This week at DGS I wrote a blog post for the Illinois Admissions page. Recently, DGS was asked to provide blog posts for the Admissions webpage. I brainstormed some ideas this week and one of my topics was approved. I wrote my post and sent it in for edits. I also attempted to shadow an academic advisor but all of her students did not show up for her appointments. I think that no-shows are one downfall to an advising office that only does appointments. I know other offices only do drop-ins. When DGS has busy times (right before registration, around midterms, around the add deadline), they will do drop ins but when they are busy but don't have drop-ins then it makes the advisors more frustrated when students do not show up for their appointment. One of the main reasons why it is frustrating is because the no-show took the appointment slot that another student could have had. During busy periods, students are having to make appointments that are three weeks away while other students are not showing up to their appointments. On another day, I was able to shadow another advisor.
I also talked with the supervisor of the CARE Committee to ask if there were any upcoming plans. She asked that I brainstorm some ideas for a one hour retreat someday in December. I brainstormed ideas for that. The goal of the retreat is to provide a relaxing atmosphere for the advisors.
I also reviewed two student petitions this week and determined my vote to deny or approve those petitions. I think that these petitions can become very subjective, so it is hard to remain objective. I went through different academic programs and their requirements.
This week, I read "Academic Advising as a Multisystem, Collaborative Enterprise"by Tukey (1996). This article focused on academic advising as a system that is open to other units on campus and that is open to the institutional mission of the college or university. For example, students may look at academic advising as a system because of the various ways that they get information like from financial aid offices, the registrar's office, faculty, their peers, parents, orientations, and more. Tukey claims that advising must be collaborative, it must be supported campus wide by faculty, staff, students, upper level administration, and it must be open to outside influences. This article seems very idealistic. While all of these suggestions are great, I have realized that at the UIUC, communication and collaboration across a large campus can be difficult. On the other hand, I have also realized that DGS must work with others, with admissions, with orientation staff, with financial aid, with other academic departments, so that we can appropriately advise our students. However, I still feel like I do not have all of the information necessary. I still send students over to the financial aid office because I don't know how many credit hours students must maintain to keep their financial aid. Also, some departments do not want to meet with DGS students because they are so focused on their own students. This makes our job more difficult. I can see why upper administration and faculty would need to help push this collaboration to help with these difficulties.
Tukey, D. D. (1996). Academic advising as a multisystem, collaborative enterprise. NACADA Journal, 16(1), 6-13.
I also read "The Advanced Undecided College Student: A Qualitative Study" by Hagstrom, Skovholt, and Rovers (1997). This article gave great insight into the minds of undecided students and the feelings that being undecided elicits. The researchers found that students felt frustrated, anxious, hopeless, were fearful of commitment, were fearful of being judged, they had low self-esteem and self-doubt, they felt lost without goals, they felt pressure from family, they were hesitant to meet with their academic advisor, and they wanted a meaningful relationship with their advisor whereby the advisor truly understood what the student was going through. These characteristics of undecided students does not surprise me. I think these feelings are very real for students. Once this semester, an advisor told me that they had recently seen students who cried in their office because they just felt lost and could not pick a major. Thus far this semester, I cannot recall a time that I met with a student who openly expressed these feelings other than pressure from family. Many of the students I met with had a good idea of what they wanted to major in. However, I think because the students I met with this semester were freshman, they may not have been as concerned with being undecided as students who are sophomores or juniors, the population of students in this study.
Hagstrom, S. J., Skovholt, T. M., Rivers, D. A. (1997). The advanced undecided college
students: A qualitative study. NACADA
Journal, 17(2), 23-30.
In total, I spent 1.5 hours reading and blogging
3 hours brainstorming about blogs and writing the blog for the admissions page
45 minutes brainstorming for the CARE Committee
45 minutes at a staff meeting
45 minutes reviewing student petitions and providing my vote
15 minutes shadowing an advisor during their appointment
1 hour reviewing academic programs
Friday, November 30, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
Nov. 12-16
This week at DGS, most of my time was dedicated to Express Advising. Students come to DGS on a drop-in basis only to ask quick questions about registering, their schedules, or anything else. Some of the students I met with had questions that took longer to figure out. For example, some students came in wanting to plan their courses for next semester. Usually that takes longer than a 10-15 minute drop-in. Overall, I had a good mix of questions I couldn't answer and had to ask another advisor, and questions that I could answer. Generally, I like express advising, especially for my internship because that means I get to meet with students. One big thing that I don't like is that I don't really have time to plan ahead, meaning I don't get to study the student, see what they have taken, see their test scores, past advising notes, etc. before meeting with the student. It is a bit uncomfortable calling a student back to my office without knowing much about them at all. However, I think that is why express advising is beneficial for me. It challenges me to recall information quickly and accurately. Thankfully, most students are patient with me if I have to ask another advisor a question or look something up for them.
Express advising also opened my eyes a bit more to the difficult job that our receptionist does. At one point, the entire lobby was full of students and there was a line out the door of students waiting to check in. She is in charge of getting all of those students checked in and letting all of the advisors know who is checked in and whether they are willing to see any advisor or their own specifically. She "sparks" the advisors to let us know who is waiting in the lobby. Spark is an instant messaging system. If I were the receptionist, I would probably get overwhelmed and frustrated.
I also continued to work on the DGS website. I have almost all of the bios for the advisors for the new website.
This week, I read "Academic Advising: A Cornerstone of Student Retention" (1978) which basically outlines a successful advising program. Crockett defines academic advising and then goes on to explain that the keys to a good advising program. Institutional commitment to advising, a clear institutional goal for advising, rewards for good advising, a quality process for hiring academic advisors, training for advisors, an advising handbook, knowledge about the students that the advisor will work with, development of relationships between students and advisors, an appropriate ratio of number of students to number of advisors, a system for making referrals for students to other resources, student satisfaction of advising, evaluation of the advising, and the appropriate structure of advising are all key components to a good academic advising program. I am unsure if many of these components are present at DGS. For example, I do not know if there is an advising handbook for Illinois advisors or if there is evaluation of services. I do know that advisors form relationships with students; however, I have not been able to do that because I do not have my own roster of students that I see. I was a part of the hiring of one of the advisors and the hiring committee has changed the process of hiring to be more comprehensive to truly find out if the applicant is genuine about helping students. Also, due to technology, I am able to pull up student files electronically, which proved to be helpful during express advising so that I can learn some information about the student while I was talking with them. Further, although I did not receive an award for advising, I did receive a thank you card from the director of DGS for helping at the Majors and Minors Fair. From experience, it is nice when somebody acknowledges hardwork. Overall, I agree with Crockett (1978), but I wonder if an updated version of this article would include professional development and advisors, so that they remain knowledgeable about the field.
This week, I spent approximately 30 minutes working on the website and 10 hours doing express advising and following up with students I met with during express.
I also spent about 45 minutes blogging and reading.
Crockett, D. S. (1978). Academic advising: A cornerstone of student retention. New Directions for Student Issues, 1978(3), 29-35. doi: 10.1002/ss.37119780306
Express advising also opened my eyes a bit more to the difficult job that our receptionist does. At one point, the entire lobby was full of students and there was a line out the door of students waiting to check in. She is in charge of getting all of those students checked in and letting all of the advisors know who is checked in and whether they are willing to see any advisor or their own specifically. She "sparks" the advisors to let us know who is waiting in the lobby. Spark is an instant messaging system. If I were the receptionist, I would probably get overwhelmed and frustrated.
I also continued to work on the DGS website. I have almost all of the bios for the advisors for the new website.
This week, I read "Academic Advising: A Cornerstone of Student Retention" (1978) which basically outlines a successful advising program. Crockett defines academic advising and then goes on to explain that the keys to a good advising program. Institutional commitment to advising, a clear institutional goal for advising, rewards for good advising, a quality process for hiring academic advisors, training for advisors, an advising handbook, knowledge about the students that the advisor will work with, development of relationships between students and advisors, an appropriate ratio of number of students to number of advisors, a system for making referrals for students to other resources, student satisfaction of advising, evaluation of the advising, and the appropriate structure of advising are all key components to a good academic advising program. I am unsure if many of these components are present at DGS. For example, I do not know if there is an advising handbook for Illinois advisors or if there is evaluation of services. I do know that advisors form relationships with students; however, I have not been able to do that because I do not have my own roster of students that I see. I was a part of the hiring of one of the advisors and the hiring committee has changed the process of hiring to be more comprehensive to truly find out if the applicant is genuine about helping students. Also, due to technology, I am able to pull up student files electronically, which proved to be helpful during express advising so that I can learn some information about the student while I was talking with them. Further, although I did not receive an award for advising, I did receive a thank you card from the director of DGS for helping at the Majors and Minors Fair. From experience, it is nice when somebody acknowledges hardwork. Overall, I agree with Crockett (1978), but I wonder if an updated version of this article would include professional development and advisors, so that they remain knowledgeable about the field.
This week, I spent approximately 30 minutes working on the website and 10 hours doing express advising and following up with students I met with during express.
I also spent about 45 minutes blogging and reading.
Crockett, D. S. (1978). Academic advising: A cornerstone of student retention. New Directions for Student Issues, 1978(3), 29-35. doi: 10.1002/ss.37119780306
Friday, November 9, 2012
Nov 5-Nov 9
This week, I took it upon myself to try to educate myself a bit more on several things. I spent a chunk of time reviewing some of the majors on campus and their requirements. I realized that with express advising coming up, it would be good to brush up on some of the majors and what those majors are about. There are over 150 majors on campus and the advisors at DGS consider themselves to be "general specialists" but I know that I can't even call myself that because I do not know enough about each major. I only know surface level information.
I also spent some time going back to student files from the students I worked with over the summer. I looked them up in a database to look up how they are doing in the classes I suggested and if they had chosen a different path. I also read up on the "advisor notes" or the notes that advisors write -up after they have met with a student, that were written for the students I had over the summer. I did this for around half of the students I worked with this summer. My main reason for doing this was to examine and grade how well I advised over the summer. Advisors talk about patterns in students a lot. For example, advisors don't usually suggest a first semester freshman take Calc 1, Chem 102/103 and IB 150. They suggest this because it is usually too difficult. However, there are some students who can handle all three of those classes. I want to know more of these patterns to know what combinations of classes are appropriate or inappropriate. The only way to know these patterns is to experience them with students. After going over some of my summer students, I think I did a good job. I ran across some students whose schedule was too hard. These are the types of things that I want to take notice of.
I worked on the DGS website this week. I compiled advisor bio. information and tried to track down advisors so that I could get their information from them. I put their information in a consistent format so that soon, it will be ready to be sent to the people who are making the new website.
I spent some time reviewing old petitions again because I wanted to review petitions where the advisors all denied a petition but then the director accepted the petition (which trumps the advisor's decision) or vise versa where the advisors accepted the petition and the director denied the petition. I talked with the advisor about this and she said that the advisors do get mad when these situations come up.I also reviewed another student petition this week as a non-voting member of one of the petition committees. I am still waiting to hear if my decision to deny or accept the petition matches what the advisors decided.
Finally, I went to the staff meeting and took time after the meeting to reflect on the information from the meeting. We had the advisors from Chemical/Biomolecular Eng, Specialized Chemistry, and the Chemistry Major in Science and Letters come in to talk to us about the requirements for these programs. The same two advisors work for all three programs. These programs have very specific and unique details that are difficult to sort through and remember when working with students, which is why I had to digest some of this information after the meeting. One take-away from the staff meetings would be that every new advisor should get time each week to review majors and their requirements because there is so much to know! No wonder students get confused!
This week, I read "Solution-Focused Advising with the Undecided Student." The article was about using solution-focused therapy mixed with advising to help undecided students through the major selection process. The goal of solution-focused advising is to help students identify strengths, abilities, and interests. The authors discuss 5 different ways of utilizing solution-focused therapy in advising undecided students. They said scaling questions could be used. This is where a student places an activity on a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of enjoyment and then the advisor asks how the student could make the activity higher on the scale. Also, a miracle question can be asked, and a miracle question is one that suggests the problem is solved. The advisor can ask presuppositional questions which are questions that are somewhat open-ended and does not allow for a yes/no answer while assuming part of the answer in the presuppositional question. Advisors can be cheerleaders where they highlight students' strengths. Finally, advisors can give the student homework or tasks to do to reach their goal.
These 5 techniques seem small but could be very effective for a student because they seem to help the student reframe their "problem" of not having a major. These also seem like techniques that should be practiced. I think these techniques are used in advising appointments when advisors have enough time to get at the meat of why a student is at DGS. When a student comes in to choose classes, an advisor does not always have enough time to talk with a student about majors. From this article, I think a take-away is that to implement these techniques, I would need to make a conscious effort to ask some important and helpful questions. Perhaps I can write some down to use as a cheat sheet for future students.
Overall, I spent 1.5 hours reviewing some majors, 15 minutes reviewing one student's petition, 1.5 hours working on the website, 3 hours reviewing summer student files, 1 hour reviewing old petitions, 1 hour and 45 minutes in the staff meeting, 20 minutes reviewing material from the staff meeting and 1 hours blogging and reading.
Mayhall, J. & Burg, J. E. (2002). Solution-Focused advising with the undecided student. NACADA Journal, 22(1), 76-82.
I also spent some time going back to student files from the students I worked with over the summer. I looked them up in a database to look up how they are doing in the classes I suggested and if they had chosen a different path. I also read up on the "advisor notes" or the notes that advisors write -up after they have met with a student, that were written for the students I had over the summer. I did this for around half of the students I worked with this summer. My main reason for doing this was to examine and grade how well I advised over the summer. Advisors talk about patterns in students a lot. For example, advisors don't usually suggest a first semester freshman take Calc 1, Chem 102/103 and IB 150. They suggest this because it is usually too difficult. However, there are some students who can handle all three of those classes. I want to know more of these patterns to know what combinations of classes are appropriate or inappropriate. The only way to know these patterns is to experience them with students. After going over some of my summer students, I think I did a good job. I ran across some students whose schedule was too hard. These are the types of things that I want to take notice of.
I worked on the DGS website this week. I compiled advisor bio. information and tried to track down advisors so that I could get their information from them. I put their information in a consistent format so that soon, it will be ready to be sent to the people who are making the new website.
I spent some time reviewing old petitions again because I wanted to review petitions where the advisors all denied a petition but then the director accepted the petition (which trumps the advisor's decision) or vise versa where the advisors accepted the petition and the director denied the petition. I talked with the advisor about this and she said that the advisors do get mad when these situations come up.I also reviewed another student petition this week as a non-voting member of one of the petition committees. I am still waiting to hear if my decision to deny or accept the petition matches what the advisors decided.
Finally, I went to the staff meeting and took time after the meeting to reflect on the information from the meeting. We had the advisors from Chemical/Biomolecular Eng, Specialized Chemistry, and the Chemistry Major in Science and Letters come in to talk to us about the requirements for these programs. The same two advisors work for all three programs. These programs have very specific and unique details that are difficult to sort through and remember when working with students, which is why I had to digest some of this information after the meeting. One take-away from the staff meetings would be that every new advisor should get time each week to review majors and their requirements because there is so much to know! No wonder students get confused!
This week, I read "Solution-Focused Advising with the Undecided Student." The article was about using solution-focused therapy mixed with advising to help undecided students through the major selection process. The goal of solution-focused advising is to help students identify strengths, abilities, and interests. The authors discuss 5 different ways of utilizing solution-focused therapy in advising undecided students. They said scaling questions could be used. This is where a student places an activity on a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of enjoyment and then the advisor asks how the student could make the activity higher on the scale. Also, a miracle question can be asked, and a miracle question is one that suggests the problem is solved. The advisor can ask presuppositional questions which are questions that are somewhat open-ended and does not allow for a yes/no answer while assuming part of the answer in the presuppositional question. Advisors can be cheerleaders where they highlight students' strengths. Finally, advisors can give the student homework or tasks to do to reach their goal.
These 5 techniques seem small but could be very effective for a student because they seem to help the student reframe their "problem" of not having a major. These also seem like techniques that should be practiced. I think these techniques are used in advising appointments when advisors have enough time to get at the meat of why a student is at DGS. When a student comes in to choose classes, an advisor does not always have enough time to talk with a student about majors. From this article, I think a take-away is that to implement these techniques, I would need to make a conscious effort to ask some important and helpful questions. Perhaps I can write some down to use as a cheat sheet for future students.
Overall, I spent 1.5 hours reviewing some majors, 15 minutes reviewing one student's petition, 1.5 hours working on the website, 3 hours reviewing summer student files, 1 hour reviewing old petitions, 1 hour and 45 minutes in the staff meeting, 20 minutes reviewing material from the staff meeting and 1 hours blogging and reading.
Mayhall, J. & Burg, J. E. (2002). Solution-Focused advising with the undecided student. NACADA Journal, 22(1), 76-82.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Oct. 29-Nov. 2
This week at DGS I was lucky enough to have some new experience. I was one of the interviewers for the new advisor position. It was interesting seeing how the candidate came to wanting to apply to DGS. It also was nice hearing the questions that we asked. That way, I know the types of questions that will be asked when I interview for jobs. I also reviewed many student petitions this week. These petitions are mostly for withdrawal from a class. A student fills out a petition and gathers information for it before they turn in the completed petition. The purpose of the petition is to give student's the opportunity to explain why they want to drop a class after the drop deadline. Usually, petitions are completed in the semester after the student took the class. In the petitions there are narratives about students' extenuating circumstances, doctor's notes, psychologist notes, obituaries, syllabi, grades, messages from the instructor and anything else that is pertinent to the student's story. Once the petition is complete, there are petition committees made up of advisors who decide if they accept, accept with advising agreement, accept as one-time-only or deny. Then, either the director of DGS or the executive director of the whole office makes the final decision. A student can appeal the decision. I read through many petitions to try to develop my skills and ability to hold the petition process to what it is meant for. I also had to learn to comprehend a lot of information to put it together to form a timeline and picture of events. I also was able to read what each advisor's decision was and what the final decision was. It was a subject process but I could tell the advisors try to make it objective.
Finally, I read a lot about the probation program at DGS. The program is called PASS and I read through the PASS manual and the activities that advisors use in the program. I also read the student handbook on probation rules.
Working with Undecided Students: A Hands-on Strategy discusses a three step process to helping students discover a major that would work for that student. In step one, the students complete personal profiles to brainstorm what the students are good at and they develop a sense of what different skills they want to have and what concepts they want to know. In step 2, the advisor and student create a list of courses the student could take related to the outcomes of step 1 and they make a list of extra things they could do related to their interests, like volunteering somewhere. Finally, in step 3, the student chooses a major related to step one and two. I think this is a good strategy that advisors in DGS do take, it just is not as deliberate as this strategy. For example, they talk with students about interests, abilities, skills, and concepts but for the most part, they do not write them down. They also talk with students about exploring different majors by taking classes in different areas and getting out-of-class experience but again they do no create a list with the student. For the most part, the advisors also do not necessarily do step 1 during the first meeting and step 2 during a second meeting with the student. However, the advisors are more deliberate when they work with PASS students. With pass students, advisors have worksheets that they fill out with students about goals. I think deliberately going through the process suggested in the article would give the student a tangible piece of paper to reflect on and refer to.
Unfortunately, I currently have food poisening so I had to cut my hours at DGS down this week. I spent about 1 hours in the advisor interview, 2 hours and 45 minutes reviewing student petitions and 1 hour and 15 minutes reading about PASS. I spent 1 hour reading and blogging.
Schein, H. K.. & Laff, N.S. (1997). Working with undecided students: A hands-on strategy. NACADA Journal, 17(1), 42-48.
Finally, I read a lot about the probation program at DGS. The program is called PASS and I read through the PASS manual and the activities that advisors use in the program. I also read the student handbook on probation rules.
Working with Undecided Students: A Hands-on Strategy discusses a three step process to helping students discover a major that would work for that student. In step one, the students complete personal profiles to brainstorm what the students are good at and they develop a sense of what different skills they want to have and what concepts they want to know. In step 2, the advisor and student create a list of courses the student could take related to the outcomes of step 1 and they make a list of extra things they could do related to their interests, like volunteering somewhere. Finally, in step 3, the student chooses a major related to step one and two. I think this is a good strategy that advisors in DGS do take, it just is not as deliberate as this strategy. For example, they talk with students about interests, abilities, skills, and concepts but for the most part, they do not write them down. They also talk with students about exploring different majors by taking classes in different areas and getting out-of-class experience but again they do no create a list with the student. For the most part, the advisors also do not necessarily do step 1 during the first meeting and step 2 during a second meeting with the student. However, the advisors are more deliberate when they work with PASS students. With pass students, advisors have worksheets that they fill out with students about goals. I think deliberately going through the process suggested in the article would give the student a tangible piece of paper to reflect on and refer to.
Unfortunately, I currently have food poisening so I had to cut my hours at DGS down this week. I spent about 1 hours in the advisor interview, 2 hours and 45 minutes reviewing student petitions and 1 hour and 15 minutes reading about PASS. I spent 1 hour reading and blogging.
Schein, H. K.. & Laff, N.S. (1997). Working with undecided students: A hands-on strategy. NACADA Journal, 17(1), 42-48.
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