The Pan-American Life Student Success Center received a grant worth nearly $1.4 million this August that will be used to expand the center’s resources, including the hiring of new staff.

Designed to support 140 students a year, the TRiO Student Success Support Services grant is a federal grant that will enhance the services already offered by the Student Success Center as well as add additional staff to the program.

The Student Success Center plans on hiring a project director and advisor to oversee the grant and to bring on new staff that will focus on first-generation students, Pell Grant recipients and students with learning accommodations, Rainey said.

The school will spend $250,000 of the grant every year for five years. After five years, the Student Success Center can reapply for the same grant, which will help the center expand its services.

The Student Success Center offers tutoring, mentoring, advising and career services. In addition, it contains the Office of Accessible Education, which helps students obtain resources to ensure their success on campus.

The grants are part of a federal outreach program that is designed to support students that come from disadvantaged backgrounds. The grant will go toward “additional academic tutoring, coaching and advising; information on financial aid programs; assistance in completing financial aid applications; financial literacy and wellness; and support for applying for graduate school programs,” according to a press release from the university.

Louisiana State, Xavier, Tulane and Dillard Universities also received this grant.

Elizabeth Rainey, executive director of the Student Success Center, said she expects a quick turnaround on putting the money to use and hopes to have the program underway by January.

Students that attend the Student Success Center will be closely monitored to ensure that they “persist, succeed, and graduate.”

University President Tania Tetlow said in the press release that this grant “will add even more individualized support in the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis – mind, body and soul.”