Looking to provide more structure to the role of student group advisor, members of a planning committee have allotted a two-day conference and training session for faculty advisors to discuss the best ways of providing assistance and guidance to student groups on campus.
The sessions, which will run Feb. 4 and 5, will serve as a follow-up to a student leadership training session administered last semester.
This will be the first time advisors will receive formal training.
Shannon Johnson, committee member and program coordinator at the Women's Center, said it will help get advisors on the same page. "There are advisors out there that are very much involved in what their groups are doing and there are others that couldn't tell you the names of the students in their groups," she said.
Vice President of Student Affairs Zoila Airall, who is overseeing the committee, agreed, saying that despite some strong advisors, the overall status of the advising program prompted immediate action. "We couldn't afford to wait. This advisor piece is a mess." she said.
"We're trying to create a model so that when someone becomes an advisor he or she knows what to do."
The conference will help create a set of expectations for student advisors, as well as strengthen existing guidelines, Airall said.
In preparation for the conference, a survey of 25 questions about advisor roles has been sent out to all faculty and administrators who will be in attendance.
"We want to gauge the involvement level of advisors on campus and what they think their involvement should be," said Andrea Caldwell, assistant dean of students.
In addition, the committee plans to use published works on student group advising to supplement information provided by the survey.
"We want to present... the literature that's out there on what advisors should be doing," Johnson said.
She added that the literature will help provide a strong foundation for advisors to determine what their roles should be for their particular student groups.
Issues to be discussed at the meetings include whether advisors should act as a liaison to the administration, whether they should meet with the presidents of student organizations regularly and how they can make their organizations better by more fully making use of resources available to them, Caldwell said.
Airall was hopeful that as a result of the conference, advisor roles would gain more structure. "My big dream is that we will get on the road with a model with consistency," she said.
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