Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee
Report on Advising
August 2010
Introduction
Ask any Yale student, “Who’s your adviser?” and you’ll likely hear a wide range of answers. Yale boasts a long list of helpful adults who are available to assist and guide students: residential college deans, masters, freshman faculty advisers, sophomore advisers, directors of undergraduate study, senior project advisers, and many other academic counselors. And this list is far from exhaustive: some faculty members and teaching fellows offer informal advising to current and past students; deans at our cultural houses provide a wide range of academic support services; and offices such as Undergraduate Career Services and the Center for International Experience advise students on opportunities beyond classroom walls. There are also coaches,tutors, chaplains,and family members and friends beyond Yale. Sources of advice abound, yet students consistently report disappointment with different aspects of their advising experience at Yale. In annual surveys, advising ranks near the bottom of student satisfaction. These low marks are not unique to Yale, but they point to a problem we must address. To improve advising at Yale, we recommend that the university affirm its commitment to advising, clarify the responsibilities and duties of advisers, and educate students on their own role in the advising process.
This report presents the findings of the Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee’s two-year, comprehensive review of academic advising in Yale College. In anticipation of Yale's ten-year reaccreditation review and the planned progress report on the initiatives recommended by the 2003 Committee on Yale College Education (CYCE), the Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee met during the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years to review advising in Yale College. The committee, made up of students, faculty, residential college deans, and the FAS registrar, met roughly every other week to discuss advising practices in Yale College with an eye toward making recommendations to improve this fundamental endeavor.
The committee examinedfreshman and sophomore advising, advising in the major, and the kinds of advising that take place in offices connected to the Dean’s Office, such as Undergraduate Career Services (UCS), the Center for International Experience (CIE), and the cultural centers. In the course of our review, we consulted survey datawith the assistance of the Office of Institutional Research, and met with students, freshman and sophomore faculty advisers, Directors of Undergraduate Studies from a range of departments and programs, and professional staff in a variety of offices that offer advice to students.
In this report, we describe Yale’s rich array of advising resources, summarize our findings and observations, and make a number of specific recommendations to strengthen our advising system.
Description
Academic advising at Yale is a collaborative effort shared by the residential colleges, academic departments, and various offices connected to the Yale College Dean’s Office. Resident deans in each of the twelve colleges provide general academic advice, such as selecting courses, choosing a major, and satisfying requirements for promotion and graduation. Designated faculty in each of the academic departments and programs give specific advice concerning placement in courses and requirements for the major. Offices connected to the Dean’s Office offer advice about summer opportunities, study abroad, preparation for applying to medical and other professional schools, fellowships, and post-graduation plans.
Advising is also increasingly multi-dimensional and is delivered in many different forms. In past eras, students received information and advice almost exclusively through personal contact and static printed sources that were often quickly outdated. Today, many advising relationships are fostered online, through email exchanges and multi-media Web pages. As a result, students have quick access to much more current information, which may shape but should not replace those personal relationships. Increasingly, departments administer placement exams and other diagnostic tools through online instructional tools, such as the Classes server, and these procedures have created more opportunities for providing efficient and customized placement information. When choosing classes, students now have easy access to online course evaluations, which are more readily available and have a higher response rate than printed course critiques. Moreover, the rapid increase of social networking software has greatly expanded the prevalence and power of peer advising, which often begins well before students even come to campus.
Freshman Advising
All freshmen are assigned to their residential colleges before matriculation, and each of the 12 colleges has between100 and 125 freshmen. In every college, a residential college dean oversees the advising programs associated with that college and serves as the general academic adviser for all students in the college. Each dean supervises the work of six to eleven freshman counselors—seniors who live amongst the freshmen—and assigns each freshman to one of around thirty freshman faculty advisers drawn from the college’s fellowship. In each of the departments, Directors of Undergraduate Studies prepare written materials about their programs, provide placement tests as necessary, and host advising meetings for freshmen. And through a variety of other offices on campus, advising staff provide information and support for students with special interests (e.g., premedical requirements) or needs (e.g., students with disabilities). Although freshman advising is a year-round activity, special attention is given at the beginning of each term and particularly at the beginning of the academic year. At the start of each term, college deans meet with their freshmen, and all freshmen are required to meet individually with their freshman counselor and freshman faculty adviser during the ten-day-long course selection period (aka “shopping period”). By the end of that period, their counselors and advisers must sign their finalized schedule. The college deans review and approve all course schedules before submitting them to the Registrar. Deans in the Yale College Dean’s Office organize Freshman Orientation, including various information meetings and the Academic Fair, at which all departments and programs are represented. Deans and freshman advisers also have improved access to a student’s academic information through newly developed online tools.
Sophomore Advising
At the end of their first year, each freshman must select a faculty member to serve as his or her Sophomore Year Adviser.The Yale College Deans’ Office encourages students to select a faculty member who may have taught the student in a small class or one with a shared academic or other interest. College deans are available to assist freshmen with that choice. Selecting a Sophomore Year Adviser is not equivalent to selecting a major, but students ideally identify faculty advisers in a prospective major, especially if they are majoring in the sciences. Residential college deans also hold a sophomore advising fair to assist sophomores in selecting majors and accessing other resources on campus, such as the study abroad and career services offices.Much of this information is also posted on a recently developed dedicated web site for sophomore advising, which students can consult as needed. This site has helped to lay out the expectations of sophomore year much more clearly than ever before.At the end of the sophomore year, each sophomore must meet with a faculty member, ordinarily in a proposed major, to prepare a tentative program of study for the remaining two years of study.
Advising in the Major
The nature of advising in the major varies significantly by department, depending upon the size of the program and the field of study, but there are some common structures and procedures. Each major has a Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) who is responsible for the program’s undergraduate curriculum and for advising students in that major. In large majors, these duties may be shared by more than one person. When a student declares a major, usually at the end of sophomore year or beginning of the junior year, he or she often meets with the relevant DUS or designated advising faculty in the department to discuss plans for completing the major. The DUS, or departmental faculty designee, is expected to meet individually with all student majors at the beginning of each term to discuss their course selection, sign their schedules, and remind them of remaining requirements for the major. In many departments, the DUS also oversees the senior project requirement and coordinates the selection of a project and adviser. Finally, the DUS is responsible for reviewing the academic records of graduating seniors to attest that a student has completed the requirements for the major and whether that student has earned distinction in the major.
Other Sources of Advice
In addition to the kinds of advice that students regularly receive through their residential colleges and academic departments, many students seek specialized advice because of their particular interests or needs. The staff at UCS, for example, provides assistance for students seeking summer jobs, internships, post-graduate employment, or an advanced degree in a professional school. Advisers at CIE offer guidance about study abroad opportunities and fellowship competitions. International students can find advice and support through the Office of International Students and Scholars, and students with disabilities can find assistance with accommodations through the Resources Office on Disabilities. Yale College deans serve as directors of our four cultural centers (Afro-American, Asian American, Latin, and Native American) to lead and coordinate a wide variety of programs that support students affiliated with these centers. A new Peer Liaison Program, established in 2009, offers freshmen the opportunity to seek advice from selected peer advisers who are associated with each of the cultural centers as well as the Chaplain’s Office, the Office of International Students and Scholars, and the Office of LGBT Resources. Moreover, many students develop deep and valuable advising relationships with a variety of university staff members, such as coaches, mental health staff, and chaplains.
Finally, though the scope of our review was limited to Yale-administered advising programs, we think it important to note that some of the most influential sources of advice are not directly delivered or regulated by the university. Parents, friends, classmates, teammates—virtually any relationship on campus—can powerfully shape the decisions that students make about courses, majors, summer opportunities, and post-graduate plans. Some students come to Yale carrying with them the burden of explicit and implicit expectations of their extended family and community. On campus, well-intended advice by peers can also have an undue influence on a student’s curiosity and restrict choices, seen most clearly in the herding tendency of some student groups to take the same courses and pursue the same majors. These messages can influence, even if unconsciously, the selection of courses, majors, and student activities.
Evaluation
We were generally veryfavorably impressed by the level of dedication that Yale’s faculty and staff bring to the advising process. Yale is a premier research university that also has a longstanding commitment to undergraduate teaching; this makes advising—an extension of teaching—an expected responsibility shared by all faculty. Yale also benefits from the residential college system, which reduces the large scale of the university and provides many occasions for students to interact with their college’s master,dean, faculty fellows, and upperclassmen. These communities are especially valuable for advising students holistically and recognizing the ways that academic and personal matters often intersect. Moreover, some of the initiatives recommended by the CYCE report, such as expanding resources for international students and for those students who wish to study or conduct research abroad, have significantly improved advising in these areas in recent years.
Nevertheless, the committee identified a number of areas that deserve attention and improvement. Some of these areas represent longstanding challenges that flow from the many competing priorities of a large research university; others have emerged, or have intensified, with new phenomena, such as rapid changes in technology and communication. The committee identified the areas of greatest need to be clear expectations of advising, both for faculty and students, and advising transitions over a student’s entire four years. Given the sheer number of competing priorities, it is not surprising that faculty members reported it is often not clear what is expected of them, or what value the university places on advising among their many other responsibilities. Yale’s system for assigning students to faculty and for distributing advising among all faculty seems inadequate. Some departments establish explicit guidelines for the number of undergraduate students a faculty member is expected to advise and describe the typical role of the adviser. In other departments, these expectations are vague. Inevitably, the time and effort that faculty devote to their advising relationships varies by person, but there is currently little recognition for excellent advising of undergraduates. Indeed, strong and dedicated advisers often have the perverse reward of an increased workload as more students gravitate toward helpful advisers.
At the same time, however, we observed a shared sense of rising—and sometimes unrealistic—expectations from students. By most measures, Yale provides more attention and resources to students than ever, and in many cases we believe this is as it should be. Our students are much more diverse with many more needs and more wide-ranging interests than in previous generations. Nevertheless, faculty and staff consistently stated that students seem increasingly to expect others to solve their problems, whether it’s to catch a mistake on a course schedule, or to decide what to major in, or to find them a job or fellowship.
Freshman Advising
Many students find the transition from high school to college extremely stressful. Confronted with these transitions, some students make poor decisions that adversely affect their academic options, their level of satisfaction, and even their mental health. One overriding goal of freshman advising – and indeed, of all advising – is therefore to help students tackle those transitions while simultaneously providing them with the tools and strategies that will enable them reach a degree of healthy self-sufficiency. With freshman advising, especially, this process requires disseminating a great deal of information, deflating the myth of the omniscient adviser, and establishing clear expectations about advising for students and faculty alike.
As it reviewed freshman advising, the committee found much to praise. The committee noted the existence ofample sources of general and specific advice for incoming students, many of whom begin to familiarize themselves with crucial information about advising months before their first day of classes. The printed and online versions of the Freshman Handbook, the program and course descriptions in the Yale College Programs of Study, and the departmental websites and handbooks together offer a wealth of authoritative and valuable information.
Once freshman arrive on campus, they have easy access to faculty representatives of many departments through a variety of academic fairs and information meetings, as well as to peer advisers through the freshman counselor and peer liaison programs. But even with the current system of online and printed handbooks and contacts, freshmen need more guidance in sorting through this information. Freshman orientation exposes students to a staggering array of opportunities, and some freshmen have admitted feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume let alone the content. We could do a better job of describing and coordinating these sources of advice to both freshmen and to faculty.
The committee also noted benefits and drawbacks to the current practice of drawing on residential college fellows to serve as advisers to first-year students. The system emphasizes the role of the residential college in the dissemination of academic information, and it allows for a manageable advising load of 3 to 5 students per adviser. Locating these conversations in the informal setting of a residential college also helps to demystify the advising process and reduce the intimidation some students might feel when first meeting a faculty member. Some students report that longstanding and fruitful advising relationships grow out of their freshman-year conversations with freshman faculty advisers, and advisers likewise cite ongoing contact with their advisees, even beyond those students’ graduation four years later.
But in speaking with students and faculty, and after reviewing survey data, the committee found that an alarming number of freshmen reported getting very little out of their relationship with their advisers, and faculty who had served as advisers often found the conversations artificial and unsatisfying. In some cases, this disappointment stemmed from idealistic expectations on the part of the freshmen. Incoming students naturally draw on their high school experiences, and some arrive at Yale after having forged close relationships with their high school teachers. By contrast, most freshmen seldom see their advisers after the required meetings at the beginning of the term. The conversations and relationshipsare too frequently too superficial for both parties to have much substance and value.