In April, President Jackson decided to take action and formed a task force to study the problem and gather findings on how to improve the advising system. The task force included faculty, students, staff, an independent consultant, and alumni. “We wanted to give it due process and analyze it completely,” said Gabriele.

Two major points were explored by the committee: student expectations and what the faculty saw as shortcomings in the system. A student survey was given to 600 hundred students and organized focus groups led by the Student Senate. “The Student Senate worked very extensively on this, and came up with some very good data,” said Mike Borzumate, Senate-E-board liaison. The results showed that 60 percent of the students polled were satisfied with the advising system. However, a substantial number of the participants said that they did not know who their advisor was. “Answers such as this, tell us that students are not aware of the resources out there. In this case they could have found the name of their advisor right on their SIS page,” said Gabriele.

The responses also showed that the quality of advising varied among the academic schools. Programs with lower faculty-to-student ratios, like management and EMAC had a more favorable impression than those with higher ratios, such as mechanical engineering and computer science. Moreover, students were more satisfied with advising in schools where there was “a person who is only there as an advisor,” said Gabriel. Part of the solution would be to create more of these posts in other schools.

The faculty reaction to the findings was “very positive” said Peter Parsans, president of the Faculty Senate. It confirmed that the two major shortcomings of the system were unrewarded good advisors and lack of training. “In the yearly reviews that every professor goes through, advising is not given the weight or the importance that it should have,” said Gabriele. Usually the only question pertaining to advising on the yearly reviews for professors asks, “How many advisees do you have?”

The quantitative nature of the question “completely misses the point of what makes a good advisor,” said Parsans. The solution, both Gabriele and Parsans agree, would be to implement a reward or recognition system for professors who are good advisors.

The report found that training will be part of the solution, for both students and faculty. “We need to develop more programs to train advisors on how to advise students,” said Jean Steigler, interim director of the Advising and Learning Center. These trainings deal with time management, study skills, how to get information on graduate schools, pathways, co-ops, jobs, and how to connect with alumni. “Many of these services already exist, but advisors have to know where they are to point their students in the right direction,” said Steigler.

Keeping up with changes in the curriculum is one challenge that many advisors struggle with. “Advisors, don’t want to run the risk of giving wrong advice, so they end up giving no advice,” said Gabriele. The report suggested training to help remedy this problem, and “developing online forms to help students keep track of their plan of study,” said Steigler.

Early warning systems such as the one in place now for the freshman class should be implemented for upperclassmen. Right now, every freshman who receives a D or an F in an exam or test receives a letter from the advising center. “We need to put processes in place so that we could determine students who are doing poorly early enough,” said Gabriel.

The task force’s recommendations were submitted to President Jackson this week so she could make a decision on how best to proceed. However, “she has already directed the provost to implement some of these changes,” said Gabriele.