DRAFT – Themes from 01.07.15 Campus-Wide Advising Retreat
PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT an action plan. It is simply a preliminary list of topics and suggestions collected at the retreat and subsequent campus forums.
Themes explored:
· Holistic approach to students
§ Financial literacy
§ Emotional issues
§ Ability to know students and offer long-term, consistent help
Professional roles, responsibilities, and needs
· Professional advisors
§ Shared competencies upon being hired
§ Advising load/job expectations
§ Determine a ratio/metric (could be a ceiling)
· Advising load needs to be within NACADA range and reduced when other duties are assigned (e.g. teaching, schedule building, recruiting)
· Need to determine how to evaluate good advising
§ Determine common job expectations (can have room for variance, but have some set ones for consistencies)
· Administrative responsibilities are compounding (e.g. academic alerts, reports) each provost adding and not removing procedural requirements
· Workload inconsistent across the campus
§ Space
§ Need to be physically near and accessible to students
§ Space needs to be adequate, private, and pleasant
· Faculty involvement
§ Major problems identified
§ Inconsistent in their response, availability, information accuracy, and attention
§ Primarily not a part of their DOE so dis-incentivized to exert effort in this area
§ Not making notes in student file to track progress and challenges by partners on campus
§ Need culture of respect to the many parties in student advising
§ Advisors hate telling students they cannot see them anymore when they transition to a faculty advisor
§ Support for hybrid model
§ Career advice and mentorship
· Have more knowledge about career and graduate school
· Note: Professional advisors and career advisors also address career assessment, decision, and preparation issues throughout the 4 years.
§ Call it something else
§ Only faculty that elect/volunteer should participate
· Professional development
§ Career ladder for professional advisors(much support)
§ Universal onboarding and standardized training for all advisors to which specific college needs would be added (professional and faculty) to include:
· Trained in empathy (not enough training to address emotional issues- Others?
§ Funding for professional development (conference attendance, etc.)
· Secondary advising and counseling services
§ Need to better integrate secondary advising
§ It would be helpful to identify which students are clients of various support units (e.g., CARES)
§ Counseling services must be increased
§ Large increase in students with emotional issues
§ Need capability to see students quickly and often
· Taking students through the development arc
§ Earlier and more emphasis on academic expectations, personal responsibility, and how to succeed in college
· Begin at the time of admissions through first-year
· Define expectations of students with regard to self-directed advising
· Shared goal should be to get student in right major as quickly as possible
§ Rethink University Orientations (Summer Advising Sessions)
· Preschedule students
· Talk to parents and students
o Educate parents as well regarding student demands and how they can help
· Deploy upperclassmen with academic information not social
o Use upperclassmen to set the tone of academic rigor
§ Change the nature of KWeek to more prominently emphasize academic expectations
· Review balance of messages (social and academic)
· Consider messages of academic rigor, value of student organizations, student leadership opportunities, service learning, etc.
· Could be used as time for major exploration
§ Better deploy UK 101
· Teach students to find resources
· Dependent versus independent learning
§ Smooth, universal transition when switching advisors, majors and colleges
· Create an online major change process
§ Screening and assessments
· Need to deal with pre-professional students in a coordinated, thoughtful fashion
· Assess incoming students for study skills, major/career interests
§ Incorporate career advising with academic advising including at professional advising level
· Technology needs and information systems
· Systems need improvement (Advising Hub/SAP/ASK/APEX)
§ Have to go to transcript to see grades
§ Inaccurate degree audits (not timely)
§ ASK clunky and time consuming
§ Systems do not communicate with each other
§ Programs often crash
§ Are not compatible/user friendly on all devices and browsers
§ Academic Alerts need to be in real time
§ Student expectations to read UK communications (e.g., email)
§ Communication via myUK portal or mobile app?
§ Increase tech development staff
§ Many projects and reports backed up in the queue
§ Streamline data collection and auto-reporting for advisor-based retention outreach efforts (Student Alerts, midterm grades, not-registered students, etc.)
· Common advising model or philosophy
§ Unified system that everyone uses (e.g., not everyone inputs notes at present)
§ Campus-wide advising syllabus
§ An agreed upon shared, common language
§ Set of key discussions and questions advisors should have with students
§ Determining best way to communicate with students
§ Course schedules need to be developed earlier
· Communication needs (Among advisors, others on campus)
§ Seen as a major problem
§ Email overload
§ No streamline messaging, not sure where to go for information
§ Desire for an electronic message board to retrieve information regarding new courses, drop in hours, contact information, etc.
§ More communication among advisors, faculty and professional on campus
§ More communication between advising and all the support programs—everything from housing to financial aid to student health to special program
§ More direct communication between Academic Affairs and Student Affairs (staff and programs)
§ Possible solution: Advising Network
§ Staff it
§ Make it a clearinghouse for all information
§ Create and implement a communications plan
§ Communication needs with the student in the advisor relationship (EAD’s work)
· Strong desire to develop an Academic Culture (see points above)
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