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Faculty Sets Higher Standards for Advising System for Concentrations
Newly-adopted minimum standards for concentration advising, including the signing of student study cards by advisers that students know by name, were released by the Committee on Advising and Counseling this week.
Along with the new standards, the committee, which had been inactive for several years, took the unusual step of releasing the data from the 1997 senior survey relating to concentration advising.
Calling the new standards "a modest beginning," Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 said he hopes the combination of the new standards and the senior survey data will prompt inter-departmental conversations about the "very decentralized" advising system.
Though the standards are not Faculty legislation and are therefore non-binding, Lewis says he hopes the collaborative process of creating the standards will help to improve the general campus culture surrounding the advising system.
"The most useful and cheering part of these data is their lack of consistency," Lewis says, noting that this demonstrates that there is nothing inherent in departmental size or even student/Faculty ratios that prevents good advising from taking place.
Although the data does not provide any overwhelming pattern separating the natural sciences, social sciences and fine arts, it does offer a snapshot of student experience from department to department.
"This is an attempt, while respecting autonomy, to recognize that variety is OK, but we can observe that some ways of doing things are more successful than others," Lewis says.
Generally, the concentrators in biochemical sciences and religion departments give strongly positive ratings in most categories. But most students in English and economics give their departments poor scores.
While the minimum standards are not Faculty legislation and the committee does not plan to introduce them, Lewis says these standards represent the general consesus of the Faculty as they were constructed with the help of comments from every department.
"I do expect departments to act on the standards," Dean of Undergraduate Education William M. Todd III writes in an email. "Not all of our departments yet meet them."
The Standards
The 12 new standards, which Lewis stresses are meant to be a mimimum and not an ideal, are separated into two categories: five address the content of advising conversations and seven the format.
The content standards include the identification of the students' academic interests and a discussion of how those interests can be best addressed in the curriculum. In addition, the advisor and student should discuss concentration requirements, summer and post-graduate opportunities.
The minimum standards for the advising format include: the existence of a student file in which comments are recorded, two conversations a year between students and advisors, having advisors informed about concentration requirements and appointment of a new advisor if the current advisor goes on leave.
"No one could object to the standards themselves," Lewis says.
"I think our hope is our departments will use this as an opportunity to review how they provide support for undergraduates," says Thomas A. Dingman '67, the associate dean for residential housing and a member of the committee.
The committee was moribund when Lewis became Dean of the College in 1995, but he appointed several new members to the committee--which includes three student members and 10 Faculty members and administrators. The committee has discussed both House and concentration advising in the last two years.
The Data
According to the data, some departments have some improvements to make if they plan to meet those minimum levels.
For instance, in the economics department, only 34.5 percent of students said that they had a concentration advisor from whom they should seek advice, the only concentration to dip below half of the surveyed seniors.
Nearly half of the student in the department said they never met with an advisor, and only 48.3 percent of concentrators said they were always able to get the advice they wanted quickly.
In comparison, biology, which had a similar sample size, had only 13.7 percent of students saying they had never met with an advisor, and 91.5 percent of them had a person from whom they would seek advice.
The aurvery also showed that when advisors are not signing the study cards, it's not House tutors, Faculty or other graduate students who are picking up the slack; it's staff.
Nearly 30 percent of students who do not have their study cards signed by advisors reported going to staff, followed by Head Tutors and Assistant Head Tutors.
Overall, students gave their advisers 3.13 on a 5-point scale, but rated the academic advice they received at 2.85 and the personal advice at a 2.42.
While three-quarters of the 41 concentrations received a score of overall satisfaction of more than 3.0 on the survey, the only concentration with more than 50 students to settle in that range was biochemical sciences, which received a 3.65.
The larger concentrations generally received lower ratings including a 2.9 for English, 2.89 for biology, 2.72 for economics and a 2.63 for government.
"I'm a government concentrator and the advising has always been inconsistent at best," says Robert B. Wolinsky '98, a student member of the committee. "It is not surprising that the larger departments, for the most part, are the ones where we see greater dissatisfaction."
Concentration Choice
Committee members split on whether first-years should take into account the result of the survey when making their concentration choice this spring.
While he stresses that content and the opportunities for thesis research should carry greater weight, Dingman says that first years may want to take the data into consideration.
"My guess is that if somebody's loking for some personal attention, this is one measure of that," he says.
Wolinsky, who says he did not pick his concentration based on the advising, recommends that current first-years should not make that a priority in their choice
"I think that our goal should be to raise the level of advising across the College so that advising should not have to be a consideration when choosing a concentration," he says. *Note: Perfect scores often represent low number of respondents Source: Class of 1997 Supplemental Senior Survey
*Note: Perfect scores often represent low number of respondents Source: Class of 1997 Supplemental Senior Survey
*Note: Perfect scores often represent low number of respondents Source: Class of 1997 Supplemental Senior Survey
*Note: Perfect scores often represent low number of respondents
Source: Class of 1997 Supplemental Senior Survey
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