FRESHMAN SUCCESS COACHES: Guiding Students Through Their Transition to College.

• Position: EXTRAORDINARY EDUCATION

They graduated in May, the first cohort mentored by HPU's student success coaches.

They walked across the stage, received their degree in front of Roberts Hall and began careers or post-graduate work. And Dr. Beth Holder cried. She always does at graduations. But this one was different.

She knows these graduates. She knows how some of them had first-year hurdles, and time does fly. It seems like yesterday that HPU's brand-new program she helped develop pointed them in the right direction.

It worked. Today, more first-year students are finding clear paths to success early in their academic careers because of Holder and her team of success coaches.

They anchor the front lines of student engagement, and they take on a raft of roles: academic advisor, mediator, mentor, drill sergeant and friend.

Holder created what she calls her "Dream Team." Today, she has 13 success coaches to help students navigate the new waters of college life.

Holder's program has become vital, a critical piece to a concept HPU President Dr. Nido Qubein calls "intentional congruence." And it all began four years ago.

HPU's success coaches don't remember numbers. They remember names. Here are two: Brent Stringer and Caroline Tucker.

Like many from that first cohort, Stringer and Tucker have a story to tell.

Both landed jobs before graduation. Both developed strong relationships with their success coaches when they were freshmen.

THE JOURNEY OF TRANSFORMATION

Success coach Britt Carl would hear a staccato of stomps, and she immediately knew who it was.

Tucker.

"Briiiiitt," Tucker yelled before entering Carl's office. "I need your help!"

Every two weeks that first semester, Tucker saw Carl. Their 10-minute meetings turned into hour-long discussions, and every time, Carl helped Tucker deal with emotions and academic confusion about being a physics major.

Tucker wrestled with failure. Her parents were both college grads, and her dad was a corporate lawyer. She was the youngest of two, adopted from China at 9 months old, and growing up in Arlington, Virginia, she had known nothing but success.

Until she hit college. She struggled. So did Stringer.

Stringer came from Hilton Head, South Carolina, and he majored in business administration. But he didn't manage his time well. His dad, a home builder, gave him an ultimatum.

"Brent," he told his youngest son. "If your grades don't improve, you can come home and do construction for the rest of your life."

Enter success coach Akir...