On Oct. 17, the English department hosted an advising expo in Bowld 121 for English majors and minors to learn more about the courses being offered for the next semester while enjoying free pizza. This event aligns with new plans for the advising system at Union beginning the next week.
At the expo, each professor gave an oral description of what will be taught in their classes, what topics will be covered and what books will be read. Students were also given the chance to ask questions and to get in touch with their advisors to plan meetings. The expo offered a unique time to fellowship with other English students, to interact with professors and to get excited about the next semester.
This is just one way professors creatively try to alleviate worries and questions during the stressful season shared by every college student: registering for classes. It can be an anxiety-ridden time filled with worries such as “am I taking the right classes?” “what if there are classes that I need whose times overlap?” and “will I graduate on time?”
However, not every student on campus has the opportunity to attend such an event. Some students have a more difficult time with their advising and class planning than others. Most students only get the information about courses and registering through their faculty advisor. A student worker in admissions contributed her thoughts on the current advising culture, having experienced it as a student and seeing it from the perspective of prospective students and their parents.
“As an ambassador, when I lead tours, I tell parents and students about it, and like families, they get really excited,” the student worker said. “They’re like, ‘oh my gosh, like, it’s one person, it’s one on one, they get to be so personable, and really cared for. And you know, they’re not just thrown to the wolves to make your own schedule.’”
While there are certainly perks that come with getting a personal faculty advisor, not every student’s experience is an easy one. Some advisors are very detail-oriented and passionate about the advising process, and the course-planning goes smoothly. But advisors are still just one person. Many have 40 or more student advisees under their care, which makes it harder to keep up with who needs to take what class to be on track for graduation.
“There’s lots of pressure on the professors too,” the student worker said. “I know for a lot of professors, I’m sure advising is stressful for them too because they’ve got all these students. And if they make one mistake, or one oversight, then you can mess up their four-year plan. And that’s not easy for them either.”
Brian Glas, chair of the computer science department, has noticed these problems and some of the areas both advisors and students struggle in. Glas described how he has used data from the answers taken from a faculty advisor survey done over fall Assessment Day. Most reviews from students were positive but there were still a number of students who said they had problems with their advising. Glas explained ways in which students may be falling through the cracks and where advisors struggle.
“The minor is a common problem. The specific core is a common problem,” Glas said. “We also run into a lot of times, people don’t realize that they need 128 hours to graduate. Yeah, they don’t realize that they need 39 upper-level hours. And so, there’s just a lot of detail when it comes to figuring out the catalog.”
Another problem that students run into is the junior audit. Many students do not have a clear understanding of what the junior audit actually is and how it serves them. Since students do not realize its importance in showing how on track they are toward graduation, students do not even do their junior audit, often resulting in a late revelation that they are, in reality, way behind in their progress. Glas said that he was aware of these problems and described a plan that aims to solve them.
“Because we don’t want to go away from faculty advising, we don’t want to go away from that mentoring or that discipleship relationship. So, one of the things we’re actually doing is we’re creating academic checkups,” Glas said. “It is a session where you can come and sit down with somebody who has the knowledge of the catalog and all of the details and say, ‘Hey, where am I? Am I missing something obvious? Am I on track?’ So it’s kind of a pre-audit of sorts, but without the formality.”
Academic checkups will soon become official this semester. Students will be able to sign up and register for a 30-minute session with one of the workers, where they will get to ask any questions about core classes, progress, pre-requisites, etc. Since this program is a new idea, the workers included will presently be volunteers—Glas being one of them along with dean’s assistant Katie Yeaglin, as well as Anita Todd and Kim Raines from the registrar’s office. The team is currently looking for faculty members who are passionate about advising, detail-oriented and willing to work with academic checkups in their free time.
Glas hopes that this new program will be a success and will help the university grow and improve its advising culture.
“We can collect that data from the checkups and go, ‘Okay, we need to implement another program, or we need to help in another area,'” Glas said. “But, yeah, it will be official. I mean, people will be able to start signing up next week, for any or whatever questions they have.”
Photo courtesy of the Union Photo Project
