Advising changes for first-year and international students

Sonia Waraich,
Contributor

Academic Advising and Career Education will handle academic advising for freshman and international students beginning fall quarter, in an effort to consolidate the service and make it more easily accessible.

The change is the result of general frustration with the advising process and Planning for Distinction, a larger effort to restructure and deliver programs and services more effectively.

The changes began when dissatisfied international students went to Associated Students, Inc., with complaints. As a result, the ASI board of directors passed a resolution on academic advising in the spring recommending “more diversity, cultural and sensitivity training,” expansion of advising for international students beyond the General Education Office and the completion of an advisement report at the end of every advising session.

The PFD Support Program Task Group’s report also found overlap in several services with ten identifying advising as the primary service provided, but Sally Murphy, senior director of undergraduate studies and general education, said advising was an issue before the start of PFD.

“We have known probably for the last seven or eight years that when we ask students where they go for advising, they will list up to 23 places on campus,” said Murphy.

The results of the PFD process listed academic advising as a service eligible for enhancement if efficiency issues were addressed, while stressing in its recommendations to “first focus on effectiveness in providing services and then on efficiency, rather than the other way around.”

Lawrence Bliss, director of academic advising and career education, said the changes are “an effort to coordinate where advising happens and where it best happens.”

In addition to expanding advising to first-year and international students, Bliss said AACE hired a new advising position housed in athletics and provided new students with handouts clarifying the advising process, which will become more commonplace as the fall nears.

AACE will be dividing its staff up into teams of advisers specializing in students with majors in specific colleges and work with the new college advising centers to put on workshops and hold office hours.

“We really felt here that we could do a better job helping students if we reached out to specific colleges rather than each of us try to know everything about every major,” Bliss said. “The goal of all of this is to make advising easily accessible for students.”

Murphy said the GE office, where freshman and international students were previously advised, will continue to oversee services such as academic petitions, block registration for freshmen, remediation, peer mentoring and advising for students trying to re-matriculate.

“AACE is going to be the primary site for advising,” Murphy said. “We’re going to pick up what’s needed on the edges.”

Murphy said more and better advising is essential to reach President Leroy Morishita’s goal of increasing the six-year graduation rate to 60 percent for native students, those who started as freshman, and 65 percent for transfer students.

“We’ve lost almost 50 percent of the funding for the California State University,” Murphy said. “Student support services have been hurt a lot.”

Brad Wells, chief financial officer and vice president of administration and finance, said the budget requests that were sent out to each division in early July asked for “proposals for new funding that specifically addressed the recommendations contained in the support task group report.”

“Enrollment last year was 7 percent over our funded level,” Wells said. “The state provided $142 million in increased resources to the CSU this year, but that’s short $95 million from what the trustees requested to meet the demands.”

More discussions about the PFD process and the plan to restructure are set to take place in August.