Academic Advising in Practice

Effective academic advising combines course schedule planning, educational goal setting, and mentoring. The nature of advising changes at different times but still remains student-centered.  For instance, first year students might see their faculty advisors for help transitioning from high school while graduating sophomores need to work on a smooth transfer to a university. A standard review of the students’ records (transfer evaluation, transcript, and placement results) and a discussion of advisees’ perceived strengths, weaknesses, and interests are important features of any advising appointment. 

Course Scheduling Assisting students with their course selections requires knowledge and use of the Class Schedule, the appropriate FVCC Catalog, and other advising tools such as this Advising Handbook.  Relevant checklists and forms as well as related web sites (i.e., transfer articulations for universities) are also useful. Good course selection advice is based upon an understanding of our general education requirements, transfer majors and minors, career and technical program requirements, as well as a feel for an individual student’s aptitudes, abilities, deficits, personality, and interests.

Educational Goal Setting Students benefit from conversations about curricular options, special programs, extra-curricular learning experiences, major choices, complementary minors or options, internships, service learning, national and international study exchanges, career opportunities, scholarships, and transfer possibilities.

 Mentoring An ideal advising scenario combines course planning and goal setting while developing an important relationship between the student and his or her advisor. Most faculty advisors can recall an important mentor or two in their academic careers who provided their motivation to achieve academic success.  

Advising Appointments The advisor and the advisee usually meet first during a summer orientation or the general registration period. If they don’t meet, then all students are told to stop by and meet their advisor the first two weeks of school. Subsequent advising is arranged by the student by making an appointment or stopping by during office hours. Advising reminders are sent out by the admissions office before early registration periods. 

 Advising Protocol There are some standard features to most advising appointments:  

• ·       Meet and greet. The advisor makes the advisee welcome and comfortable. 
•         A handshake establishes a professional tone when meeting a new student.
•        Establish rapport. The student and advisor engage in light discussion and learn a little more    about each other. Spending enough time to listen is very important. 
•         Determine the focus and identify goals of the advising appointment. 
•         Review necessary resource materials such as the FVCC catalog, schedule of classes,  and checklists. 
•         Agree on a plan of action and a timeline. Establish responsible actions for both parties. 
•         Make a mutually agreeable plan for the next visit (e.g., “Let’s discuss continuing in this major after semester grades are posted”). 

       The advisor can document important features of the advising session for future reference. Advisee files are not created by the Admissions Office anymore because most of the pertinent information is in the CAMS system. If necessary, advisors can create and maintain their own files. 

 Advising Topics A variety of topics may be discussed in academic advising sessions: 

•         Course selection for registration. 
•         Course adjustment when students are finding a class too difficult or not to their liking. 
•         Major or career selection. 
•         Discussion of instructor teaching styles and student learning habits. 
•         Learning or other disability issues. 
•         Academic difficulty or other issues impacting academic progress. 
•         Referrals to alternative resources such as tutoring or counseling. 
•         Access to other educational opportunities such as internships, Service Learning, or study abroad programs.  

Advising for Course Registration The CAMS faculty portal is very handy for quickly reviewing a student’s transcript, transfer evaluation, placement scores, and current classes. After logging in, the advisor brings up the advisee list and then clicks “select” next to the advisee’s name. By merely clicking on “Transcript” or “Schedule” on the left-hand column, your advisee’s records appear. The advisor can only view his/her advisee’s record, so if a student is not officially assigned to you, the record will not be available until that is done. Call Marlene Stoltz in Admissions at extension 3846 if you need this process expedited.  

In the best of circumstances, an advisor meets with a well-prepared student, and they discuss the student’s academic progress and then agree on courses the student will take for the next term. Then the advisor unblocks the student in CAMS by unchecking the “Stop Online Registration” box in front of their advisee’s name for that term. Then, scroll to the bottom of the page and save your action or it will be lost.

This allows the student to access the CAMS registration section in the student portal and register him/herself easily for all the courses. Of course, the advisor must be at a computer (any computer because CAMS is online) to un-block registration, but if not, the advisor must remember to do so at the first opportunity. A signed paper registration will allow the Registration Office to un-block as well. 

However, if the advisor and student prefer to complete the registration in the advisor’s office, it can be done on the faculty portal during the advising session. Caution: the advisor must go to the section called “Unofficial Registration” to complete this process. While it says "unofficial", it actually works like an official pre-registration; it will hold the seats in the classes for which the advisee registers. It just won’t be official until a certain date into the registration process that the tuition/fees are sent over to the business office to create the student bill. This is to allow time for schedule adjustments (drop/ads) to be completed.

 Occasionally, a student may have a planned and approved classes by his or her advisor but cannot successfully register after being unblocked. There are a variety of registration difficulties that can arise. Favorite courses may already be filled, the student may have one of a number of registration “holds” (for unpaid bills see the Business Office; for academic probation see the Learning Center), the account may be inactive in the student record system, or may have made a “registration error” of one sort or another(often a password error). The student will need to contact the registration office (Sharon Nau, ext.3845 or Julie Stanton at the Help Desk, ext. 3819) to straighten out these problems. However, only an advisor can override a prerequisite, and CAMS automatically blocks for some missing prerequisites. This feature makes registration in the advisor’s office preferable to ensure such problems can be solved.

To Block or Un-Block Registration in CAMS Advisors can and should block the future registration of all their advisees with one click in the “Stop Registration” section by clicking on “select all” at the top of their advisee list before each registration period and then clicking on the “save” box that will appear. This will check the box for blocking registration found in front of every advisee’s name. However, the advisor could block only certain students, and not others, by individually going down the list and checking or un-checking names. At this time, FVCC’s policy is that every degree- or certificate-seeking student will have an advisor’s consent to register. This means that all students should, in theory, be blocked before every registration period. However, “faculty prerogative” to block or un-block without administrative oversight is operative at this time. When faculty leave for summer vacation it is important to decide whether to leave your advisees blocked or unblocked. If they are blocked they will not be able to register unless they come into the Learning Center in person for advising.

Many registration problems are avoided by proactive advising.  Advisors initially need to reinforce responsibility so that students learn requirements for themselves.  Advisees can learn from their advisors how to access resource material and become more self-sufficient if advisors allow them increasing independence. For example, while still in the faculty advisor’s office, students could access their student portal in CAMS after being un-blocked in the faculty portal and register themselves on the student portal the first time or two under the eye of the advisor.