UG Advising Task Force – Report
Members
Vivian Covington, Chair
Ron Preston - MSITE
Allen Guidry - LEHE
Joy Stapleton - ELMID
Laura Bilbro-Berry – Center
Dawn Shelton - Center
Ivan Wallace – BITE, now ILS
Laura King - SEFR
Impetus
Undergraduate advising in the College of Education has not had a formalized model to serve candidates.
The history of the COE Advising Center was rooted in the former department of Curriculum and
Instruction and was originally designed to assist candidates in Elementary Education, Middle Grades
Education, Special Education, and to some extent English Education and History Education. But even within this large department, advising service by the center to C & I candidates was not the same across programs. In addition, advising in the other COE programs was different and not aligned with the center’s processes and procedures. This non-uniform advising model created differences in faculty advising loads; difficulty in delivering uniform messages, communicating changes in degree requirements, praxis testing, and licensure; and providing advising during the academic breaks and summer, when faculty are not employed. The C & I Advising Center was changed to a college level
Advising Center, but it still did not serve all COE UG initial licensure students.
As a result of the move to a college advising center and the desire to collect data and understand the needs for undergraduate advising across programs, the Dean of the COE created an Undergraduate
Advising Task Force. Their task was to review undergraduate advising in the college from the perspective of students, staff, and faculty. The role of the Task Force was to inform the dean about the “what is” in terms of current advising and to offer recommendations about what “could be or should be” the model for undergraduate advising in the college.
Data Gathering
Center Advisor Interviews
The Assistant Director of Teacher Education surveyed all 2012-2013 advisors in the COE Advising Center to: gauge their perceptions of the center’s ability to advise students successfully; engage faculty and staff of the college in the recruitment and retention of our students; and to identify challenges to being a highly effective center. Advisors expressed significant dismay with the current leadership of the center and frustration with a lack of routines, procedures, and practices. They shared a common perception of being controlled and not led. In addition, they did not feel valued by departments.
ECU Advising Collaborative Data

COE was rated lowest for three years in overall advising experience and in 5 of 9 areas of student satisfaction based on the university advising center collaborative survey; however, the response rate to this survey was 25%, 11%, and 23% respectively. The table below shows the 5 areas in which the COE was rated in the mid to high 80s with other university centers ranking in the 90s consistently.
3. My advisor responds to my emails and questions / inquiries in a timely manner.
4. My advisor is knowledgeable about my degree and course requirements.
5. My advisor is knowledgeable about campus resources and services that I can utilize.
6. My advisor helps me stay informed on important information/dates/policies.
7. My advisor is helpful in making course selections within my program of study.
One of the issues with the COE is the number of programs within the college, licensure policies, and testing requirements all make advising a more complex process than it is for other colleges and/or units.
In addition, alternative routes to licensure further complicate the knowledge base needed to accurately assist prospective and current candidates.
Student Survey
Senior I students were surveyed about their experiences with the center and their faculty advisors. Data were inconclusive as to whether students preferred one advisor for all four years, or if they preferred to have an advisor in the center for two years and then a faculty advisor for two years. If a candidate had a good experience with an advisor, regardless of whether it was in the center or a faculty member, they rated the experience positively and vice versa. Students did share frustration with contacting faculty during times when faculty were not required to be on campus.
Faculty Focus Groups
Faculty focus groups were not well-attended. However, the faculty who did attend one of the sessions, basically fell into two groups. Group 1 consisted of faculty who didn’t mind advising, but wanted more communication and information to ensure they were doing a good job advising students. Group 2 consisted of faculty who did not enjoy advising and expressed significant concern about making errors that would keep students from graduating, having to keep up with changing policies for testing and licensure, as well as changing programmatic and university (foundations) curriculum and degree requirements.
Faculty Survey
Because faculty focus groups had low attendance, the Task Force also launched a survey for faculty to complete anonymously. Thirty-one faculty responded to the survey; 16 were full-time tenure track faculty; 17 were from the elementary area and 8 were from the special education area. Twenty-five of the 31 were currently advising; 24 of them as part of their load and 2 of them received release time.
Eleven faculty had 4-7 years experience advising and 10 of them had 11+ years of advising students.
Faculty advising was revealed to be very unequal across departments and in some cases within programs in the same department. Faculty advised anywhere from 0-5 up to 90+ students, with most having 16-30, as reported in their survey responses. When asked about possible models for the Center,
27 of the 31 replied the Center should advise students for all four years with 18 of those 27 agreeing that key faculty who both enjoyed advising and were good at it should serve as career coaches or

mentors; the remaining 9 agreeing that all faculty in a program area should serve as coaches. Lastly, when asked about who the center should serve, 10 respondents answered undergraduate teacher education candidates only; 8 responded undergraduates, licensure only, and MATs; and 7 responded all undergraduate candidates regardless of major.
Advisor/Advisee Ratio
The average number of advisees in the COE center currently is between 350 and 400.This is in range with other centers on campus with some have more than this, e.g. the College of Business. However, caution should be given to the advisees per advisor ratio within the COE due to the number of degrees to be advised within the Center (ELEM, MIDG with four different concentrations, SPED with two degree areas, four Secondary degree areas of ENED, HIED, MATE, and SCIE, which has four concentrations, and
Business and Marketing) compared to College of Business with 2 UG degrees. In addition, advisors in the
College of Education must be knowledgeable of requirements and timelines for Upper Division admission; Praxis CORE, Praxis II and Pearson testing; licensure implications of concentrations and addons; field and clinical coursework; criminal background issues; and minimum grades such as C or higher in professional core and major.
Confounding Factors
There were several confounding factors which occurred over the last two years within the center that have affected the work of the committee. The Director of the AA Center resigned on April 1, 2013 with a two week notice. Up until that time, she was part of the Task Force. This caused some members to feel as if they could not speak freely, because when they did, they felt it caused the former director to become defensive. An Interim Director was named in mid April 2013 with the intent of searching for a new director/lead coordinator immediately. However, shortly after the director’s resignation, we were informed on November 27, 2013, one of the long-term academic advisors would retire. On December
15, 2013 another academic advisor resigned and used the two week holiday break as notice. This left one advisor and an interim director in the center; thus, a search for a new director was put on hold until the staff could be hired as service to students was the top priority. In December 2013, the Center was moved from Rivers to Speight temporarily for renovations to take place in Rivers. On February 6, 2014, the SPA for the Center resigned to move to another state. Two new academic advisors were hired in early March 2014 and a new SPA was hired April 1, 2014. In May 2014, the Center was moved back to
Rivers building in the newly renovated space. With a full complement of staff, the lead coordinator position search began June 2014 , with an anticipated hire date of August 1, 2014.
Recommendations
The following are Recommendations to the Dean regarding the model for the Center moving forward:
1.
The Center should move, this Fall 2014 to a four year advising model for the program areas of
Elementary Education, Middle Grades Education and Special Education.
2.
The Center should continue to serve candidates in the secondary programs areas of English
Education, History Education, Mathematics Education, and Science Education for their first two years/prior to admission to Upper Division as is the current practice. In 1-2 years time, the center should consider taking BITE candidates for their first two years as to bring consistency to

the secondary program advising within the college. Note: This practice and resources available at the time should be reviewed by the Dean and Department Chairs after 2 years time to see if the center should retain these students for four years.
3.
It is recommended that each department or program area have a liaison to the Advising Center for programmatic questions, candidate issues, scheduling and drop/add questions, etc.
4.
Licensure Only candidates in ELEM, MIDG, SPED, ENED, and HIST have been temporarily moved to the Office of Alternative Licensure during the transition to a permanent director. This population has not had consistency of advising or solid data collected in terms of numbers in each program area being served once a plan is activated. It is recommended that this practice be reviewed after data on this population has been collected by the Office of Alternative Licensure and the three programs in Recommendation #1 have been served by the center for one full year. Licensure Only students have more in common with undergraduate students than they do with lateral entry students; therefore, having center advisors work with them should not be difficult.
5.
The Center should consider serving all other COE Licensure Only students (BITE, MATE, SCIE), resources permitting, once a firm process can be instituted for this population.
6.
The Center must create standard practices, follow plans of study developed by program areas, and enforce all policies consistently across the programs it serves.
7.
Faculty who continue to advise candidates should have this documented as part of their work; receive clear instruction on what is expected year-round to serve candidates; and have advising evaluated in the appropriate piece of their evaluation.
8.
Faculty who enjoy serving as advisors are encouraged to work with department chairs and with colleagues to create meaningful ways to interact with candidates around recruitment, retention, their content area, pursuit of graduate degrees, and the teaching profession in general as part of their work.
9.
There should be a clear delineation of the duties expected of the Center and its staff regarding which recruitment events it should take the lead on; if grants are to be sought after and for what purpose; and most importantly which functions of scheduling and/or registration reside with the center as opposed to departments. For example, should the center be responsible for moving students out of/into sections when courses are cancelled for low enrollments; or when departments want to cohort students into specific course sections for reasons such as internship seminars; and whose responsibility it is to monitor low grades for UD and program progression.