General Advice on Good Advising

• Work on building trust with your advisees so that they will feel comfortable seeking you out when they need help.

• Get to know your advisees well enough to identify their experiences and needs.

• Ask, don’t tell. Try to avoid offering advice. Instead, ask questions so that the advice you want to offer is stated by the student instead of by you.

• Help students to do things for themselves rather than you doing things for them.

• Encourage students to join a campus organization or group (e.g., music, theater, RLC).

• Encourage students to get to know one faculty member really well each semester and to make sure that faculty member knows them really well.

Styles of Advising:

1. Prescriptive Versus Collaborative Advising

The two commonly discussed styles of advising are prescriptive and developmental. Prescriptive advising involves a top-down approach in which the adviser provides information to the student who is essentially passive. A developmental or collaborative advising style involves more active participation by the student. When using a collaborative approach, the adviser engages in more dialogue with the student and asks more questions than when using a prescriptive style.

2. Group Advising

Although some advising goals are best met by working individually with each advisee, many advising goals can be met working with your first-year students as a group. Group advising can save a great deal of time in the individual advising meetings. It doesn’t allow you to schedule shorter appointments, but it does reduce the chances you’ll run late with the appointments you do schedule. And it helps to ensure that you will have ample time to work with each student individually at all the things that you need to discuss with that student.

Group advising sessions need not be lectures. Students could be asked to work in groups to identify a list of different ways of going about the task of selecting courses. Students could be required to read specific sections of the Catalog prior to class. Class time could be spent discussing issues such as the purpose of each of the Cornerstone Studies perspectives and how gaining an understanding of each of those perspectives can help students to meet their life goals. Students could also be given a writing assignment in which they are asked to argue for the importance of each of the Cornerstones. As part of preparing their arguments for this paper, students could be encouraged to interview different members of the Simpson community for their understanding of why each of those requirements is required.

Times to Meet with Your Advisees Individually

Consider requiring each of your LAS students to meet with you for an advising appointment. The purpose of this early meeting is to see how each student is adjusting, how his or her classes are going, and to discuss any needed strategies for improvement.

First and second year students need to seek out their advisor in order to receive their copy of their midterm grades. Consider requiring each of your LAS students to schedule a brief meeting with you to pick up his or her grades. If you don’t have students schedule appointments to receive their grades, you may find yourself in the awkward position of having to find a way to get other students out of your office in order to discuss poor grades with some of your students.

You will need to meet with each of your advisees individually so that they can register from Spring semester and May Term.

Be prepared to make time for your advisees whenever they seek you out with a question or concern.

Content and Purpose of Advising

Academic advising is about a great deal more than just course selection. According to Chickering, “the fundamental purpose of academic advising is to help students become effective agents for their own lifelong learning and personal development. Our relationships with students, the questions we raise, the perspectives we share, the resources we suggest, the short-term decisions and long-range plans we help them think through all should aim to increase their capacity to take charge of their own existence.”

 Prescriptive Versus Developmental Advising

 

	Prescriptive Advising	Developmental Advising
Purpose	To deliver accurate information to as many students as possible in as efficient a manner as possible.		To develop mentoring relationships with students that will enable them to continue to develop personally, academically, and professionally after the formal adviser-advisee relationship has ended.
Ultimate Goal	The ultimate goal of advising is to enable students to earn diplomas and graduate “on time.”		The ultimate goal of advising is to enable students to clarify their future goals and to plan strategies to accomplish their goals.
Future	The future refers to next semester.		The future refers to post-baccalaureate opportunities.
Course Rationale	Courses are taken to “get them out of the way.”		Courses are taken to develop knowledge, skills, and characteristics.
Curricular/ Co-curricular Emphasis	The emphasis is on curricular activities (i.e., classes).		Emphasis is on both curricular and co-curricular activities (e.g., membership in organizations and volunteer activities).