Campus-Wide Advising:
Short-Term Recommendations
University of Kentucky
Updated September 3, 2015
I.
Computer Inventory
Take inventory of computers assigned to advisors—recommended that advisors
have access to computer desktops (or equivalent) that are less than 3 years old
and deans/department heads are encouraged to upgrade where necessary.
II.
Advising Audit
To better understand the current state of advising and the wide array of
resources available to advising personnel across campus, an Advising Audit will
be segmented and conducted by the (1) Short-term Advising Committee, and (2)
University Senate Advising Committee (with support from Dr. Chris Thuringer,
Undergraduate Ed). The purpose of this is to gather baseline data about and a
cross-campus picture of the equipment, tools, etc. that advisors have available
and determine needs. (timeframe- April and May 2015)
Areas to be explored in the audit will include:
i. Hardware and technological tools (sample questions)
1. What tools are routinely made available to your advising
personnel (e.g., laptops, smart phones, iPads, etc.)
2. Do your machines meet minimum hardware/software
requirements (to be specified)?
ii. Space (sample questions)
1. What kind of space is available to advisors (private offices,
access to private space, shared office area, housed in open
spaces)?
2. What arrangements are in place to ensure advising personnel
have access to private space?
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iii. Professional development support for advisors (sample questions)
1. Are funds available to your advising personnel to use for
professional development activities?
a. If so, how much is available in total and per advising
FTE?
2. Type of events/activities supported? (e.g., professional
conferences, UK wide trainings, etc.)
3. Are there in-house professional development trainings
offered?
iv. Faculty advising
1. Can you briefly describe how your unit incorporates faculty
advising, if appropriate?
2. When in students’ undergraduate experience do they advise?
a. What are their roles and responsibilities?
b. How do they interface with professional advisors?
3. Are there plans to change this model?
v. Compensation and grade level
1. What are the titles, grade levels of advisors?
2. What are their years of total experience, years at the
institution, education?
3. Gather information about job functions.
vi. Student to advisor ratios (embedded in a model of professional
advising), hybrid (professional and faculty)
1. Please provide your current student to advisor ratio for faculty
advisors, professional advisors, and other advisors (as
applicable within your department).
2. Identify special populations served by advisors (examples to
be provided).
vii. Evaluation of advising activities
1. Effective measures through which this can be accomplished
2. Best methods to gather data (e.g., response rate, accuracy, etc.)
III.
Professional Development (Advisor Training)
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Increased opportunities for further professional training received widespread
support at both advising retreats, at the Dean’s meetings, and from discussions
with the Advising Network. Given this strong sentiment we recommend an
immediate action to set up long-term discussions:
i. Create an advising working group on professional development for
professional, special program, and faculty advisors.
A group of 7-10 people will convene to provide short- and long-term
recommendations for implementing professional development
opportunities for advisors. Most members of this group should be
current advisors. The group will need to review all the current
recommendations, including mini-conferences; onboarding/initial
advisor training; continuing education for current advisors; “Master
Advisor” training; cross-campus, informal brown-bag lunches;
monies available to attend and present at regional and national
conferences; and other ideas. The Working Group may consider
drafting an annual “Calendar of Professional Events” to be offered
routinely for advising professionals across campus.
The Working Group will submit their report to the short-term
advising committee, who in turn will workshop the report to the
larger campus (including the Advising Network, Advising Leadership
Team, Associate Deans, UG Leadership Council, among others).
Adoption of the final recommendations (including budget) will be
made by the University leadership (including the Provost, Associate
Provost for Undergraduate Education, UG Leadership Council, etc.).
IV.
Position Standardization and Career Ladders (Professional Advisors)
Professional advisors across campus have noted two significant problems
associated with this vocation at UK: Lack of standardized duties and job
descriptions among equivalent advisor positions in different colleges and a
profound scarcity of career advancement opportunities within their own
colleges. Based on the overwhelming responses received, it is recommended
that the following actions be taken:
i. Determine a standardized MJR for college/unit-based advisors (with
room for unit-specific essential functions)
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Upon completion of the Advising Audit, a small group will be
convened to draft a proposed standardized MJR for college/unitbased advisors. The standardized MJR will complement other MJR’s
that allow for unit-specific functions. The purpose of this exercise is
to ensure that there is a commonality among what professional
advisors do across campus, while retaining discipline/unit-specific
needs.
There is a full expectation that the small group charged with the first
draft will be comprised from an array of programs, units and colleges.
Similarly, the ensuing proposal will be widely-vetted and workshopped to allow for multiple perspectives. There is a real sense that
this task will be an intense exercise that will need to be done in a
thoughtful and considerate fashion.
ii. Create an advising working group on “career ladders”
A small group of 7-10 members (to include advisor, HR and
administrative representatives) will convene to provide short- and
long-term recommendations on the establishment of a “career ladder”
system for professional advisors to provide opportunities for
professional development and advancement.
V.
Evaluation of Advising
There currently exists no consistent or standardized system of evaluation for
professional, secondary, or faculty advisors across campus. This leads to
inequities between merit and reward systems, a lack of common expectations
for advising performance and service, and inconsistent student experiences of
advising between colleges and departments. It is recommended that a
standardized evaluation for all advisors be developed.
A University Senate subcommittee, led by Phil Kraemer, is charged with drafting
a standardized evaluation to assess advising and/or professional advisors across
campus. The committee’s work will begin in earnest in Spring 2015, with a
proposed finish date during Fall 2015.
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VI.
Communication and Technology
Through all the discussions there is a clear need to better systematize
communication across advising personnel. Campus siloes often hamper the
ability to share information, curricular changes, professional development
opportunities, staffing changes, among other issues. We see improvements in
communication and technology to be a long-term issue (noted by faculty
advisors and professional). However, we firmly believe there are some changes
that can be implemented immediately before longer-term solutions are
discovered and applied.
i. Create and hire a new staff position dedicated to the Advising
Network
Built on the model of the University Senate and Staff Council we
envision the creation of a staff position dedicated to manage the flow
of information for the campus’ Advising Network. This position will
be responsible for communicating, in a systematic way, all
information pertinent to advisors.
Currently these responsibilities fall onto the Advising Network Chair.
However, this is unsustainable. The Advising Network Chair already
is expected to provide campus-wide leadership, maintain an advising
load, continue other responsibilities, as well as manage the entire
administrative and bureaucratic functions attendant to ensuring
cross-campus communication on all curricular and advising changes
and information. In addition, the Advising Network Chair is a rotating
position, which means continuity to the office is limited as new
individuals assume the role each year. A permanent staff member will
ensure consistency in communication and administration. We
envision the staff member reporting to the Advising Leadership Team
Co- Chair.
Budgetary implications of this recommendation will be explored. If
this recommendation is met, we will implement expeditiously.
ii. Create an Advising Working Group on Advising Technology
Similar to the creation of a Working Group on Professional
Development, we recommend the creation of a Working Group on
Advising Technology. It is clear through the multiple discussions held
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this semester that there is a real need to be able to report,
troubleshoot and prioritize technological challenges as they pertain to
advising. We recommend creating a small working group (7-10
people) to gather, catalogue, gather and then prioritize the most
pertinent technological challenges or enhancements for advisors.
Once their work is complete and vetted by the wider campus, we
envision this group to work closely with UK AT to begin implementing
the priority list. Budget considerations will need to be included in the
group’s deliberations and final report.
It is possible that this working group will become an on-going
committee.
iii. Ensure all campus advisors use Advising Hub
Throughout the semester’s discussions many cited the need for
campus-wide use of advising notes. Many individuals and groups
remarked that this was absolutely essential. As a result, the shortterm committee recommendations a discussion commence in earnest
with the UG Leadership Council about moving forward a campus-wide
requirement that all advising personnel use the Advising Hub to
record their advising notes. We believe strongly that this is
imperative.
VII.
Faculty Input
No discussion on campus-wide advising can be complete without the input of
faculty. To date, given the nature of the advising retreats, widespread faculty
input has not been gathered. A faculty advising retreat was recommended and
took place at the end of May. Information gathered from previous advising forum
discussions was shared in advance to ensure a robust discussion.
Topics recommended and addressed included:
i. What should the role of faculty be in relation to advising?
ii. Should a mentoring system be created?
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iii. How do we create a culture of rewarding advising in promotion,
tenure, merit raises, and evaluations?
iv. What should be the expectations of faculty who serve as primary
advisors, secondary advisors, mentors, etc.?
v. What are the core skills, competencies, and functions considered
essential for faculty advisors?
vi. What are the preferred types of connections between faculty and
professional advisors?
vii. What are the main challenges encountered by faculty advisors?
viii. What are the best methods and times of year to train faculty advisors?
Results from the Faculty Forum discussion (May 14, 2015) showed that faculty
roles in advising vary among colleges and departments. Assisting with
professional and career development, bridging classwork with the professional
world and building relationships with students to optimize retention and
academic progression were frequently mentioned as the role of faculty in
advising.
Responses from the Faculty Forum were consistent with several areas noted in
this document: need for professional development and training, lack of
consistency in advising and models across campus, importance of receiving
credit for advising activities (e.g., DOE assignment, performance evaluation and
P & T processes), importance of communication (e.g., including via
documentation) and technology (e.g., need for feedback re student alerts and IT
permissions).
The lack of credit on the DOE, performance evaluation process, and during the
promotion and tenure process emerged frequently throughout responses and
needs further exploration.
Also mentioned was the importance of working with academic advisors,
particularly regarding the ‘nuts and bolts’ of advising and very
technical/program specific aspects. The interface with academic and faculty
advisors that occurs also varies and ranges from informal interactions, studentbased discussions, period training and update meetings, to ongoing meetings
scheduled at regular intervals.
The importance of faculty interaction with students was underscored via
comments regarding faculty’s role in advising by some and also in the discussion
of faculty mentoring of students. Assessment of faculty’s desire to participate in
student advising and mentoring activities, along with skill-set was noted as an
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important consideration—there was not agreement about making these
activities mandatory for all faculty as this could affect quality and consistency of
these student services. However, the point was noted that faculty involved in
these activities should have this reflected in work-load or DOE adjustment.
Mentoring of students received faculty support and thought to be something
available and strongly encouraged for all students. The importance of training of
faculty advisors and mentors was reiterated and there was some discussion that
supported professional staff assuming the role of academic advisor and faculty
that of mentor.
In terms of advising models, the need to better define what advising is and
delineate the roles and responsibilities of the various faculty/staff providing
advising was stated. The need for some standardization (in terms of training,
professional development) was noted along with the ability for advising models
to be able to be developed in response to data in a way that best suits the
colleges/departments. Incentivizing and rewarding faculty participation in
student advising and mentoring activities was emphasized as important to act
upon to demonstrate the value and importance of these activities.
(See Faculty Advising Forum Key Point Summary May 14, 2015 for additional
information).
VIII.
Student Input
A long-term goal for advising on campus is to move to a student-centered
advising approach. That said, gathering student input for these advising
discussions is critical. During the month of April, the University Senate
subcommittee, led by Phil Kraemer, will draft a plan to gather student input.
Ideas include conducting targeted student focus groups, followed by surveying
all students during the Fall 2015 semester. This is currently being planned for
the week of October 7th, 2015.
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