When handling the demanding and rigorous coursework at Brown, tutoring can be a valuable asset for students shooting for academic success.
Most students at Brown can access group tutoring through the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning. But a select few — including student-athletes and students enrolled in the Program for Liberal Medical Education — get the exclusive opportunity to meet one-on-one with tutors for certain courses.
The Sheridan Center supplies group tutoring for “select introductory STEM, quantitative social sciences and language courses,” according to the center’s website. These weekly peer-focused sessions are led by experienced tutors and are available to Brown students enrolled in courses that partner with the center.
Currently, the Sheridan Center provides tutoring for 42 courses, amassing 200 tutoring groups supervised by 125 tutors, according to Janet Peters, the associate director of academic tutoring for the Sheridan Center.
In total, a quarter of undergraduates on campus participate in tutoring, Peters said.
Ashley Ganesh ’25 currently tutors students enrolled in ECON 1110: “Intermediate Microeconomics” at the Sheridan Center. Ganesh highlighted the benefits of a peer-focused environment. “It’s really helpful to problem solve in groups and for students to meet other people,” she said.
For student-athletes and PLMEs, specialized tutoring programs meet unique needs.
PLME students are encouraged to primarily utilize resources offered by the Sheridan Center, David Barnes, the coordinator of PLME, wrote in an email to The Herald. But for PLME competency courses — which include introductory biology and chemistry courses — PLME students can receive one-on-one tutoring from a fellow student in the program.
Adwoa Owusu ’26 tutors PLME students who are taking BIOL 0530: “Principles of Immunology,” adding that her tutor sessions double as spaces for first-years and sophomores to seek peer advising.
Brown Athletics also offers one-on-one tutoring for student-athletes to accommodate their demanding and unpredictable schedules, according to Jennifer Miller-McEachern, the senior manager for student-athlete academic services and career development.
Since practice schedules for some sports fluctuate frequently, Miller-McEachern said, the Sheridan Center’s weekly offerings are not ideal for student-athletes.
Miller-McEachern emphasized that most student-athletes are spending close to 20 hours per week participating in activities related to their sport. “It’s really helpful for student-athletes” to have the flexibility provided by one-on-one sessions that can be scheduled on a weekly basis, she said.
Colin Bavibidila ’26, a tutor for student-athletes taking calculus courses, said that his experiences playing sports in high school encouraged him to apply for the position. “I can relate to the athletes,” he said.
Bavibidila noted that one-on-one tutoring gives him the freedom to customize lessons based on his tutees’ specific needs. “This also allows for me to build what I believe is a more personal relationship with the tutee rather than it being in a lecture form,” he said.
For Olivia Young ’27, a student-athlete on the women’s basketball team, one-on-one tutoring is “essential” to her success in the classroom. Young chose individual tutoring to better accommodate her schedule as an athlete. Currently, she participates in individual tutoring for ECON 0170: “Essential Mathematics for Economics” led by an athlete on the football team.
“I feel like there’s more of a sense of connection with a fellow athlete tutor because we share struggles but also support each other,” Young said. She added that individual tutoring has helped her conceptualize challenging material in her STEM courses.
So why are private tutors only available to certain student groups? For Peters, the answer comes down to numbers.
Overseeing the operations of the Sheridan Center’s tutoring program for 16 years, Peters has helped transform tutor group sizes from around 20 students down to the small groups of three to six that are offered today, she said.
When asked about the possibility of implementing private tutoring for more students, Peters said “it wouldn’t be sustainable.” She noted that the program’s budget “impacts not only the number of tutors that we have on staff, but the number of courses that we can actually support.”
The high demand for tutoring resources has also caused the Sheridan Center to place some interested students on waitlists. Seeking assistance in understanding the difficult concepts in CHEM 0350: “Organic Chemistry I,” Hudson Nguyen ’27 requested group tutoring but was waitlisted for a week before securing a spot in a group.
Peters recognized that the long waitlists for tutoring are a persistent issue, especially for engineering-related courses. But she said that a lack of tutors has limited the number of tutoring groups they can offer.
