A Student Affairs/Academic/Student Connection for Developmental Students

(Developmental is 66% of New Students)

The Case for Professional Advisor/Counselors

The Professional Advisor Counselors have the potential to represent for the college the strongest connection between the “deep structures” of student services and academic services. They will literally act as a bridge between student services and the student’s academic pursuits.

Suggested Roles of the Professional Advisor/Counselors

· Recruit and orient students in a career pathways program

· Assist with registration and financial aid application

· Contact students who applied but didn’t register

· Prepurge contact of students who have not paid.

· Immediate postpurge contact of students who were purged

· Track student attendance and academic progress

· Assist student with educational plan

· Create Early Warning/Early Intervention for at-risk students

· Provide counseling for identified at-risk students

· Connect student to additional services

· Keep student informed of campus events and deadlines

· Ease transition to next steps.

“…we may well realize more learning gains, our most dramatic improvements in student learning, by redesigning our organization to eliminate habits, structures, and procedures that defeat good teaching and learning and creating new structures that support them. In the learning college movement, these things have come to be called the "deep architecture" of our institutions that are taken as "givens" in our work, but are really just conventions, often built on economic values rather than learning values.” (Shugart)

It is with this “deep architecture” (advising, registration, financial aid, recruiting, application processes, paying tuition, etc.) that educational case managers can dramatically increase the contact with new students and create the early identification and intrusive intervention (referral, counseling, help make contact with career/educational milestones) that is, in my mind the great “gap” in our processes.

Removing the Silos

The question was, “how would Professional Advisor/Counselors help integrate the services of Student and Academic Affairs to meet the needs of new freshmen and the college?”

What the whole JEC building is devoid of (exaggeration) is a way to communicate and connect (increased contact) with new students beyond the 7 minutes anyone in JEC sees a student. What makes a silo a silo is “lack of interactive, collaborative communication.” Where is the bridge? For example, in the future, in Reading/Academic Success, Professional Advisor/Counselors would be part of the student services/instructional component of all linked classes and learning communities, and would be assigned to students in one of the three career pathways. Faculty of students in paired GE 101/RDG classes are already the students’ advisors and career/educational planners. With the assigned Professional Advisor/Counselors, this would form a solid faculty/advisor/counselor team for dealing with the academic/placement/tracking/intervention-referral needs of the student, especially for dealing with student needs beyond the academic domain, which is where we lose most students.

“When a college defines its work in terms of the ultimate results for learners, one is compelled to ask penetrating questions of our operating systems to determine, not only if they are working for our proximate goals (efficient and effective enrollment services, best use of financial aid, robust enrollment growth, every student properly placed, etc.), but also to validate that success in these proximate goals leads to success in the learning goals. These proximate goals are powerful in our organizations; they determine much of our enrollment and therefore our revenue. Failure in these will surely spell failure for our mission.” Chapter 9, Shugart

“The question we should be asking is not how student affairs or faculty can promote student success, but rather how both groups can transcend their functional boundaries to work collaboratively across the campus with each other and with students to create seamless learning environments in which success is possible.” - Learning Communities: Building Gateways to Student Success, by Vincent Tinto

I propose that the collaborative support of students can be greatly extended by the use of Educational Case Managers.

In Pursuit of Excellence: Community College of Denver – John Roueche

Implementing Educational Case Management Teams:

“Another major contributor to student retention are case management teams. These teams humanize the academic experience by lavishing more time and attention on each student… Case managers first meet with students to reassure them about what lies ahead, to assess their basic skills, and then to develop a plan. These managers map out with each student an approach to a program of study; time limits, structures, and alternative approaches are carefully considered. Student achievement data indicates that the individual attention paid to matching the details of the students’ academic and personal needs significantly increase a student’s chances of success.”

Engaging the Learner (Academic/Student Services Connection)

One area that has not sunk in at JCTC is that advising is teaching; career/educational planning is teaching; at-risk intervention is teaching; counseling is teaching; registering is teaching; as is all student services encounter with the student. We have the same problem on the academic side. We have failed miserably at creating learning outcomes in all these areas. Where our greatest failure lies is in not recognizing, or at least not acting on it, is that in all the student services areas we want to help student become self-sufficient. This means not just passing along information; it means in the process of counseling, advising, registering, intervening, career/educational planning and all other student encounters, we need to be teaching them how to think, make decisions and solve problems. This is essential to their success.

Professional Advisor/Counselors Increase student contact; Engage them as learners (it is this engagement that makes us “a person who serves a person” Help them succeed and meet their goals.