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“It is abundantly obvious that many students consider going to an adviser to be a waste of time. If they don't want it why shove it down their throats, unless you just like to exercise arbitrary power?” – E. W. Jernigan, Eastern Arizona College, Apr 05 “I vote for YES. I have been advising since 1980 in the Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University. When I started in the department, I had 360 students which increased to 500. Fortunately, it is down to 265 now. I think that most students cannot figure out the degree plans on their own – especially when they first come to a university. Most degree plans are NOT easy to follow – especially if it is a four year plan. Many of the students that I work with are transfer students from other schools (two-year schools and other four-year schools). Some of the courses are very difficult to decide if they will match up to courses at our school. Yesterday and today were transfer days at OSU. Almost all of these students were from two-year schools and would have had great difficulty figuring out their class schedules without help. We also have a number of international students who come here and their transcripts are also hard to figure out. One problem with students trying to do their own advising is that there are rules made up by the state Regents, rules by the University, the College and the departments. And these can change each year. I have had students try to pick out general education classes and make mistakes about them. I do have some students who could easily enroll themselves and come in well prepared and I would not mind if they enrolled by themselves – however, most students cannot do it on their own. My experience is that students who do their own advising make mistakes in course selection that fits a certain degree plan. It can be costly in money and also time if they screw up. We have mandatory advising here at OSU, but some advisers just sign the enrollment forms and do not help students much. Some of the advisers are also not enthusiastic about advising and don't learn all the rules either. A two-year school in Oklahoma (Tulsa Community College) allows students to do their own advising. They have them sign a form that they are doing their own advising and are responsible for the courses they take. We have some of these students later transfer here and have taken classes they don't need and are unhappy.” – Judy Edgmand, Oklahoma State University, Apr 05 “Advising should be mandatory, but not every semester. At NVCTC, we encourage advisers to put more and more of the responsibility of doing the academic planning to the student. We have a system where the 'sign-off' is a dated sticker that goes on the student's ID card. The registrar looks for that sticker, not for a signed registration form. The adviser can give a sticker good for as many as 4 semesters, allowing the part-time or well organized student to do some long-range planning without having to make an adviser appointment every semester. It only works for walk-up registration, and we are struggling with Web and phone registration, as we get into it slowly.” – John Wick, Naugatuck Valley Community Technical College, Apr 05 “Speaking about timely topics – We are just moving from in-person registration with a mandatory adviser's signature required for all matriculated students to Web registration with no adviser's permission required. This registration will be our first Web-based registration. In the instructions, students are urged to review both their transcripts and OnCourse audit (an analysis of academic progress) on-line prior to registering. Only time will tell how well this self-advisement process works. As for my opinion, below is a copy of a memo I sent to my supervisor concerning advisement: 'I feel advisement should not be mandatory for all students, every semester. That just makes for quantity, not quality, advisement. I do feel, however, that each student should have certain times that advisement is mandatory.
– Joyce Ann Van Dyke, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Apr 05 “We, too, are preparing to move to web based registration. We are now in the telephone-only mode but hope to be completely into the new system within a year. Both telephone and Web-based advising have created the same advising problems and need to be continually discussed at our conferences and on this listserv [TECADV]. I want to take Joyce's version of who should have mandatory advising and adapt it to our situation and present it to our faculty and dean. It will put a 'number' on the students who have to see us in the office in addition to the walk-in advisees. Our faculty advise majors beyond the freshman year and several depts. have instituted mandatory checks at the junior level. This practice seems to be spreading. The size of my college (6000 undergrads.) would make it impossible to put a lock on everyone's registration and see them each term. This is further complicated by the fact that we are on the quarter system!!! I, too, am against the thought of mass (no quality) advising.” – Barbara Schooley, University of Cincinnati, Apr 05 “After reading several responses I found that I was thinking of a different problem. I think not all faculty should advise. For some advising is a personal, instructional activity that graphically reminds us why we became teachers. For others it is an administrative nuisance, they believe others can perform more efficiently. A great teacher must believe that the classroom experience is crucial and a great adviser must believe the advising experience is crucial.” – Gloria Tysinger, Halifax Community College, Apr 15 “I believe the issue of mandatory advising revolves around the question of who needs it. Certainly, not every student 'needs' advising to excel in college. And it may be elitist for me to assume that all students would benefit from advising. But it is possible for all students to gain some positive effects from an advising relationship. I believe that 'at-risk' students should have mandatory advising. At-risk being students with low high school GPA's or test scores. In general, these students do need extra help in making the transition from high school to college. And advising seems to aid the majority of these students in adjusting, staying in school, and succeeding. But what about students who finished high school just above the at-risk criteria – perhaps making a 2.1 GPA? Is it my decision to say that a student with a 1.9 needs advising more than one with a 2.1? Therein lies the gray area. Perhaps it makes more sense to have mandatory advising for all freshmen. This is generally the most critical time period for the development of students. The habits they form as freshmen are often the ones that stick with them throughout college. After reaching sophomore status, let them decide whether to continue with an advising relationship. Certainly, for many people, it is a wonderful accomplishment just to make it through the first year of higher education. And if students have gotten, what they perceive to be, quality advising, then they may just opt to stick with it.” – Clay Rowell, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Apr 15 “I think advising should be mandatory. Higher education is obviously very different than secondary education, and many students need to be weaned (advised) from the type of attention they may have received in secondary school, in order to make a successful transition to college. Also the lack of an obvious fit between student and the institution and its more seasoned members supports the need for mandatory advising. During my 11 years in higher education, students have repeatedly expressed a lack of cohesion between adviser and advisee. This may be the real reason why advising seems fundamentally problematic. Those assigned adviser roles simply don't have the time to assign value to its importance. Effective advising represents one of the first influential encounters by new students with members of the university community. The quality of that connection contributes to student adjustment and satisfaction with the terrain. And while at some institutions, students may reject adviser assistance, more often than not advising helps students strategize, it increases the likelihood that they will stay, return, as well as graduate. Thus, their success is based on their satisfaction with the institution, and that begins in part with advising, or with mentoring. Some of our students tell us that their mentor helped them more with their advising needs than the assigned professional. There are several factors that I am sure many of you are acquainted with that strongly defend the importance of advising. They include but are not limited to social ambiguity, culture, parents background, location and size of institution, and income. All of these are things which influence social interaction on campuses and that education in general helps to reproduce, which brings me to my final point. If advising becomes another service removed from the enterprise, who is higher education for? Private institutions may have an easier time answering that question than public institutions. The question, should advising be mandatory?, is a good one for discussion. Yet, I would urge all to approach it with caution. If discussions like this become a gauge for 'restructuring' they can inadvertently help shift higher education and its accessibility from the center. When this happens higher education will become more of privilege rather than a right.” – Ronald Giddings, Virginia Tech, Apr 27 The Mentor is published by Penn State's Division of Undergraduate Studies Available online at www.psu.edu/dus/mentor/ Privacy and Legal Statements | Copyright | © The Pennsylvania State University | All rights reserved | |
