Council of Academic Advisors
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
10:30 AM, Union Board Room
Present: Jane Coplan (UAASC), Sue Dagit (Registrar’s Office), Stacy Dorsett (COEHS),
Jennifer Grimm (Communications), Molly Homer (Honor’s College), Ember Keithley (CBT),
Ehren Kuzekob, Caryn Morgan (CAS), Kelly Morris (UAASC), Julie O’Brien (UAASC),
Jennifer Sandrik-Rubio (Physical Sciences), Theo Schultz (Pre-Nursing), Patrick Stout
(Broadcasting), Michelle Terry (CBT Rep), Jennifer Tibbitts (BA/GBS), Dana Vizdal (Study
Abroad/CBT Advising – Administrative Intern), Tammy Wilson (COEHS)
I. November 30th Registration Review – Keithley V. Transfer Registration Future Dates – Grimm Two agenda items combined Michele Terry offered an apology for not picking up the business students since they thought their students were taking the placement test and would be directed to them afterwards. Everything went well with Education in the library except that there were only 18 computers available for 30 students. If Education is placed in the library again, they would like to use the bigger computer lab on the second floor. It would be nice to include cell phone numbers on the itinerary so that everyone would have access to them, if needed. Things did not run as smoothly as if all areas were in one location: 1) advisors needing to call other advisors in different buildings could not reach them 2) when Jane and Candy came back to the Union to tell SDO that the students were finished, they had forgotten students in Knoblaugh, Morgan, and Memorial Halls, so in actuality (because so many different areas were being used) not all students were actually finished, 3) there was a situation where one UA student went with LEJA to the library and after he explained that he did not want to do any of their majors they registered him because he didn’t want to go to another building. There are problems with the classes he registered for, whereas If we were all in the same building he could have been walked across the hall. There were more freshmen on this transfer day than normal. If this seems to be a continuing trend adjustments may need to be made since this means dealing with two diverse populations. If transfer registration is going to be more heavily‐loaded with freshmen the program may have to be viewed differently. Students located in different buildings wasn’t a problem for Molly, but had she not paid attention she wouldn’t have known where to find them. There was more computer room in the Stipes lab than anticipated. More students could have been there, but it is hard to know ahead of time how many will be testing since they are still changing majors. The problem with reserving computer labs was because it was a class day and on‐campus students needed access to computers to work on finals. There were on‐campus students on computers in the library and in Stipes Hall. There was alot of confusion with getting students back and forth from Stipes and Morgan Halls for math placements. The purple sheets used during Summer SOAR are not ordinarily used on transfer days, but they could be used, if needed. Transfer Registration Future Dates Discussed was where we are going with registration and what options are available. It was suggested that transfer registration be moved to a Saturday, the Friday afternoon before Thanksgiving break, or the Monday afternoon of Thanksgiving break because there would be less chance of classes and students using the computer labs, there would be more parking available because many classes are not scheduled after 2:00 on Friday afternoons, and many community colleges don’t hold classes on Friday. Faculty are on break and not required to be on campus the Monday of Thanksgiving break; however, chairs should be available to help students. Currently, the 2012 transfer registration date is set for Wednesday, but that is still under discussion. Separating orientation and registration is another option for both populations. As it is currently structured, this program is really not an orientation. The students who don’t do testing get more of an orientation than those who test. It was felt that freshmen coming with college credit were not truly freshmen. The rule is 12 hours or less are considered freshmen transfers, which is dealt with in the same way as students coming to the summer SOAR program with dual credit. The transfer registration program moved from the morning to the afternoon because of the train schedule and to eliminate students driving from Chicago having the expense of getting a room the night before or driving here early in the morning. In addition, many students showed up late when the program was scheduled in the morning. Jane has asked Shannon if more facilities would be available on a Thursday or Friday. Shannon thought Thursday wouldn’t be any better than Wednesday but facilities might be more available on Friday. There should be no problem with scheduling labs on Saturday. No students were lost this year. Holding registration on the Friday before Thanksgiving break would allow students to register prior to Thanksgiving break, giving advisors earlier contact with students and giving administration a better idea of how many students are coming and what classes need to be made available. Sue will check to see if this would mean changing to an open registration date or have student registration dates default to a specific date, like what is done at the summer SOAR program. Some advisors use ADEN to release holds while others use pin numbers (located on student registration cards). Some students were delayed registering because the registration cards weren’t delivered in time. Another problem was that some students were ready to register but English placements had not yet be loaded. Please let Ember know if you have other ideas about transfer registration. Jane and the UAASC director serve on the New Student Registration Committee, which SDO coordinates. Jane will bring the information discussed today about a Friday registration to the committee at their next meeting this Monday. Jane distributed the SOAR 2012 dates, confirmed by Vian as final dates. II. Retention Committee The committee has met and is focusing on four themes: 1) tutoring, 2) mentoring, 3) finances (they are looking at Financial Aids having programs in the residence halls), and 4) extended orientation (they are looking at the idea that the events scheduled the weekend before school starts be extended into the first week of school to focus on successful strategies). During SOAR, the session “Paying for College” will be targeted to both parents and students. The committee is discussing the financial aspect of retention and problems associated with that, but have not come up with any solutions yet. Students who aren’t registered for spring semester have been contacted, and many hope to register after their financial obligations are met. Some students still had alcohol wise holds. Some students had no holds but had still not registered. Elementary Education and Social Work have students that need to be accepted into the program before they can register. There seems to be only one person who is authorized to release Alcohol Wise holds, and when that person is gone the holds are not released. Some students completed Alcohol Wise prior to the weekend but could not register because their holds had not been released, even though they had completed the process. Jane thought they were looking at a different way to do Alcohol Wise holds. Michelle said that, according to the Myers‐Briggs test, some students have a personality type that doesn’t value time so they don’t value deadlines. It would be interesting to how large a percentage of those who haven’t registered are that personality type and, if so, could these students be dealt with differently. It would also be interesting to see how many students who are registered had Early Warning grades. These students could also be dealt with differently, but that is an issue for the Retention Committee. If a mentoring program is instituted, that might eliminate some of the problems with students who are doing poorly at midterm and so can’t see the benefit of registering early for classes. There might be a connection between not seeing an advisor and receiving Early Warning grades. Sometimes students wait for their final grades to see if they are going to return. They don’t understand they can register for a class but then can still drop it later without any penalty. Students who withdrew from spring registration and dropped their classes still have a bill, but it was thought maybe their checks did not clear. III. Upcoming Programs Candace’s “Last lecture” will start at 2:00 PM on Thursday, December 8. Please mark your calendars and try to attend. IV. Spring Meeting Dates ‐ University Union Board Room 10:30‐12:00 The Spring meeting dates are listed on the agenda. Please make sure they are on your calendars. VI. Quad Cities Courses/STARS Sue said there has never been a CAGAS appeal from students who inadvertently registered for a Quad Cities class. Although seemingly not a problem at the present time, it might become a problem in the future. According to some advisors, this is a problem and there has never been an appeal because students realize their mistake the first week of classes and then go to their advisor to fix the problem. Chris has a program that she gets a list of students registered for Quad Cities classes. This program could be changed to include other majors, so let Chris know if you want a copy. It was thought that students should be taught how to use STARS during SOAR since students should be encouraged to think and figure things out themselves. This could be turned into a “teachable moment”. The Quad Cities campus wants to track exactly how many students they are serving. Their online classes did not fill and that may be due to the fact that students searched for Quad Cities classes online courses and they weren’t able to find them. Sue will check to see if the location of Quad Cities online classes is a problem that can be fixed or if that is the way the Quad Cities wants them listed. Online classes open up for anyone to register after open registration. VII. Standing Committees Assessment Committee They are developing a timeline for next semester where the committee meets before most COAA meetings. The freshman/junior survey will be available for online review in January and advisors will have 2 weeks to look it over before it goes out. It may be too late to make changes but it will allow advisors to see what is going out. This survey will be sent out February 20, to be returned by March 16. The survey will be reviewed at the first committee meeting. The advisor survey will go over sometime mid‐April and will be available for review. The committee will be reviewing it. It needs to be determined what we want to do with the survey results: are these some things we can implement where students know their survey suggestions are being addressed. Some changes could possibly be implemented in the fall. There was concern about the Assessment Committee advisor survey and the COBT advisor survey going out in the spring at the same time. Areas were mixed about when their advisor surveys are distributed: some areas administer them in the fall and spring, some administer them just in the spring. Because most advisor surveys are hard copies and ask different types of questions and are significantly different, so students may not relate the online and hard copies together. The Assessment Committee will let the Council see the results from the survey, blocking out any personal comments to protect advisor names. Awards and Recognition The committee met last week. They are working on advisor award criteria and creating an online submission form so there will be more people in the pool from which to select advisor of the year. It was suggested that a non‐advisor sit on the committee to review applications in order to give more neutral input. Campus Affairs Theo and Caryn had training on the knowledge base. This is located under web tools and there is a place where faculty, advisors, and students can type in questions. More advisor information needs to be included. This could be used as “how‐to” tool for prospective students. Caryn has included information on how to calculate GPA and has listed the associated steps. There are many areas that can be included which would be very, very useful to students. Advisors have to write questions and answers themselves or link it to another site: you will have to create a new document form, then create a question, and then link it. It is tedious, but not difficult. One of the good features of this is that it can be searched with a natural language question. The goal is to have this be a place for both students and advisors. Suggestions on possible questions would be explaining the 29‐hour rule, information on Zool 200, math questions, etc. It can be set as an automatic reminder to go back and update the information. If any departments are interested in learning about how to use it, a training time can be set up. A suggestion was to put an article in the Courier about it. Theo does not know if there is feedback about questions students ask that have no corresponding information; if there is feedback available answers to these questions could be developed. Log‐in is through ecom accounts, but the site can also be accessed as a “guest”. Specific information can be included for prospective students, parents, current students, and advisors. Public Relations/Social Jennifer distributed Jinga pieces and everyone was asked to write their names on a piece to be given to Candy at her “Last Lecture”. These will be included in a gift box with words under the lid that describe Candy … energized, mentor, etc. Either bring the name pieces to the lecture yourself or have someone else bring it. There will be a social hour following the presentation. Professional Development U‐Select Training, presented by Caryn Morgan and Patty Mason, will be held on February 2, 2012, from 1:00‐3:30 in the 2nd floor (main floor) computer classroom in the Library. Teamwork and Communication, presented by Jude Kiah, will be held on Thursday, March 8, from 1:15‐3:15 in the University Union Capitol Room. Sandpaper Wisdom, presented by Donna McCaw, will be presented on April 5th from 1:00‐3:30, location TBA. A survey will be handed out at the “Last Lecture” for suggestions on future professional development sessions. VIII. CAGAS The holiday party will be held tomorrow at the last CAGAS meeting. If appeal material was not submitted yesterday, it probably will not be presented at this last meeting of the semester. The next meeting will be held on January 10th; materials need to be in by January 5th. IX. News from the Office of the Registrar – Dagit 1. Grades
a. GRRP (grading screen) opened Monday, 12/5 and will close at noon on Monday,
12/19.
b. Final grades will be available on Tuesday, 12/20.
2. Advisee Rosters Change
a. Recently an email came from the Provost asking advisors to encourage advisees
who have not yet pre-registered for 2012SP classes to do so.
i. On the Registrar’s webpage under FACULTY/STAFF; Class Rosters and
Counts; View and Save Class Roster Data; Advisees; My Advisees –
Report…
b. A new column will be added to indicate if the advisee is pre-registered.
i. The goal is to have this up by the end of the day, but that depends on how
the day goes.
ii. It should definitely be up before the end of the week.
3. Graduation
a. 1/06/2012 (Friday) is the deadline for degree requirements to be met for 2011FL.
b. 1/10/2012 (Tuesday) Fall degrees will be conferred.
4. CAGAS
a. 1/10/2012 is the next meeting.
b. 1/05/2012 (Thursday) is the deadline for appeals to be submitted.
5. Alcohol – Wise
a. Holds for 2012SP registration have been lifted.
b. Holds will be put back on tenth day of Spring semester (evening of 1/30/2012).
6. IQ sections – remaining seats
a. Any remaining open seats in IQ sections for Spring have been converted to I or IC
seats so that they are open to all.
7. QC and CODEC final exam times can be found on Course Search.
X. College Area News Math 099 module: The Math Department is talking about creating an online modular program for students who take the COMPASS test and come close to placing above 099. They could complete this module, retest, and hopefully place above the 099 figure (55). This will be coordinated through CITR. They hope to have it available in spring or summer for the next incoming class of students. Fifty percent of this year’s incoming class placed into 099. Math 099 forced enrollment went into effect this fall but students have two semesters in which to register for it, which would be next fall. In April, you will start seeing students who need this. In the 3rd semester of their sophomore year, students will be forced to take 099, although they can register for the class, register for other courses after that, and then drop 099, which is different from English 100/180. XI. Miscellaneous – Council Members Miscellaneous – Council Members
Michelle Terry shared information on e-mails being sent to new admits from Kathy Meyers
in the Veteran’s Resource Center inviting students to join a Veteran’s Chat Program. The
concern is that this is being sent to all new students since they aren’t always self-identifying.
Michelle has asked Kathy to modify her wording to say something along the lines of “If this
applies”. There was also concern that the Student ID number was being included in the email and many of these were going to non-WIU e-mail accounts. Kathy will remove those
from the e-mails.
Michelle also shared a situation where a student received an e-mail on November 3 from the
Registrar’s alerting them to a course retake. The student had previously earned an “I” in a
course. After the 10th week that course converted to an “F” and at that time the course
became a retake.
Chris Ramsey is serving on the QC Advisor Search Committee. There was a pool of over
100 applicants. They are currently in the review/Phone Interview Stage.
The Bachelor of General Studies Advisor Search Committee recently had 4 candidates oncampus and a review of the candidates is taking place.
The UAASC Director Search Committee has wrapped up their committee work. An offer
has been made and hopefully the new Director will start January 9.
Concern over the GPA Calculator and the ability to calculate multiple course retakes was
discussed. Advisors will need to handle this manually.
Below is an example from Suzanne Litchfield:
In the case of a student getting multiple F's and now taking the class for grade replacement, then
you can just subtract the number of credit hours that were attempted with the F's from the "Hours
Attempted (HA)" field and just put the new course in as "In-Progress." You wouldn't need to put
anything the the "Previous" fields.
HA: 127 ===> HA 121 (subtract the 6 hours of F attempted in Math 137)
HP: 311.02
MATH 137 3 D
...
3 D+
...
3 C+
...
3 C+