The Renewal of Academic Advisement: Developing a Relationship with the Student and the College Community

Chaffee (1995) indicates the demand for accountability in higher education may have begun as a whisper in the 1960s with questions like, "Where does the money go?" "Which college is most efficient?" (p.14). The accountability issue has become louder in the 1990s. State governments, parents, and students are demanding accountability from higher education. One way higher education is responding to outside forces of change is to perceive the student as a customer.

To view the student as a customer is difficult for many professionals to accept in higher education. It is the problem of defining the student as a customer that creates a barrier for acceptance. Chaffee (1995) suggests that professionals in higher education perceive the students as " the people you serve" ( p.19). The intent is that people in organizations, like colleges and universities, should focus on the people they serve and not their self- interests. Chaffee (1995) makes the point that if we do not meet student expectations, someone else will (p.19).

The survival of the institution is dependent upon student enrollment. With its survival dependent upon students, the institution is changing its perspective and viewing students as valuable customers. If the college is committed to this view, then how can it penetrate the complexity of building a relationship with its customer? Could this barrier be overcome by re-building a sense of community on our college campuses?

The idea of colleges and universities developing a sense of community enables the student to feel attached. It is an environment that encourages dialogue and support for students. It is the objective of colleges and universities to make the learning experience positive for those individuals whom they serve. Garder( 1968) believes that colleges and universities are going to have to "give some thought to the internal health of our colleges and universities as functioning communities" (p.5). If higher education fails to examine the internal systems that promote community, it may alienate the people it serves or create an environment that is unfriendly and cold. Students need to have confidence in the institution and consider it warm, friendly, and supportive.

Faculty develop this confidence both inside and outside the classroom. "Colleges are more than classrooms. They are communities in which life and learning conjoin" (Berdahl, 1995, p.7). The development of learning and life can be achieved through the process of academic advisement. The relationships that can be developed outside the classroom with faculty, staff, administrators, and peers are what makes the community prosper and positive:

The young people who pass through colleges and universities can profit immensely from membership in a local community that has its proud traditions and standards and esprit. Later they may shift their loyalty to nationwide and worldwide professional communities; but for the education of youth, the face-to-face community has incomparable advantages (Gardner, 1990, p.7).

The purpose of higher education, according to Berdahl (1995), is "to develop human potential, to give a person’s individuality and originality room to produce, and, among other things, to heighten students’ knowledge of themselves and others" (p.5). This purpose cannot be fulfilled in the isolation of the college classroom but through the creation of a holistic environment that meets the needs of students. "By far the easiest and most logical point at which an institution may grow to encompass particular needs, interests, and circumstances lies at the heart of the educational process, on a dialogue between student and teacher" (Berdahl, 1995, p.6). This dialogue naturally occurs in the classroom, but it can also be nurtured in the advisement process. Teaching and academic advising must be woven together to promote dialogue between the teacher and the student. Institutions can define this process in their mission statement. Berdahl (1995) describes the need to have this concept "anchored in the institution’s mission rather than layered on as a service"(p.7). If the institution adopts the mission as part of its culture, it may accomplish one of the most difficult tasks, improving the retention rate of students.

Wade and Yoder (1995) discussed Megzner’s findings that "academic advising is directly related to retention. High-quality advising influences persistence with subsequent positive impact on grades and satisfaction" (p.98). However, advisors need to focus on more than students’ academic performances. In a recent survey that included 46 institutions, the grade point averages (GPA) of 1,500 college students who dropped out after their first year were analyzed. Of the 1,500 dropouts identified, 53.8% had a 2.00 GPA or higher when leaving the institution. One of the primary reasons students dropout of school is they "do not know where or how to start activating their expectations" (Noel-Levitz, 1998, p.7). Noel-Levitz asked students how they felt during their freshmen year, and the outcome revealed that students were anxious, insecure, under prepared, lost, easily distracted, and confused. How should an institution respond to these concerns?

Engaging students into their new environment is considered by Noel-Levitz (1998) to be important, but "engagement doesn’t just happen- it is dependent upon activities and attitudes of students and the institution. This means it is necessary to provide the structures within which students can learn what it takes to do well in the college environment" (p.13) The most successful retention programs are ones which rely on intensive student contacts with advisors. The process becomes a part of the overall structure of the retention effort. Noel-Levitz does identify student attitude as being important. Motivation, a positive attitude, and persistence are identified as qualities students should contribute to their academic efforts. Retention programs should focus on life-skill seminars that promote the message of motivation with information on self-help and resources available at the institution. The retention program should not be created as a crutch but as a process that empowers the students to become involved in the process of their education. Berdahl (1995) believes the student should be responsible for seeking adequate academic advice (p.8). The institution cannot assume full responsibility for educating the whole person. The student must equally assume some of that responsibility and interact with the institution. The idea is for the institution to develop services and resources that promote interaction. "A student’s motivation can be influenced by a faculty’s values and norms and those influences enhanced by faculty members who become involved in nonclassroom experiences. These interactions with faculty are believed to lead to greater institutional commitment, increased social and academic integration, and an increased likelihood of persistence" (Wyckoff, 1998, p.1).

Nurturing scholarly interest and excitement are only part of the academic advisor’s role. Advisors are also key figures on campus to help minimize the bureaucratic hassles that some students ¯ and parents ¯ have come to associate with navigating through the channels of higher education environments (Berdahl, 1995, p. 9).

Critics would argue that faculty have too many responsibilities and should not be responsible for advisement. Teaching requires a great deal of preparation and requiring faculty to serve as advisors may impact their other responsibilities. Advisement may be perceived by the institution and the faculty as a service they have to provide. Some colleges and universities have opted for the creation of professional advisement centers to assist students. However, this does not promote the interaction of faculty and students in nonclassroom activities. According to Wade (1995), there exists a "synergistic relationship between teaching and advising" (p.99). It is that synergy that can potentially educate the whole person. If an institution recognizes its mission as educating the whole person, then faculty should be involved in the advisement process. "The goals of teaching and academic advising are inherently the same since both reflect the goals of education" (Wade, 1995, p.100).

When institutions are committed to the concept of educating the whole person, then the culture of the institution will attempt to remove structures or attitudes that produce mixed messages and will identify advisement as important. "Effective advising then requires a commitment; effective advising is not a perfunctory activity. It takes time and energy to guide the students’ total development"(Wade, 1995, p.100).

The total development of students is a noble but difficult endeavor. Obviously, advisors who possess positive attitudes about their role in developing students are critical but so is the need to prepare advisors for the challenges that they will encounter. "The challenges that students bring to advising sessions include academic uncertainty, unrealistic attitudes about the demands of college and the expectations of faculty, little knowledge or experience related to their intended program of study, and a predisposition to change" (Kelly, 1993). When administrators or faculty view advising as simply an affair of course scheduling or form signing, the institution will ultimately experience a retention problem. The role of an advisor is more complex because students are more complex.

Students today are bring to the institution a vast array of concerns and needs. "Students’ academic performance is inexorably tied to how the rest of their lives are progressing. Students’ teacher, peer, family, romantic, and employment relationships; their physical, mental, and emotional, and spiritual health; their out-of-class activity, financial well being; test anxiety; and post graduation anxieties are all germane to the advisor’s role" (Petress, 1996, p.92). With the advisors role being more complex, the institution should not expect the advisor to resolve all of those forces of influence. The role of the advisor is to understand those forces of influence and refer the student to services or professionals that can assist. Petress (1996) reports that "students typically enter college fearful, confused, in a strange environment, in need of an anchor, their advisor, to provide stability, assurance, consistency, an outlet for frustrations, someone to hear them out and to answer questions, and a source of confidential guidance, information, and support" (p.92).

"Many students enter college with a high degree of uncertainty about their eventual choice of major" (Kelly, 1995, p.17). It is often difficult to guide students when they are uncertain of what direction they wish to take. Many students may not connect with the campus community because when they arrive, they wander through the maze of academia without a rudder to steer them. "Would student learning, the ultimate measure of academic quality, improve if students felt more secure about where they were headed and how college is getting them there?"(Chaffee, 1995, p.26). The advisor and the college community can help the student to discover and select options. Kelly (1995) has discovered that "many students expect to change majors at least once in their college careers" (p.17). The advisor can discuss options and guide students to other resources that may help them to make informed decisions.

The advisor will ultimately work with students who have identified their goals but lack the skills to achieve them. "Many students overestimate their ability to earn good grades and understand the number of study hours required to earn their grades" (Kelly, 1995, p.17). The complex student is working part-time and in some cases full-time while attending college. Some of those students have children. The role of the advisor is to understand all of these variables and suggest to students how they can reasonably balance school with their personal lives.

All of these forces can demand a large amount of time from faculty. When an institution begins the process of renewing commitment to advisement, it must look beyond the departments that employ the faculty and examine the entire organizational culture. That culture includes the staff and administration.

If advisement is to be successful in building community, improving retention, and developing the human potential of students, it must have a high priority of the administration and a pledge of institutional support. It is an unrealistic expectation if faculty are perceived as solely responsible for academic advisement. "Advising is seen as a team effort between administrators, advisors, and students" (Petress, 1996, p.92). If an institution is to be successful in fulfilling its mission statement, administrators and faculty will need to develop personal relationships to meet that objective.

That relationship can be achieved through improving communication and through participatory management of the administrators. "Unfortunately, academic administrators are often unaware of the sheer weight of information that advisors must now handle, and they underestimate or ignore the complexity that characterizes advising today" (Kelly, 1995, p.16). The art of advisement, in the nineties, is more complex for faculty and students. Community colleges wrestle with academic issues that revolve around dual-enrollment classes, Tech Prep articulation agreements, apprenticeship programs, transfer articulation agreements with four-year institutions, and accommodations for students with disabilities. Typically, the failure of administrators to understand the complexity of advisement causes them to place blame on faculty when retention rates decline. "Administrators who believe that their role is to control people, rather than systems, need to change if customer focus is the goal of the institution. Instead, they need to arrange the working environment in such a way that people know what is important and are properly equipped with framing tools, and systems that permit them to successfully pursue what is important" (Chaffee, 1995, p.30). Chaffee (1995) notes that the rule of thumb in quality management is that at least 90 percent of problems is due to systems, not individual employers (p.33).

To improve the system, administrators can enlarge their understanding of advisement by participating in the process. The concept of building a community can be achieved when administrators assign themselves to serve as academic advisors. This gives them experience and allows them to communicate with faculty on how the system can be improved or obstacles removed. Chaffee (1995) states "No college should solicit feedback unless it has a concomitant commitment to act on the results and let people know that is has done so" (p.33). When the college develops this commitment, then it adopts advisement as part of its mission statement, receives administrative support, and commits resources to the process.

A commitment to advisement has the potential to re-establish community within the college or university. Through the redefining of mission, the allocation of resources, and the encouragement of organizational life long learning, the college or university can revitalize the commitment to advisement. It is a system comprised of human interaction and dialogue that can foster learning , not only for students, but also faculty, staff, and administrators. However, the risk in seeing advisement as only a system or model can lead to failure. "Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself in all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing." (Mill, 1961) The college community can be seen as that tree. It is not systems or models that will sustain colleges or universities, but the recognition of the human capital that can be perpetuated through the interaction of all the stockholders that are demanding change. The most powerful voices are the needs and demands of students. If students are to flourish, then colleges need to recognize the value of nurturing them with the inclusion of advisement as one of their life-giving nutrients.

References

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Dodge, S. (1992, April 15). Colleges are trying ways to enhance academic advising. The Chronicle of Higher Education, A41.

Gardner, J.W.(1968 ). Agenda for colleges and universities. In Eurich, A.C. (ed.), The shape of the future in American higher education. New York: Dell Publishers, pp.1-8.

Kelly, J. (1995). Faculty speak to advising. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Mill, J.S. (1961). On liberty. In M. Cohen (ed.), The philosophy of John Stuart Mill: Ethical, political and religious. New York: Random House Publishers.

Noel-Levitz, R. (1998, March 12). How we retain more students by intervening earlier:4 first-hand case studies. Iowa City: USA Group Noel-Levitz.

Petress, K.C. (1996). The multiple roles of an undergraduate’s academic advisor.Education, 117 (1), 91-92.

Reinarz, A.G. & White, E.R. (1995). Teaching through academic advising: A faculty perspective [Editor’s Notes]. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 62, 1.

Wade, B.K. & Yoder, E.P. (1995). The professional status of teachers and academic advisors: It matters. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Wyckoff, S.C. (1998) Retention theories in higher education: Implication for institutional practice. Recruitment and Retention in Higher Education, 12(2), p 1-7.