Abstract
Adult and nontraditional learners are a fast growing student populations in higher education (Wyatt, 2011) and currently make up approximately 37% of undergraduates currently enrolled in higher education in the United States (Bergman, 2020). Despite their prevalence, empirical studies continue to demonstrate that policies, programs, and practices at traditional universities are set up with more “traditional” student populations (Remenick, 2019), resulting in adult and nontraditional learners expressing a general lack of belonging in higher education settings (Bohl et al., 2017; Kasworm, 2010). With the goal of understanding why and how one particular traditional, public, four-year university was working to combat these negative experiences and perceptions, this qualitative case study examined a university-wide student success center that was specifically tasked with serving and supporting adult and nontraditional students. Findings from this study provide higher education leaders and practitioners with practical recommendations to consider when determining if and how to build an analogous support center for their adult and nontraditional learners. These include how to position the creation of the center as a solution to broad institutional problems and build upon existing internal passion for supporting this population, key resources and supports (both internal and external) to consider obtaining in order to successfully create such a center, structural considerations for how to ensure that the center can function appropriately, and an overarching reminder to embrace and celebrate incremental change. The core recommendation from this study is to create similar centers specifically for adult and nontraditional learners, but recognize the importance of leveraging the center to ensure that the university itself, not just the center, becomes a home for this student population.