Partner Spotlight: Chyna Howell from Missouri S&T

At Missouri S&T, the heartbeat of the Student Success Center is Chyna Howell.

As Senior Program Manager and Knack Program Administrator (KPA), Chyna plays a vital role in ensuring that every student has access to meaningful, flexible academic support. From scaling tutoring operations to integrating new support models, she leads with purpose, strategy, and care. Under her leadership, S&T has not only expanded its peer tutoring footprint but reimagined what accessible, student-centered support can look like on campus.

Her vision? A one-stop shop for academic success where students can find the help they need—when, where, and how they need it. Her commitment? Ensuring Knack is fully embedded into the broader support ecosystem, not as an “add-on,” but as an essential, equitable service.

We’re proud to spotlight Chyna’s leadership, innovation, and deep commitment to student success.

Knack: Tell us where you grew up and what brought you to your current location.

Chyna: I grew up in Berkeley, California, and what brought me to my current location is my husband, who is from a small town in Missouri. When we met, he was stationed in Louisiana, and after he got out of the Army, we moved back to small-town Missouri. That’s how I ended up at S&T.

Knack: What did you study in college, and how did that shape your career into where you are today?

Chyna: In college, I studied sociopolitical communication. I realized a long time ago that I’ve always had an interest in talking to people and understanding the foundations of how to communicate effectively. Originally, I wanted to be a corporate attorney or do some sort of work for a corporation. When I finished my degree at Missouri State University, I was already married with two kids and decided that law school was not something I wanted to pursue. I had always wanted to work at a university, so I applied for a number of jobs at Missouri S&T, which led me to my position as Student Success Center Manager.

Knack: How has your career evolved since you joined Missouri S&T?

Chyna: I’ve been here almost three years, and I feel like every semester something different has happened or changed. When I first started off at S&T, I was in an open office with no privacy or storage space, but I knew there was potential for more within the role. My original title was Service Coordinator. From there, we moved out of the original Student Success Center to the Student Success Center in the Innovation Lab, where we have way more square footage. We’ve also scaled tutoring tremendously. We’ve got Knack, we’ve integrated group sessions into our tutoring modalities which were formerly run by faculty, and we’ve grown our student employment from 20 students to 55-60.

Knack: How have you been able to balance Knack with traditional on-campus support services?

Chyna: I think, number one, when we brought Knack on campus, we were very open-minded about what it could be for students. We wanted to make sure students were very familiar with the service. From the data we were collecting from our existing support services, we knew that students were utilizing tutoring, but we also knew that it wasn’t as accessible. When we brought Knack into play, it showed us that there was a lot more we could be doing for our students. We wanted to make sure that Knack felt cohesive with our other tutoring services.

There are so many approaches to offering academic support for students, so we created what we call S&T Tutoring, which lives in the Student Success Center. Within S&T Tutoring, we have drop-in, group sessions with faculty, supplemental instruction with Peer Learning Assistants (PLAs) and faculty, and Knack Tutoring. The beautiful thing about Knack is it allows us to meet student needs in a way that is more accessible than some of the other opportunities that we have. Students want to have a little more control over when they’re doing things. They want to access tutoring when it’s more comfortable for them, in a place that’s more comfortable for them, and Knack allows that. The data that we get from Knack helps us approach some of the services that we’re offering in a more strategic way.

Knack: How do you engage with students and tutors to ensure they are successful using Knack and the other on-campus resources?

Chyna: One of the things that we do with Knack is we try to make sure that students are familiar with the service. We have a lot of students, so engaging with them individually can be difficult. Knack has been great in allowing us to offer things like tabling on behalf of the Student Success Center, and they pay for those students to show face on campus. Knack also has their CRLA trainings on their website that we require our tutors to complete, which I think is great. One of the most important things on our campus is that tutors are equipped with the skills they need to be a good tutor. Again, we’re trying to make Knack very integrated into the natural academic support services offered on campus so it doesn’t feel like an “other than.”

Knack: Has anything surprised you about the partnership between Missouri S&T and Knack?

Chyna: One thing that surprised me was the role of a KPA. I feel like now I can do more with all of the information that Knack is giving me access to. Another thing that surprised me was how structured Knack is. I love our meetings that we have, and I love that we’re assigned a Success Manager that knows our campus and our goals. It’s been a good relationship.

Knack: What is your vision for this peer tutoring program in the future?

Chyna: I always tell everybody that my goal probably sounds ridiculous and unattainable. I consider it my personal North Star goal. I would like to have a centralized academic advising model so that students aren’t as confused about who to go to and where to go when they need support. I would love for the Student Success Center to become the one-stop-shop for academic support services. I would love for us to have our own building where we can use classrooms for group sessions that we host with faculty or for some of our supplemental instruction models that we have.

Knack: Is there a specific outcome or data point that you’re focused on achieving with Knack?

Chyna: Every semester is different. Every year we get a new cohort of freshmen students whose needs are different from the needs of the last cohort. I think the one thing we want to see from Knack is that students are actually utilizing academic support services. We also want to make sure that when they’re utilizing this service, that it’s also helpful. Did they feel like they learned something? Was it beneficial? Would they use it again? From there, we like to make sure that we’re tracking that information and comparing it to their outcomes in their courses. It’s difficult to pin down one data point. We just want to make sure that our students who are utilizing Knack are passing their classes.

Chyna Howell’s journey—from studying sociopolitical communication to becoming a trusted leader in student support—reflects a passion for empowering others through connection, clarity, and care.

By championing peer tutoring as a core strategy, she’s building something lasting at Missouri S&T. With Knack, she’s reaching more students, removing barriers, and leading a model of academic support that is scalable, flexible, and truly student-first.

To Chyna and the entire Missouri S&T team: thank you for making peer support a pillar of student success. Your work inspires what’s possible when innovation and intention come together.