On July 16, 2004, Robbie Jessen of Portland State University addressed the list with a series of questions concerning mandated advising and orientation, including how those practices are carried out, whether there has been a change in enrollment as a result, and if institutions enforce admissions deadlines.  Joe Cuseo of Marymount College responded to these questions with descriptions of what is done at Marymount, as did Karla Sanders of Eastern Illinois University.  Michael Redd, an academic advisor for athletes at Kennesaw State University, responded with his thoughts about requiring advising.  Joe Cuseo replied to Michael’s statements in an attempt to clarify his stance on advising.

Robbie Jessen (read FYE post or send email)
Joe Cuseo (read FYE post or send email)
Karla Sanders (read FYE post or send email)
Michael Redd (read FYE post or send email)
Joe Cuseo (read FYE post or send email)

July 16, 2004 6:44pm
Original Message: Mandated Advising/Orientation

I have never written to the entire list before so am a bit intimidated, but here are my questions. Should any of you have a moment to answer these questions I would really appreciate your responses/thoughts concerning mandated advising or orientation for new students.

1. On your campus(s) do you mandate advising for your students? Do you mandate orientation for your incoming students and if so, how do you carry that mandate out? For example, some universities do not give out pin numbers for registration to students until they can show attendance at orientation or an advising session.
   
   
2. Do you have an admissions deadline-a real deadline-for application for Fall term/semester? If so, how far away from the beginning of the term does that date fall?
   
   
3. If you have recently implemented mandated advising/orientation for new students, have you noticed any effect on enrollment?

Thanks,
Robbie Jessen
Portland State University

July 16, 2004 9:21am
Re: Mandated Advising/Orientation

Robbie (& other Liserv members with interest in this issue):

Here are my answers and related thoughts to your three questions relating to mandatory advising and orientation.

1. On your campus(s) do you mandate advising for your students? Do you mandate orientation for your incoming students and if so, how do you carry that mandate out? For example, some universities do not give out pin numbers for registration to students until they can show attendance at orientation or an advising session.
   
   We require an advisor's signature for initial course registration and for dropping/adding courses after registration. At some 4-year colleges, and many community colleges, students can register for classes without ever seeing an academic advisor (e.g., via electronic or telephonic registration). In my opinion, leaving students on their own to design an educational plan and to select courses relevant to that plan, means that students completely bypass the advising process, along with its retention-promoting potential. This is an especially risky procedure to employ at any college or university, but especially at community colleges, which (a) offer a complex array of multi-purpose courses designed to fulfill multiple missions (e.g., transfer-track courses, technical-vocational track courses, personal enrichment courses), and (b) are open-admission institutions that attract higher proportions of first-generation college students, with diverse educational goals and intentions, and students with diverse levels of academic preparedness. While the practice of registration without advisement may be consistent with the community colleges' historic goal of promoting college access, it may be simultaneously inconsistent with the goal of promoting college success-because receipt of absolutely no advising (or even informal advice) militates against their prospects for retention to program or degree completion. (Such a shortsighted focus on promoting student recruitment without attention to subsequent retention is reinforced by state funding practices that annually reward postsecondary institutions for the total number of students enrolled [FTEs], but which provide no fiscal incentive or reward for retaining and advancing those students who do enroll.)
   
   Requiring an advisor's signature as a pre-requisite or pre-condition for course registration, as well as for dropping or adding classes once the academic term has begun, provides a strong incentive for students to connect with their advisors, and should help to promote their retention by (a) enhancing the quality of students' educational planning and decision making, and by (b) increasing student contact with faculty and staff outside the classroom.
   
   
2. Do you have an admissions deadline-a real deadline-for application for Fall term/semester? If so, how far away from the beginning of the term does that date fall?
   
   At my college, which has a liberal admissions policy and is highly dependent on tuition dollars for its budget, students can be admitted after classes have begun and up to the date at which courses can be added or dropped (without receiving a W). This add/drop date is usually about 8-9 days after classes begin. There is disagreement on our campus with respect to this policy. As you could probably imagine, faculty think it is too liberal and feel that allowing students to enroll after a full week of classes have transpired is disruptive and a disservice to all parties involved. On the other hand, our admissions professionals note that some of our students are late to enroll for very legitimate reasons (e.g., international students with visa problems), so having some flexibility in our cut-off date represents a reasonable and humane policy. As a faculty member, I'm sensitive to my colleagues' concern about late adds, but I tend to side with admissions about the need for flexibility in order to accommodate students with special circumstances. My only request is that we take a look at the relationship between late adds and subsequent success. There is an old saying that I've occasionally heard bandied about in higher education that goes something like: "Last to come, first to go." That is, students who enroll late are more likely to depart early (i.e., are at-risk for attrition). However, I have found no solid base of empirical evidence to support that old adage. Perhaps other members of this Listserv can help out here.
   
   
3. If you have recently implemented mandated advising/orientation for new students, have you noticed any effect on enrollment?
   
   I'm not sure if I'm interpreting this question correctly, but since we have made orientation a mandatory component of our first-year seminar, which is a required course for all new students, attendance at new-student orientation has increased dramatically.
   Since advising has always been mandated at our college, I cannot speak to that component of this question. However, let me say that I think this is a great question to ask. One of the reasons for not mandating advising at community colleges is that it makes registration more convenient and, therefore, eases/increases student access (student recruitment/college entry). However, I am not aware of any research that has systematically investigated this hypothesis. Moreover, as I mentioned previously, I am concerned that absence of mandatory advising serves to bypass student contact with academic advisors or counselors, which in the long run, may contribute to student attrition. So, it would be great to learn about what changes take place in the rates of student recruitment (college entry) and student retention (college persistence) at institutions that have switched to (or away from) mandatory advising.
   Personally, I think we need much more research on how shifts in organizational practices and administrative policies affect student retention and educational achievement. I've felt this way ever since I read that several institutions, after switching their academic schedule from the quarter system or trimester system to the semester system, then experienced an unexpected and serendipitous rise in student retention. Perhaps more regular, intentional, systematic investigation of how other changes in organizational practices/policies affect student behavior and student outcomes will prove to be equally revealing.

Thanks for raising these important questions, Robbie.

- Joe -
Marymount College

July 19, 2004 9:44am
Re: Mandated Advising/Orientation

Robbie, we have mandatory advising for all students--not just our freshman. Students cannot register for courses until the advisor has set a "flag" in our mainframe system that signals that the students can go ahead and register.

We have mandatory orientation, but every year we have 20-30 freshmen who miss it and have to come to late registration, but these students miss important information and socialization. Our freshman class is between 1850-2000 each fall.

We're doing rolling admission here, so our first deadline is November 15 for the following fall. Last year was the first year we had that system, so we're still not sure what effect it has had on our enrollment.

Good luck with your program.
Karla Sanders, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Academic Support and Achievement
Eastern Illinois University
600 Lincoln Ave.
Charleston, IL 61920
217-581-6056
cskjs@eiu.edu

July 20, 2004 12:14pm
Re: Mandated Advising/Orientation

As an advisor for athletes that requires them to see me and their department advisor each term prior to registration, I am not an advocate of required advising in any form. That does seem to be a contradiction, but athletes are being held to such different standards than other students, that they MUST be monitored more closely.

I have edited Mr. Cuseo's remarks for brevity and bandwidth savings :)

I am concerned with the idea and seeming trend to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. I believe that students benefit in many different ways in meeting with an advisor who is competent and trained. That being said, to mandate advising with the stated goal to retain students is asinine. I understand the idea that if they "plug in" with someone their likelihood of retention is increased, but what has happened to personal
responsibility. What's next? High School like "here is your schedule, like it or not"?

The student that self-advises then complains that "someone should have stopped me" is not going to succeed in that arena called the real world. They will always be looking for someone to blame.

Just my rant for a Tuesday

Michael
Kennesaw State University

July 20, 2004 2:16pm
Re: oops-mandatory advisement

Michael, et al.,

Sorry, but I let my last message slip away without a final spell-check. Pasted below is the correct(ed) version.
Please pardon the redundancy.

- Joe -

Michael:
I don't think we really are in total disagreement on this issue. It maybe that the term "mandatory" advisement can be interpreted in different ways. I did not mean to suggest that mandatory advising is synonymous with absolving students of personal responsibility for making their own decisions, nor did I mean to imply that the advisor's role in mandatory advising is to mandate or dictate the student's schedule (as you say, "here is your schedule, like it nor not"). Lastly, it was not my intent to argue that the sole objective of mandatory advising is to retain students; I think competent advisors perform multiple educational roles (e.g., coach, mentor, educator, counselor, interpreter, referral agent) that contribute to multiple student outcomes, above and beyond retention (e.g., motivation, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, and long-range planning).
I agree that we should challenge students to accept personal responsibility for academic planning and decision-making, but (here's where we might disagree) I also think that challenge and support are complementary, not contradictory processes. In my estimation, the majority of first-year students do need some support to be able to fully comprehend, appreciate, and navigate the maze of courses that comprise the liberal arts
and pre-professional curriculum. Many of these courses (and potential majors) they have never previously encountered or heard of, and to meaningfully connect all these academic experiences with their future life may be an extraordinarily challenging task. I feel that well prepared and well positioned advisors play a pivotal role in providing this crucial support by offering "advice"--i.e., by clarifying options and offering suggestions, not by prescriptive mandates or dictates.
I agree that challenge is a necessary pre-condition for promoting personal growth and maturity, but I would add that it, in itself, challenge is not a sufficient condition for development; nor is support alone a sufficient condition for development. However, when challenge is combined with support, they can work in a complementary or symbiotic fashion to produce moderate challenge, which is the level of challenge that is optimal for "stretching" students and moving them toward more advanced levels of development.