Homework Hotline opens doors to interested students

This past Monday and Wednesday, the Homework Hotline opened its doors and hosted an open house for students to come see what it would be like to work at the Hotline. The Homework Hotline has been in existence since 1991 and has answered thousands of calls and hundreds of emails. The Homework Hotline focuses on math and science help for Indiana students in elementary and high school and has over 550 textbooks on-hand donated by publishers, which consist of all the titles adopted by the Indiana schools.

Adam Ford, a senior mechanical engineering student, was one of the supervisors working during the open house. “I enjoy helping other students, especially high schoolers with math and science.”

Photo: Christina Davis Michael Lockhart, senior biomedical engineer and tutor for the Homework Hotline, shows interested freshman engineering physics major Joseph Summa the ropes at this week’s open house.

Students who work for at least one year can become supervisors. The supervisors have many duties in addition to the responsibilities of a traditional tutor. Ford described the tasks of a supervisor: “They have to work at least two nights, answer emails, provide assistance to tutors that are struggling or not familiar with the math or science problem, give daily announcements, and make sure the call center is a positive atmosphere, meaning no frustrations. They also monitor calls, take daily statistics of calls such as how many calls, emails, et cetera.”

Rachael Krasich, a senior chemistry major student, is also a supervisor for the homework hotline. “We troubleshoot calls with parents, the phones, and deal with prank callers.” The hotline has on average two to three prank callers a night, with a large number of prank calls when the Hotline first opened on Sunday September 2.



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“I tutored a lot in high school and enjoyed it. So, when I got to Rose and found there was an opportunity to continue helping students by tutoring I applied for a position,” explained Krasich.

According to Katie Rademacher-Smith, the assistant director of the Homework Hotline, there is a 50 percent mix between high school and elementary school calls a night. “We receive an average of 300 to 400 calls on a weeknight at approximately 10 minutes a call… and approximately 30 emails a night.”

“We are looking to replace the graduated seniors and we look closet at the freshman and sophomores because they are the closet to the material,” explains Radenmacher-Smith, “The class year percentage of workers varies year to year, but we have more freshman and sophomores working for us.”

Susan Smith, the director of the Homework Hotline, provided statistics about the previous year. “Ninety-Six percent of the emails are from Indiana, 76 percent of the calls are math related with algebra one being the most prominent followed by algebra two and then geometry. There were over 43,000 calls last year, which is up about 3.6 percent of two years ago.”

“It’s really exciting to see all the energy here,” explained Smith about working with the tutors.

Nick Wahl, a freshman mechanical engineering student, is planning on working for the Homework Hotline. “I just think it’s a really neat opportunity that Rose offers this service on campus. It is a great opportunity for Rose students to help other people.” Wahl had the opportunity to listen to calls and see the tutors in action.

The Homework Hotline is in the process of hiring new tutors, especially from the sophomore and freshman class to meet their worker average of 30 tutors an evening. They currently have approximately 25 to 28 tutors working a night.