Summary of Literature Support for the Rationale Behind the

Advising Recommendations

 

STUDENT-CENTERED: Advising is oriented toward, focused on, and driven by a genuine concern for the needs and welfare of students (rather than by institutional habit/convenience, or the needs/desires of faculty and staff). 1 – Joe Cuseo

 

ADVISING AS TEACHING/ADVISING AS LEARNING: Advising and teaching are similar because both advisers and teachers instruct in the areas of skills and content. Advising teaches skills like decision-making and critical thinking, as well as content like curriculum and academic regulations. Teaching students to navigate a college is like teaching them to write a research paper. Both tasks require the same analytical, organizational, and research skills and abilities. Advising and teaching are both interactive activities that result in student learning. Just as teachers and students can see themselves as jointly involved in a process of inquiry based in an academic discipline, so advisers and advisees are jointly involved in a process of inquiry resulting in students' intellectual growth and development. Advising and teaching both move fledgling students to independent flight. 2. - Heidi Koring

 

COMMITMENT TO STUDENT SUCCESS: Strong academic advising is crucial to maintaining students’ access while working to increase the percentage of students who accomplish the following:

  • Complete remedial courses and move on to credit-bearing courses.
  • Enroll in and complete “gatekeeper” courses such as introductory math and English.
  • Complete the courses they take, earning a grade of C or higher.
  • Re-enroll from one semester to the next.
  • Earn certificates and/or degrees.3

 

LIFE, CAREER AND EDUCATIONAL PLANNING: Retention research suggests that student commitment to educational and career goals is perhaps the strongest factor associated with student persistence to degree completion (Wyckoff, 1999).4 – Joe Cuseo

 

FRESHMEN YEAR SUCCESS:  

Jefferson’s Strategic Goal: Develop a Community of Learners – Strategic Priority: Undertake a Comprehensive Initiative in Support of Student Success.  “Valencia’s approach to serving the first-year student is expressed “ensuring that students experience extraordinary learning success in their earliest encounters with the College and establish a solid foundation for success in future learning. Services are organized under a conceptual and programmatic framework called “LifeMap.” LifeMap is the “brand name” for Valencia’s developmental advising system, which is a framework for enhancing student motivation and achievement through application of learning theory and student development research.” 5  -Sandy Shugart

 

COMPREHENSIVE  (HOLISTIC) ADVISING AND SUPPORT: Faculty advisors do not have the time to meet all the learner needs for life/career/educational planning. Referral to life/career/educational providers and services by faculty, staff, and advisors becomes as important as the advising knowledge and skills they possess. Academic Advising focuses on the student as a “whole person,” and addresses the full range of academic and non-academic factors that affect student success.6 – Joe Cuseo  

 

ADVISOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Redressing the underpreparedness of faculty advisors requires systematic design and delivery of intensive and extensive professional development programs, which should be more substantive than the common practice of reducing advisor development to an advising “training” program that begins and ends with a one-shot, immersion orientation session for new advisors. 7 Advisors should Know the information that students need in order to give useful advice. Advisors have an ethical obligation to be well informed about the details of the policies and requirements that apply to their students. Ignorance or impatience with details is irresponsible. 8

 

EXTENDING ADVISING THROUGH GE 100/101: The first-year seminar contributes to essential student outcomes, such as retention and academic achievement. Institutional research has revealed that first-year seminar participants complete their baccalaureate degree in a time period that is significantly shorter than the time taken by students who have not experienced the course. 9 – Joe Cuseo

  

TAKING ADVISING SERIOUSLY: “Retention research tells us that students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that take advising seriously; that provide clear, consistent, and easily accessible information about institutional requirements, that help students understand the roadmap to completion, and help them understand how they use that roadmap to decide upon and achieve personal goals.” 10 –Vincent Tinto

 

Sources:

1. Student Retention: Understanding the Cause of Student Attrition and Implementing a Prevention Plan http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/jcause.html

2. Teaching as Advising http://www.psu.edu/dus/mentor/040728hk.htm

3. Achieving the Dream http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Content/NavigationMenu/ResourceCenter/Projects_Partnerships/Current/Achieving_the_Dream/ATDOnePager.pdf

4. Academic Advising and Student Retention: Empirical Connections and Systematic Interventions http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/advempir.html

5. Rationale for Valencia’s Approach to the First Year http://www.brevard.edu/fyc/instofexcellence/valencia/narrative.htm

6. Student Retention: Understanding the Cause of Student Attrition and Implementing a Prevention Plan http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/jcause.html

7. Academic Advising and Student Retention: Empirical Connections and Systematic Interventions http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/advempir.html

8. Minimum Standards of Professional Conduct

http://www.stthom.edu/advising/pdf/Student%20Responsibilities%20in%20Advising.pdf

9. Campus-Wide Benefits of the First-Year Seminar: Potential Systemic Effects on Institutional Quality http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/jcampus.html

10. Message From the Deans http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/nexusdeanscript.html