Talk:A Stronger Advising Program
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fyi--Alan Gabrielli set out in the breakroom of the bowels of J Bldg, the September issue of Campus Technology where there is a good article about ePortfolios. Also, Betty Seabolt is currently writing an article or chapter about them. See Open Source Portfolio-- http://www.osportfolio.org/ There are ePortfolios that follow their owners past graduation as well, and templates for faculty packets for P&T purposes...I think this is a GREAT IDEA.
bnh
Advising is great and it improves retention, BUT it takes work and EFFORT!
We in ECET have been very pro-active in advising. We require all freshmen to be advised prior to registering for this coming spring term. That means they have to meet with their assigned advisor to get a hold removed off of their Banner account. We do record it all electronically in Banner, but I applaud the new ideas being mentioned of expanding this to something much better in a portfolio. There is one caveat that we should all be aware...
Even though advising is SUPER important, we must realize that it takes a LOT of time. I value this time with the students and look forward to it, but in our dept and I imagine others we each have at least 50 advisees each (perhaps more). If we meet with them for 5 times per year and spend only 10 minutes each time (that is actually a very brief visit as mine are generally much more on average) then we are talking about more than 40 hours of contact time. I LOVE this time, but we do need to realize that it is another element of our work and that time cannot be created. If we apply more time to advising AND we should, there needs to be an understanding that something else may have to be sacrificed especially when you have a large number of advisees.
We do need a stronger advising program ...
I strongly believe that we need a stronger advising program at SPSU. In the Department of Information Technology (IT), it is even urgent to establish a stronger advising program. We have a so-called “senior issue” recently: a few senior IT students need IT 3423 to graduate in spring but this course will not be offered in spring. The fact is that this course is being currently offered this semester (fall 2005) and IT does have an “IT LongRange Class Offerings” table available. We would not have such “senior issue” at all if these senior students were advised promptly before they sent in their graduation petition to have a course-selection plan according to this LongRange Class Offerings, or being simply advised that this IT LongRange Class Offering plan is available. Students need advices in academic and in other aspects as well like personal goals, career paths, studying methods, etc. I found many of our students do need constant encouragement and inspiration in addition to advising them about technical content and course selections.
It is a good idea to establish a “student electronic portfolio” for advising purposes. A standard advising sheet will also be helpful. In my previous university, each advisor kept a printed portfolio for each of her/his advisees. It will be wonderful to have a web-based electronic student portfolio as a central repository for advisors and advisees to share information. Another solution is to use our current Banner Web Report system in our advising. Dr. Bob Harbort had a tutorial at one CSE meeting on how to use “Student Comments” field in the Banner system for advising purpose.
Current SPSU Faculty Activity P&P 803.075 specifies that faculty should “Advise students as needed and assigned by the department”. Thus there is no question whether faculty should or should not do advising. The question is, however, how to evaluate advising, which could be a very time-consuming job.
Andy Wang
Evaluating Advising
I asked Zvi at the ALC meeting if next spring department chairs would be expected to evaluate faculty specifically on advising. His answer was, "I hope so."
I have always considered faculty advising in my annual evaluation of faculty, but it has been on an amorphous basis. The P&P that Andy quotes leaves interpretation of adequate or superior advising open to whoever is the evaluator.
If chairs must specifically evaluate advising activities of faculty, I need clearly articulated guidelines about expectations for a faculty member's advising and the levels of acceptability and unacceptability. And some guidelines about how this is to be documented and then communicated to me.
Ken
