Provide Motivation & Reduce Risk of Isolation in the Online Learning Environment.

NEW YORK -- Sessions, the leading instructor-led, project-based, online school of graphic and web design, announced today the implementation of an online resource to track, measure, and report each Sessions' student's academic progress.

Accessible to students on the Sessions' web site, Success Tracker provides students with a personalized cumulative status report chronicling their course work, portfolio projects and activity history. All 1,800 currently enrolled Sessions' students will have password-protected access to their own confidential profile. In addition, Success Tracker facilitates one-on-one guidance and motivational support for students via phone and email with Sessions' student advisors and success managers.

"With the Success Tracker available at every login, and personalized advice and support standing-by, Sessions students are reporting a level of personal support and motivation that is unique to the online learning environment and in some ways superior even to the learning tradition at most conventional campuses," said Doris Granatowski, Sessions' CEO.

Typically, four-year schools and community colleges provide student counseling and guidance but require students to physically meet with advisors. "At Sessions, our team of success managers comes to the student, not only online but on the phone as well," explains Ms. Granatowski. Sessions' goal is to discuss course schedule and learning plans through regular phone contact with every student.

"Students, particularly adult learners, have well-defined career objectives but the challenge to fulfilling those objectives is largely underestimated by the online education community," Ms. Granatowski explained.

Students of online learning programs often encounter unfamiliar and sometimes difficult conditions that can impede their educational experience and diminish the probability of successful completion of their courses. Typical problems for adult online learners include:

-- time-management: balancing life, work, and study

-- lack of community with students, faculty and staff

-- sporadic, limited contact with instructors and support staff of the school

-- an inability to benchmark one's progress against peers and personal objectives

"Providing solutions to these problems are not typical "student service department" tasks," explained Ms. Granatowski. "We're dealing with human needs and feelings. We've made it our mission to make our students' academic and vocational preparation a positive and reaffirming experience."

Humanization is Critical Component of Program

Student choice of online programs is often based on the benefits of flexibility and access. Studying at one's own pace and in one's personal environment are indeed attractive benefits not usually available at traditional brick-and-mortar schools.

Online reality has a harsh side as well. With Sessions' course work as complex and challenging as that of other schools, students often find they are overwhelmed, isolated, and even lonely. Initial enthusiasm dissipates and fear of failure may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Headed by Marlena Berghammer, Student Success Manager, herself a graduate of online education, the Sessions' Student Success Program was developed to maximize a student's sense of individual importance. Online Success Tracker provides multiple ways of building personal relationships with fellow students, faculty members, and school personnel, including:

-- coaching students to act as self-advocates

-- encouraging students to share strategies for program success

-- creating a nurturing environment for students, encouraging frequent student-advisor contact

-- serving as a virtual meeting place for advisor-student conversations.

"We're in a proactive mode with a student before the proverbial ink is dry on their registrations," said Ms. Berghammer. "We make it our business to know who they are, why they are here, and what they are dealing with in their lives and careers. We're here to understand their hopes and ambitions and tailor their academic careers to make those dreams a reality. We create the right tools students need to enhance academic achievement throughout their entire program."

Initial results haven been positive and enthusiastic. "Access to the status of my personal performance helps boost my morale," said Pauline Tremain, a married mother of two and co-founder of a small graphics agency in the United Kingdom. She recently enrolled in a Sessions' graphic design certificate program and feels the help Sessions provides students to connect with one another makes the online educational experience more of a community. "I find it inspirational to view how I'm doing, and where I'm going, and seeing my progress has instantly lifted my spirits. It's such a good idea to have this, it definitely helps motivate. It's great to know Sessions' cares."

About Sessions (www.sessions.edu)

Sessions.edu, Inc., founded in 1997, was created to teach media design online to current and prospective graphic and web designers worldwide, through the Internet. Once a pioneer and now a leader in the distance education industry, Sessions has delivered tens of thousands of individual interactive course sessions to students in over 100 countries.

Sessions is accredited by the Distance Education Training Council (www.DETC.org) and the first of only two online schools licensed by the New York State Department of Education. The proprietary Sessions' online experience is now offered to colleges, universities, and corporations that seek to enter or expand their presence in the growing and competitive world of distance education.

Sessions offers certificate programs and courses in graphic design, web design, multimedia, business marketing design and digital arts. For more information about Sessions online school of design, visit www.sessions.edu

Success Tracker(TM) is a trademark of Sessions.edu, Inc.