The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal

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Topic from September 2006

Are faculty abdicating their advising responsibilities? Are they willing participants in that abdication, or are they being forced out by departments who choose to hire professional academic advisers to do advising? Are faculty more than happy to be relieved of their advising responsibilities because advising is not valued in promotion and tenure decisions? Are there other reasons some faculty want to abdicate advising? Is it actually, in fact, a faculty member's responsibility to advise? What do students lose when faculty no longer advise? What's your opinion?

Your Responses

I don't think my opinion counts, because I do not have faculty rank. But here is a snippet from an e-mail sent by one of my former students, who is starting a tenure-track position:

I'm turning into one of those nasty faculty members that only wants to do research because everything else gets in the way of tenure. I've decided never to learn the advising rules and course numbers, so I'm good at referrals to other offices.

I think she is being forced out of advising, not by professional advisers or by choice, but by a realistic assessment of her priorities, which I cannot disagree with. She would probably say it is her responsibility to advise, but not before she gets tenure. I hope she does get tenure, and I hope all those students get their questions answered.

~ Don Woolston, University of Wisconsin–Madison, September 7, 2006

A faculty member at my institution once told me the following: “Research is the only currency that counts towards tenure.” Given that statement, it seems to me that faculty are under a lot of pressure to “publish or perish” and thereby other duties and responsibilities, such as advising, get pushed by the wayside. Now, having said that, there are many faculty members at my institution that take their advising responsibilities seriously and make every effort to provide the best information and guidance to their advisees. (Yes, this does include referrals to various offices, including the Academic Advising Center.) It is my belief that when faculty don't advise, then the students lose a valuable resource in a field of study which, as a professional adviser, I simply don't have. I think the key to faculty advising is reward and punishment—reward the faculty who try to embrace their advising responsibilities and punish the faculty who try to avoid their advising responsibilities.

~ Michael Stella, Penn State Berks, September 8, 2006

I am an instructor and an adviser and I take my advising role very seriously. Our institution does not insist on publishing, so this allows us to spend time as advisers. I enjoy advising and feel it is a definite plus that I get to know the hopes and dreams of so many of our students.

I see advisers, however, who take little pride in advising and at times mis-advise students.

The advising load in our division is lop-sided because the good advisers keep having advisees added to their list while the poor advisers get fewer. Maybe the poor advisers have method to their madness?

~ Marie C. Andreoli, M.A., Keystone College, September 25, 2006

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