Seaber RAC

Shippensburg University Athletics

Kathryn Hughes Seaber Raiders Academic Center (Seaber RAC)

The Kathryn Hughes Seaber Raiders Academic Center for Student-Athletes (Seaber RAC), housed inside Ezra Lehman Memorial Library, opened in the fall of 2019 to support the academic well-being of our nearly 500 student-athletes. The staff in the Seaber RAC focuses their efforts on helping student-athletes identify personalized goals that are within their aspirations and to help them surpass their expected potential.

The staff in the Seaber RAC actively collaborates with the Learning Center, the Career, Mentoring, and Professional Development Center, Early Alert Program, and other campus-wide programming to align resources to support student-athletes.

Find out more information about how the Seaber RAC partners with different campus resources to bring institutional support to our student-athletes HERE.

Mission

The mission of the Seaber RAC is to empower, uplift, and educate student-athletes at Shippensburg University by providing holistic support that is aimed toward enhancing the academic, personal, and professional development of student-athletes.

Core Values

Encourage Academic Success
Provide Authentic Support
Emphasize Holistic Development
Celebrate Achievement

Endorse participation in campus wide programming and engagement with the Seaber RAC to maximize the collegiate experience of the student-athlete.

Offer authentic support to our student-athletes in order to foster academic success and holistic development.

Empower and guide our student-athletes throughout their educational journey as they pursue college athletics and academics with personal support systems focused on enhancing the overall development of our student-athletes.

Praise the academic achievements of Shippensburg University student-athletes.

Support Services for Student-Athletes

The Raider Ready Hour workshop series is a student-centered support system implemented to create opportunities for student-athletes to actively invest in their personal development. The developmental workshops aim to provide holistic development opportunities that help foster a sense of belonging and connectedness with the abundance of campus wide support services available to students.
The Academic Mentorship Program has been developed to provide mentorship to all freshmen and academically at-risk student-athletes at Shippensburg University. Identified student-athletes meet weekly with a member of the Seaber RAC’s support staff to receive individualized support for academic skill development and personal growth.
The Raiders Leadership, Emergence, and Development (Raiders L.E.A.D) program for student-athletes provides quality lifelong leadership experiences for student-athletes through a structured skill development program. The primary objective of Raiders L.E.A.D is to provide student-athletes with an opportunity to be actively invested in their personal and professional development outside of their athletic ventures.
Study hall hour requirements are determined and implemented according to overall GPA and class year. The Seaber RAC has implemented a study hall program to provide student-athletes with a structured and supervised environment to complete homework assignments and prepare for exams. The underlying goal of study hall is to provide student-athletes with a formalized program that helps promote an ever-increasing importance for academics while also creating an opportunity to help student-athletes set the standard on the minimal time requirement needed to find success in the classroom.
Faculty Athletic Mentors serve as unofficial and informal mentors for individual student-athletes and, in some cases, for entire teams. The Faculty Athletic Mentor Program formalizes this relationship in order to encourage mentoring opportunities between student-athletes and academic faculty.
The Seaber RAC has collaborated with SU Athletics and the Career Center to relaunch the Competitive Edge Series, originally launched by SU Athletics several years ago. Competitive Edge aims to offer a range of events designed to support student-athletes as they transition beyond their athletic careers.
Since sports often play a central role in the lives of student-athletes from a young age, athletics frequently become deeply connected to their identities and personal growth. The Competitive Edge Series seeks to ignite meaningful conversations and provide actionable strategies that help student-athletes recognize the transferable skills they have developed through sports and leverage those skills to pursue fulfilling career paths.