Advising Town Halls

Near the end of Fall 2017, the Provost convened an Academic Advising Taskforce to address the issues of improving academic advising in support of Action Item 3 from FSU's Strategic Plan. At the beginning of the Spring 2018 semester, a series of town hall meetings was conducted with staff members from Admissions, Financial Aid, and Athletic Coaches; Faculty from the College of Education, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the College of Business; and students. Nearly 200 faculty, staff, and students participated. Each group addressed seven questions, and then those assembled voted on the most important items and strategies. These questions, with the major themes that emerged from the town hall meetings, follow. 

Questions Asked

Seven questions were asked at each town hall:

  1. What is advising?
  2. What are the mission and desired outcomes of FSU’s advising program?
  3. What organizational structure(s) will FSU need to appropriately support students and achieve advising goals?
  4. How can FSU use technology to improve the way we advise and support students?
  5. How should FSU enable faculty and staff to provide the best possible advising and support for students?
  6. What practices, policies, and processes will FSU need in place to promote the highest quality student advising?
  7. How should FSU measure and report advising outcomes to ensure accountability and promote improvement for the advising program?

Findings

The primary concern identified was the lack of consistency in all aspects of FSU’s advising program, including the student experience, advisor training and expectations, and use of technology. Other themes emerged from the feedback gathered at those town halls:

  1. There should be an articulated unifying mission for academic advising. The mission statement would include the purpose and intended outcomes of academic advising.
  2. There should be a plan to assess academic advising systematically which should lead to improvements and innovation. Direct and indirect measures should be used including multiple feedback pathways.
  3. Academic advising requires an agreed upon owner; and a standard university-wide set of policies and procedures.
  4. Good academic advising requires thorough and periodic training. The training should include the philosophy (framework, underlying values),goals, policy, processes, and technology.
  5. Academic advisors need to know available resources for students and be skilled at making referrals.
  6. Academic advisors and students need technology-based tools to help plan degree paths, connect students on resources based on monitored progress, and predict course and pathway outcomes to support interventions.
  7. Expectations of students and academic advisors must be clearly understood and conveyed.
  8. Student success is predicated on excellent academic advising, which in turn, relies on university-wide collaboration and communication.


The similarity of these themes to the EAA Nine Conditions of Excellence led FSU to apply to be part of the EAA project. The report posted below contains the full findings from Advising Town Halls.

2018 Advising Town Hall Report

Next Steps

FSU joined the national Excellence in Academic Advising project as a charter cohort member. The Academic Advising Taskforce expanded to over 90 faculty, staff, and students in the fall of 2018 to work on the Comprehensive Advising Self-Study. 

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