The fact that 70 percent of upperclassmen surveyed reported they were satisfied with their academic advising might sound like good news, but, in light of strong student support for advising improvements last year, students should be skeptical.
Based on advising horror stories several students shared with The Diamondback last year, it doesn’t seem “satisfied” should be good enough to relax attention on the advising system just yet.
This time last year, the University Senate was deep in debate about policy to improve advising that provost Bill Destler called the final piece of a long-running initiative to improve the university’s retention and graduation rates. In November, the senate passed the policy, which included requirements for mandatory, periodic advising, four-year plans and other approval processes to serve as a safety net for students who are not making progress in their majors.
Key to the development of this policy were not only statistics – such as a four-year graduation rate of only 53.5 percent for full-time undergraduates and an estimated five percent of students who had not made progress toward their degrees for two or more semesters – but also the personal anecdotes of many individual students and student leaders.
At a forum to discuss the policy last October, Drew Vetter, then a student senator, called the current advising approach “very in the moment” with “no sitting down and planning out your future,” and Aaron Kraus, then Student Government Association President, talked of having to wait for weeks to meet with a government and politics adviser. Many other students shared stories of being led in the wrong direction by advisers or admitted they’d mainly advised themselves.
Framed by these student voices, the largely positive survey results are, as Destler said, puzzling. However, it is important to keep in mind that more than a quarter of students surveyed were not satisfied and many of the others were merely “satisfied.” Perhaps these “satisfied” students were the ones willing to settle for interpreting degree requirements on their own and making their own four-year plans, visiting advisers only for signatures. Or perhaps these were the students who were able to get appointments while the remaining students waited.
The university made an important commitment toward improving students’ academic experiences when it passed the advising policy last year and set aside $200,000 to hire new advisers and update software. However, there are still plenty of nuts and bolts to be tightened in the implementation of this policy and we hope positive survey results will not discourage departments from actively working toward these goals or administrators from allocating further funding.
If the advising system in place for the past few years, as reflected by student feedback last fall and retention and graduation rates, is “satisfactory,” then perhaps the university should raise its expectations.
