Committee Members From This Past Year

• Jennie Glynn (Co-Chair)
• Julie Amon-Mattox (Co-Chair)
• Mike Stoll (Member)
• Audra Pretty-Smith (Member)
• Abbey Jerome (CSAL Student Representative)

Vacancies for F22/W23

Two member positions

CSAL Student Representative

During the past year, how did the committee work positively impact your advising skills?

1: As a result of our work in creating a plan for assessment, I am more detail-oriented when meeting with students. The need to complete the appointment summary questions in Navigate prompts me to review all graduation requirements more intentionally with students, and reviewing myPath with a student during their appointment has become more commonplace. In addition, I have made more of an effort to refer students to various departments and centers on campus to ensure they are receiving the support needed to be successful.

2: Working on our committee has encouraged me (and my office) to have a more ‘assessment focused’ mindset in thinking of our work. Being able to quantify and easily ‘display’ our work via numbers/data is only becoming more important! For example, our office now better tracks our email traffic, # of emails sent to students, and time spent advising via email in order to continue to quantify our work. 

3: Having worked on the committee to develop the SCOs, this has been helpful in talking with students and having those outcomes in mind during conversations. It has helped me to have a more outcome-focused mindsight and ensure each student has a good understanding of where they are in their educational journey. Most importantly, attending the NACADA Assessment Institute has reinforced that advisors are educators and that students learn vital things from us via academic advising.

What accomplishments did your committee achieve during this past academic year? Projects and initiatives worked on?

Throughout the fall 2021 semester, our committee completed our work of creating a plan for assessment of academic advising. In July 2021, we hosted two “Assessment of Academic Advising: Creating Meaningful Student-Centered Outcomes” professional development sessions via Zoom. Following these sessions, our committee reviewed the feedback given by about 25 academic advisors and faculty members regarding what values and beliefs are most important in academic advising, what academic advising looks like at its best at GVSU, how students benefit from academic advising, and what makes academic advising different from any other experience students have on campus.

This feedback allowed our committee to create three suggested shared Student-Centered Outcomes (SCO), focused on graduation requirements, referrals to other departments on campus, and goal-setting. Our committee presented these three suggested SCOs to Advising Center Directors at the UAALC meeting in September 2021. After feedback from Directors, our committee worked to refine these outcomes, and reduce our number of shared SCOS to two outcomes, focused on graduation requirements and referrals. After a second meeting with Advising Center Directors at the November 2021 UAALC meeting, these outcomes were approved.

In addition, our committee worked to implement the two primary measures for these outcomes, including five new standard questions in the Navigate Appointment Summary, and a post-appointment survey to be sent to students. Both of these measures address whether or not graduation requirements were discussed during the appointment, and if any referrals made during the appointment. The Navigate Appointment Summary Questions were added in December 2021, and went “live” at the start of the Winter 2022 semester. Our committee also created an individual Qualtrics survey for each advising center, and provided this survey link and additional resources on how to send the survey to each center, so that surveys could be sent to students beginning in the winter 2022 semester.

Throughout the winter 2022 semester, our committee has worked on a variety of tasks, including creating standardized job descriptions for positions within academic advising. At this time, we have drafted job descriptions for Academic Advisor, Senior Academic Advisor, Assistant Director, and Associate Director. These descriptions will be presented to Advising Center Directors at the May 2022 UAALC meeting for discussion. In collaboration with Directors, we also plan to help create the job description for the Director position.

What work will you carry over that was unfinished to the next academic year?

Following the creation and shared storage of standardized job descriptions, our committee intends to create a standardized training plan for new academic advisors. Our goal is to standardize the content of new advisor training, and the processes and policies that are covered during training. This training may include FYAR screencasts, videos from Registrar’s Office website, forms that advisors use, advising theories (i.e. Appreciative Advising), IT systems advisors use (OnBase, Banner), etc. We also have interest in collaborating with the LAAN Training & Development Committee to create recorded professional development sessions for future training, and with the LAAN Technology Committee to create a webpage/module/tutorial/Black Board page where all training materials reside.

What benefits would advisors gain by joining your committee for F22/W23?

Members of our committee will benefit by connecting with other advisors outside of their center, and participating in shared work to make advising more streamlined and standardized in its processes. Joining this committee is an effective way to make a positive impact in our advising community and create change for the good of advisors and ultimately the students we serve.