[Banks Blair] Good morning everyone, thank you for coming in. I see a lot of familiar faces
in here so thank you for that I haven't met that I haven't met
My name is Banks Blair. I'm an assistant director of academic advising
initiatives in the academic advising initiatives office. We've got another
great professional development opportunity today. We've got a wonderful
guest speaker here. This is Ross Hawkins from Missouri State University.
He's an assistant director in the academic advisement center. He worked primarily
with transfer students, exploratory transfer students, and he'll be working
with us today and talking to us about best practices in advising reports,
advising notes, and I guess that's pretty much all I had to say, Ross.
[Ross Hawkins] Thank you, well hi, again my name is Ross Hawkins. I am an assistant director in the academic
academic advisement Center at Missouri State University. Missouri State University is
located in Springfield, Missouri. I've worked at Missouri State for almost 15 years.
I'm a graduate of there as well, I have both my bachelor's and my master's
in business administration and today I'm here to work with you all and to really
talk about best practices when it comes to note-taking for the advising report system.
Please understand with this particular session I'm going to go
through several best practices that I've used throughout the years and that
Missouri State University considers best practices. With that being said there are
going to be some things that you're going to obviously want to tailor to
what you all do here at Virginia Tech. Since I'm going to be spending the next
couple hours with you I did just want to, you know, help you all get to know me a
little bit better since I'm only gonna be here for a short amount of time.
I'd like for you all to not only walk away with best practices but also know that
you can reach out to me yes I'm here only for today but I have done
consultations, several in the state of Missouri, and I've also done several
outside of Missouri, including Texas. I went down to the Tarrant County College
system and did a large presentation there
as well as several other several other places so please know that you can reach
out to me and one reason why I like to do this slide is hopefully just for you
all to get to know me a little bit better I also am an adjunct instructor I
actually started teaching at Missouri State University in the College of
Business I did that for many years and then when I transition to my current
role as an assistant director I actually started teaching at our local community
college which is Ozarks Technical Community College and the reason I made
that switch was because as banks mentioned during the intro I work
primarily with exploratory transfer students 40% of our incoming student
population incoming students are transfer students so we still primarily
have incoming freshmen but with that being said one day and the not so
distant future we may have more transfer students than we do incoming freshman
students it's really been a benefit for the students that I work with at OTC
because a lot of times they get to know me at the Community College as a as an
adjunct instructor and I also go to transfer fairs and just really put
myself out there to help those Community College students who plan to transition
to Missouri State I think it's nice for them to have a familiar face and for me
it's been a great experience because I've learned the terminology at the
Community College because as you know different institutions use different
terminology as a matter of fact you may often hear me refer to advising notes
when I believe here at Virginia Tech you all say advising reports so know if you
can receive advising notes that that also means advising reports I also am a
member of NACADA which is the global community for academic advising by show
of hands how many of you in here have been to a NACADA conference regional
awesome that's that's great I really like that
there's a lot of professional development in the room other schools
that I've been to it's rare to see anyone or probably more than maybe five
or six people raise their their hands to that question so I am really glad that
so many of you have the opportunity to be involved
I've also been a leader within NACADA I was chair for the advising community's
division for transfer students once I completed that two-year term I became a
steering committee and I oversaw four different advising communities including
transfer students advising students with disabilities global student engagement
and advising student veterans so I did that for a couple years I graduated from
the emerging Leaders program through NACADA
and I'm actually returning this fall as a mentor and I'm really excited to be
able to give back because I feel like I've learned so much from the different
NACADA sessions that I present or that I've been in as well as those that I
presented that and it's nice for me to be able to give back by hopefully
mentoring mentoring someone who wants to get more involved this is my first time
to Virginia and I am a little disappointed that I did not get to spend
as much time as I had hoped because I had a flight delay in Charlotte so I
spent a few extra hours in Charlotte which unfortunately cut down on my time
here but I was able to get in late last night and have dinner and the restaurant
downstairs which is really nice and then hopefully today before I fly I'll get to
spend a little bit a little bit more time saying I hope I at least get to
walk around on campus or drive around campus because I've heard so much about
Virginia Tech through the years that I would I would like to see it and I am
relatively new dad I am a single father I have a 14 month old baby girl her name
is Millie actually today September 30th is her 14 months she was born on July
30th Millie has definite we changed my life for the better Milly
was born with severe to profound hearing loss and just this summer and things I
think I'll probably have heavy ball again just this summer she had cochlear
implant surgeries so she had my lateral cochlear implants and they were
activated on July 29th the day before her first birthday and so she was able
to hear a singing happy birthday to her so it was and it was a really exciting
time and again being a dad for those of you who are parents in the room and even
for those of you who aren't parents in the room there are things in life that
really put things in perspective for you and being a single dad has really put
things in a different perspective for me I probably used to spend too much time
at work and maybe too much time I'm not gonna say caring about work because I
think that it's very important to care about the work that we do but I I have
absolutely transitioned to an individual now that works to live instead of living
to work and I think my life has become a lot better now that I really had that
focus on her and teaching her to be strong teaching her the importance of
resiliency and yeah I'm just a very very proud dad I miss her tremendously and
I'm glad even if she's asleep tonight when I get home when I fly back into
Springfield I'm still gonna go into a room and watch her sleep for a couple
minutes okay so our agenda today I'm gonna start with just some quick
introductions and some discussion at your tables because I
to reflect on academic advising before we move forward then what I'm going to
do is talk about effective note-taking what that looks like the importance of
documentation and how that can not only help us as advisors but also help our
students that's why I really want to hopefully hit that point and then I'm
gonna have you all work on some case studies because one of the best things
that I think facilitates great learning is when you can actually do some because
again when you're up here presenting talking to people yes I think that's
important but also I think it's important for you all to apply so the
things that were wrong otherwise I've done this that sometimes after even a
degree presentation you walk out of the room and saw that the knowledge just
leads Seward and then i'ma go for so we'll work on some case studies so
reflection what I'd like for you to do in tables I ingest from listening here
the last several minutes it seems like most of you know each other so I don't
know so much if you'll have to actually introduce yourselves to others at the
table but think about is think back to your undergraduate advising experience
and what what was that experience like was it just a signature did she
basically not his motive advisory adjustment and there may be had very
minimal conversation and a person signed off your schedule or gates and
electronic release and that was it or was an informational base you may not
that felt like you got to know your advisor on a personal level but you
actually felt like the advisor did a good job on giving you the information
that was needed so you learned about prerequisites GPA requirements if your
major had admission requirements you learned the basics or was the advising
experience more than the mentorship did you get to know that advisor do you
maintain contact with your your graduate advisor today so if you
would just share your undergraduate advising experience with those at your
table and then partly earn about five minutes we'll get back together and I'm
going to ask several of you to share your advising okay how'd that make you
feel
okay okay good now in the mentoring side who would like to share what that
experience looked like yeah how both of you
okay great okay okay okay and how did that make you feel how did that impact
you as a student and now as a professional so now again by show of
hands those three reflections that we just talked about just a signature
informational and a mentoring experience for those of you for all of you who work
with students now how many of you want to be that advisor who's just a
signature informational mentoring right and so one of the things that we can do
that that I strongly believe can help build that mentoring type of
relationship that we want our advisees to have is effective note-taking making
sure that we do advising reports so that we build on each of those advising
sessions at Missouri State University some of our advisors there have very
large advising loads and again here at Virginia Tech I would I would venture to
say that there's several of you in the room who perhaps advises 200 students
300 students 400 students maybe even more than that and as much as we want to
get to know all of our students on an individual basis and we want to
recognize our students so when we see them walking around campus we can say
you know hi Vern when you have advising loads of three four five hundred
students it's really challenging so my goal is when I had an advising load of
my highest advising load was around 550 and that was when I worked in the
College of Business as an undergraduate advisor
my goal was to make sure that I was doing effective advising reports so when
that student came in again to see me I could pick up where I left off and make
that student feel as if I care and which I do care but as you know as because
it's challenging right I mean really when you think about 500 advisees it's
very challenging to get to know them all on an individual basis and as advisors
we want to make sure that we're being consistent right we don't want to play
favorites we don't want to you know get to know a handful of our advisees
because maybe we have a some type of personal connection maybe they you know
grew up in the same area that we grew up and we want to make sure that we get to
know all of our students those who are like us in some ways and those who are
very different than us in in many ways so when I started thinking about this
particular workshop facilitating Student Success effective note-taking and how
that impacts our advisee advisor relationship I decided to reach out to
several of my contacts at MSU just to find out their thoughts on advising and
advising reports at Missouri State we have a split advising model so we do
utilize both professional advisors as well as faculty advisors we have some
associate Dean's who do academic advising we have like I said faculty
professional staff members department heads we really utilize numerous people
to participate in that advising experience so some of the quotes I
really like this top quote by dr. Roe Hall he's our department head for
religion and he said I believe allowing students to see advising reports is
important in today's culture and which millennial and Gen Z students want
transparency giving students access to reports also encourages me to maintain
records and to frame concern in a productive way it also gives
students a sense that they are fully part of the advising process and I
received numerous quotes from numerous people and I only put a couple up here
that to means the most powerful and it comes from a department head his main
responsibility really is not advising students I mean he has a small teaching
load he runs the department yet he really does an excellent job when it
comes to academic advising because he wants that relationship oftentimes when
you're a department head you teach fewer classes you advise fewer students if any
he missed the opportunity to interact with students on an individual basis on
a regular basis so he as an advisor really cherishes those moments that he
gets is timpz been with his students and I really liked how he talked about
what's happening in academic advising today when we talk about the new the new
generations I don't know if you do a lot here at Virginia Tech but at MSU and OTC
we spend a lot of time talking about Millennials and the generations II and
how we can best prepare to advise those students I know our Office of Admissions
is really focused a lot on recruitment and they're they're focused on how to
recruit these these students who are different than previous students who
have come through the university system and I do think it's important the word
transparency and sometimes that work can be scary because we think transparency
well you know how much do we want our students just to see well realistically
when we do these advising reports we want our students to be able to
understand what happened in that advising session and in the event that
the student forgets something that we discussed it's in the advising report so
the student can go back to that advising report and review and for me that has
absolutely cut down on the number emails I receive because a lot of times
students would say oh you know send an email what did what what wouldn't you
tell me to take or what were the alternate options and now I can say
refer to your advising report and that's all in there or you can use advising
reports to give homework again I advise exploratory students our office works
closely with the Career Center and the Career Center on on my campus they'll do
different types of assessments to help students learn more about themselves to
ultimately choose a good major that aligns with their their strengths so I
will post the link to the Career Center website
and then I will say I you know encouraged Jason to visit the Career
Center by October 31st and then that way when Jason comes back to see me in early
November to talk about classes for the spring semester
I'll ask Jason so tell me about your experience in the Career Center and then
hopefully Jason went to the Career Center but if Jason didn't go to the
Career Center I pull up the advising report right there and I say Jason
during our last session you had we had agreed that you would visit the Career
Center so you could learn more about strengths and weaknesses learn more
about you to help you make a good decision regarding classes and
ultimately choosing a major so I that's something that I use to
facilitate student success so as much as students can hold me accountable for
what I put in an advising report I can also hold students accountable for what
I put in the advising report so I think it's important to view it in in both of
those ways next from our hospitality leadership
advisor Katie she had said I believe advising reports lessen the stress of
advising appointments for students they can truly focus on what we are
discussing understanding the degree audit and not trying to write it all
down and again I think this is gonna depend
on the students we meet with right there are some students where you just want
them you know take notes do something just don't you know stare at me but
there are other students where I have noticed that the student is so trying to
jot down everything I say that I feel like we're almost missing out on that
relationship building opportunity because we're so focused on the
informational aspect and so often times when I'm meeting with students they can
get depending on my time depending on how many appointments I have during a
day I will sometimes do the advising report while the students with me and so
we're almost doing that advising report together
and again that way it the student can focus on what we're talking about
knowing that what we're talking about is being documented in the advising report
so I really like that and then the last one comes from dr. Kelly woods she
teaches in our department of communication and she's also the
executive director of our Center for academic success in transition advising
reports allow students to access what advisors recommend once students have
that information it is imperative that they act on it but by following the
advice and recommendations the advisors made in an advisor or advisee
professional relationship we are modeling future professional
relationships for students and again I I really like that statement because that
last sentence we are modeling future professional relationships for students
oftentimes we hear from employers that students don't know how to write a
professional email or they may have challenges engaging in the real world
because perhaps they've had a lot of parental support or on the flip side
they haven't had much parental support I know at MSU I seem like the it's one or
the other a lot of our students have what we refer to as the helicopter
parents where they're very involved they want to read
advising reports they reach out to us as the advisor but then we have other
students especially our first-generation students where they're figuring it all
out on their own and they're really counting on us as advisors to help them
better understand the university community and what that what that's
about whether that's about classes prerequisites understanding the
difference between a major and a minor understanding the different bachelor
degrees understanding that it's okay to ask for help and then an adviser can
point them in the right direction for campus resources and again those campus
resources depending on what they are can often be put in an advising report and
the last thing I want to mention I do want to go back to the top one with dr.
Roe Hall and how he said it also gives students a sense that they are fully
part of the advising process advising is so much more than us as advisors telling
students what classes to take I know when I meet with a student I want to
spend maybe five minutes perhaps the most 10 minutes talking about classes
talking about prerequisites I want to spend the majority of that time getting
to know that student I want to know your strengths and weaknesses I want to know
how you're getting involved on campus I want to know if you're having any issues
or concerns whether you're struggling with anxiety whether you're really
stressed about one particular class how do you want to make a difference so our
tagline is make your misery statement and I often times ask students even as
freshmen how do you want to make your statement because all of us know that
undergraduate years go by pretty quickly or at least they did for me and as an
incoming freshman that student may think that
I've got four years to figure this out and before that student realizes that
he's she or they are a senior and so I think it's important to have those
meaningful conversations how do you want to get connected to Virginia Tech how do
you want to make a difference on this campus do you want to participate in a
study away experience to become more culturally competent what does it look
like to be an ethical leader how do you want to communicate via social media
what kind of social media presence do you want today and what does that look
like tomorrow for you when you're out there looking for a for a career for a
job opportunity or perhaps applying to different grad schools so we want our
students to be a part of that advising process and I believe that advising
notes and documenting effective advising reports can help with that okay so again
I'm just gonna give you a brief history of advising reports at MSU I don't want
to spend a lot of time on this slide because you're not here to learn about
what we do at Missouri State you'll learn you're here today to learn more
about how you can help your students here at Virginia Tech at Missouri State
we started advising reports back in 2002 so we've done this for for many many
years when we began our advising report system it was never an option for
students not to view them we from the beginning wanted advisors faculty staff
and and the students to be able to view those advising reports and as we
continue to progress through the slides I'll go in more detail on why that
decision was made there was a committee that was formed back in 2001 to talk
about advising reports and what that looked like the committee consisted
faculty students people from our computer services department since it
was a homegrown system and some administrators our advising notes or
reports system is accessible to all faculty and staff administrators also
have access to view reports and let me stop a little
bit and talk a little bit about what that means
so our advising administrators when a student has a problem when a student
wants to appeal something because the student says well my advisor didn't tell
me this or my advisor told me to take the wrong class
as that student goes through the appeal process our administrators are going to
look back at those advising reports and they're gonna see was a mistake made and
here's how we do that if if a mistake was made and I shared with you all I've
worked at Missouri State for 15 years I've made mistakes I'm not I would like
to say that my academic advising is a hundred percent accurate a hundred
percent of the time it's not I've made mistakes I've learned from those
mistakes when I made a mistake the student shouldn't have to pay for that
mistake I want to do everything that I can to help that student out and if that
means going through an appeal process I'll write a letter supporting that that
appeal to the student if it was on me and then I would hope all of us in the
room would do the same thing because we're student advocates we want what's
in our best interest of our students so advising administrators will review
advising reports when situations like that arise at MSU nine out of ten times
the advising report protects the advisor it shows that the advisor did not make
the mistake and that the student either misunderstood the information or the
student you know perhaps was trying to get one by so nine out of 10 times the
advising reports absolutely protect the the advisor in those situations the one
out of ten times when it doesn't then again when we reach out to that advisor
and say here's the situation we have this student who's appealing this we
reviewed the advising report the advising report shows that you did
recommend this class and it wasn't required the advisor realizes a mistake
was made and then the advisor will say to us
how can I make this right what can I do to help the student in this situation
and I really think that it's important on how we communicate that that message
because none of us like to make mistakes right
however we all do and when that mistake is made I think the approach is so
important by your advising leads whether that's your direct supervisor whether
it's a direct or whether it's an associate provost whoever it may be that
finds that that report I think that approach is so important because again
if you go to an advisor and say what in the world did you do you messed up you
screwed up royally it's not gonna go over well right and it's unprofessional
in my part but if you go to the advisor and say here's the situation
I reviewed the advising report what do you know any you know could you provide
additional details about this it's gonna go over a lot better and again our
advising administrators at MSU they don't have the time to monitor every
advising report that's being entered the only time our administrators view those
advising reports are during the appeal process or for something positive the
awards system we have excellence and advising Awards at MSU where we give out
to $1,500 Awards and the advising reports as part of the criteria for
those for those Awards so will the advising administers do is they will do
a sample a sample survey of the advising reports ring
just to read through and to get a better idea of the notes that that advisors
making and we use that as criteria as one of nine criteria for our excellence
and advising awards so again it can be used in a very positive way as well
students do receive an email when an advising report is made so as soon as I
hit submit an email is generated and the student receives it in it says Ross
Hawkins has entered an advising note please log into my Missouri State to
view it and then once submit is hit only a couple people can change the advising
notes or the advising reports so myself are advising administrator our associate
provost as well as the director the three of us are the three people on
campus who can amend an advising report if necessary and oftentimes again
advisers that have high advising loads maybe will enter the wrong information
for the wrong student that's happened before or just put something in that
after they go back and review it they think oh maybe I shouldn't have put that
in the advising report and so then they'll reach out to me or one of the
other individuals to change that advising note okay so why why do we have
electronic advising notes what what's the importance of these advising reports
that we do because realistically one of the things that we know I've when I
present on this before people in the audience have said to me well advising
reports take up too much time or it's it's just a lot of time for me to do
that when I have back-to-back advising appointments when am I gonna make the
time to write these advising reports again it is challenging good advising
reports do take more time however good advising reports that take more time in
the beginning make things easier as time moves on
so the initial advising report may take you a little bit more time when you're
doing it however when that student comes back to meet with you you pick up where
you left off or if that student changes majors which I heard I think you had
shared with me that you changed your major three times the new advisor can
read those previous reports so even though it will be the first time that
that new advisor is meeting with the student that advisor already has some
history regarding advising so can again pick off where the previous advisor left
off so again if um you thought I was going
to say Oh advising reports don't take up that much time so that's not the case if
you're writing a solid advising report it's gonna take more time but I promise
you in the long run whether it's you benefiting from that initial advising
report because that students coming back to see you and will be with you all the
way through graduation or you're benefiting another advisor here at
Virginia Tech it's absolutely going to be beneficial so documentation of
advising interaction we document all advising appointments so whether that
advising appointments in person whether we do a phone advising appointment again
as individual who meets with a lot of transfer students not all transfer
students can come to Missouri State for that impersonal advising appointment so
oftentimes I have phone appointments when I have students that are
transferring from out of state or even transferring from the st. Louis
Community College District or the Metropolitan Community College District
of Kansas City those those places are three four hours away from Springfield
and even though we encourage students to come for impersonate advising
appointments it's not always possible so again if it's a phone appointment I
document at the beginning of the advising report
I put phone appointment because I want to remember that this was a phone
appointment and I have not yet met this to
in person we also do we previously use Skype for advising now we're
transitioning to zoom and again if a student feels comfortable using zoom if
they're not able to come in person I would put in the beginning of the
advising report this was a zoom meeting and I even document phone calls and not
phone appointments but when a student calls the office and I just have a quick
question which we know sometimes that quick question is a maybe 10 or 15
minute phone conversation but I document those through the advising report system
as well as emails now again there have been some schools I visited where the
policy has been not copy and pasted emails into an advising report I'm not
familiar with your policy but I would encourage you to think about that
because I know a lot of the interaction that I have with students via email
we're absolutely talking about academic concerns academic questions classes so
oftentimes if I find it to be appropriate I will just copy and paste
that email communication into an advising report especially if the
student has emailed me about a change of schedule or the student says
unfortunately this class that you recommended is full someone taking this
class instead and then I'm a bit email back and say yes that is fine that was
one of the classes that we discussed as an alternate I think that's a great
option I want to make sure that I document that so I can remember that the
student wasn't able to take the one class we talked about but had to take
one of the alternate options and again we've talked about the second bullet
point there continuity as student changes majors and advisors how it just
helps facilitate that relationship and then further development of the
relationship and I've got three things I want to mention building a connection
retention and returning students so again all of us as advisors we want to
build a connection with our students hopefully all of you really enjoy your
jobs I know for me doing what I've done for 15 years when I graduated from
Missouri State with an MBA I didn't think
academic advising was going to be my career I thought you know I had a great
experience at the University I'll do this job for a couple years because I
really you know wanted one to remain at the University and I thought I'll
eventually moved to st. Louis or Kansas City and and work in a business related
field I quickly learned that I was making a difference by meeting with
those students by helping those students progress through their academic journeys
and again it wasn't just progressing through the academic journey it was
helping them progress through life's journey helping them learn more about
who they are and watching a student come in as a freshman and then seeing that
student graduate and the growth that occurs in those in those years so
building a connection is important and advising reports will help facilitate
that that connection retention and this is something that is a buzz worthy word
right we hear about retention all the time
we have to think about how advisors can make a meaningful difference with
retention efforts and there are things that we do whether it's through email
communication whether it's in person whether it's calling students who've not
yet registered for a future semester and documenting those through the advising
reports system document as efforts that we make that's a great way to show as
advisors we are doing everything that we can to help retain students to help
retain our advisees and I'll go into more detail about that in the next
couple slides and then returning students sometimes students step away
for a variety of reasons whether it's an academic reason the student did not do
well and needs to step away for a semester or perhaps perhaps attend a
community college to boost the GPA to ultimately come back to Virginia Tech
whether it's because life happens I've had students where a parent has been ill
and so the student has decided to return home to
care for a sick parent a sick relative I've had students first-generation
students who can't afford to come back next semester which to me is very sad
because often times we spend so much time and effort recruiting
first-generation students really talking to them about the importance of college
education and then they get overwhelmed with the financial aspect and they leave
and then the sad part about that is we've just made their lives slightly
worse because now they're leaving with debt but regardless of why a student
leaves whether it's a health situation whether it's because the student needs
to stop out for academic reasons or perhaps because of financial reasons we
want and we hope that that student returns when that student returns
whether it's a semester later or three years later isn't it nice being able to
have you advising reports to remember that student and that student will feel
that that difference that you just made by remembering that student hey yes
welcome back I know that you've been away for a couple years how are things
going you know just knowing that you knew that
student that you remembered that student ultimately will help with that
relationship building and and oftentimes with retention because we know that
students at large Institute at large and small institutions but I think for those
of us who work at large institutions like MSU like Virginia Tech oftentimes
as an advisor we have a unique ability to build a relationship with a student
and keep that relationship going from freshman year perhaps all the way
through graduation and we know that if students feel connected to a person
whether it's an academic advisor whether it's a faculty member whether it's an
administrator if a student feels connected to an individual at a
university that student is more likely to be retained and again as advisors I
think we have a great opportunity to make a difference so advising reports
some things that I think it's important for us to remember detail notes are an
excellent way to document advising sessions again for the protection of
both the adviser us as well as the advisee an advisement report can serve
as a reminder of the advising session any appropriate referrals that were made
I mentioned earlier the example of the Career Center you all probably do things
different even in your colleges here at Virginia Tech if there are some things
that you require your students to do maybe you want your student to create a
four-year plan I know for when I taught a first-year seminar class that was one
of the projects that we want our students to do we just added to our
advising report system an opportunity to use attachments so now we can attach
documents to an advising report reviewing notes prior to a session and
and this is important when we talk about advising reports when you're preparing
for an advising appointment you absolutely want to make sure that you're
spending enough time reviewing the information that's been created
reviewing those advising reports and this is something that I will say you'll
want to talk with your advising directors and advising administrators
about regarding emails because there have been some concerns that MSU
throughout the years where when an advisor puts every single email in an
advising report it takes a long time to read through for them for a new advisor
or whoever to read through that lengthy advising report so again I'm not an
advocate for putting every single email in an advising report I'm an advocate
for putting emails that refer to academic information in an advising
report
and then the last bullet I already talked about advising reports take more
time in the beginning but will save time as you continue to meet with students or
when a new advisor meets with the student advising reports may be reviewed
by any faculty or staff advisor with a legitimate educational reason so again
even as an advising administrator at MSU I do not just randomly block off time on
my calendar to review advising reports there's just not enough time and plus
why would I want to you know I trusted the people who work in the office that
the people that I supervise you know we offer professional development training
opportunities like you all are doing today I'm confident that those advisers
are going to learn how to enter effective advising reports so they're
really known there's not a need for me to just sit around and view advising
reports unless there's an appeal that a student has made and like I said when
that appeal is made oftentimes what I view in the advising report supports the
advisor and then I call that student in the office before the student officially
starts the appeal process and I say here I let's chat about this and I just pull
up the advising reports and the student can access it as well and I'll say
you're claiming on your appeal that this is the reason why you're doing an appeal
because of an advisor error and from everything that I've you in this
advising report I there's not an error so let's chat about this let's let's see
what's going on or again the other reason why I would do a sample is for
the excellence in advising Awards and that's a fun reason why I enjoy anytime
that our students nominate an advisor for a advising award I I do enjoy
sampling the advising reports and it sometimes has made a difference because
again the university that I'm at we have phenomenal advisors and we have
approximately four to five hundred people who do advising on our campus and
a lot of those individuals deserve that advising award
and we only give out two a year there have been times where advising reports
has helped us choose the winner for the year because there are some advisors who
do spend a bit more time on advising reports and there are others that that
spend less time or there still even a few on our campus and again I we've got
a really strong advising report system but I there are a few people who still
don't enter advising reports and those are when we identify those individuals
and again it's typically when a problem arises and then we get in there and see
there are no advising reports then we do reach out to that college director or
associate dean to talk about it because again it's in the best interest for you
as the advisor as well as the student to make sure that you have completed Visine
reports be careful not to include information of a sensitive nature and
then we're gonna get into this a little bit more when we do some of the case
studies but we definitely want to make sure that our advising reports are
academic focused anything that's protected by HIPAA we do not put in an
advising report so if a student discloses to me that I suffer from
anxiety or depression that's not going to go in an advising report if a student
tells me that she's pregnant and that she's needing to take online courses
next semester because she doesn't want to stop out of out of school but she's
going to have a lot on her hands next semester again that would not go in an
advising report however something that I do I also keep personal notes now this
is something that's not required at the University this is just something that I
like to do again to help build that relationship and to pick up where we
left off so I have personal notes on my computer where I just have a word
document that I've created that will have those notes so with the student
does inform me that he is suffering from depression I can be
aware of that when the student visits my office again
but those personal notes are just for me those personal notes are not going to go
to another adviser once the student declares a major because it's that
students right to choose whether to disclose depression to that new advisor
so again that's something that I like to do just so I can follow up just so I can
continue to build that relationship with the student and check in with that
student because if that student confided in me that he suffers from depression
that could have been a big step for that student to make to inform me of that so
I will want to follow up now again am i a mental health clinician I'm not do I
want to be a mental health clinician I don't so I would absolutely make a
referral to our University Counseling Center and encourage the student to
visit professionals but again if the student has disclosed that to me I would
want to make a note of it yeah Kim
mm-hmm so that's a very good question and in our advising note system bings
driving the internet access okay so I'll actually pull up my advising report just
so you can see what ours looks like there is a button that we have that says
personal notes exist and here's the cool thing about it only I can only the
person who clicked on that button knows that it exists so even though it shows
me in the system personal notes exist if that student were to go meet with
another advisor it would not show personal notes exist so we've done that
and that was something we worked with our Computer Services staff to get that
on
uh-huh
would there not be how did you bring that
yep very good question and that I'm gonna talk about it's called developing
advising language and what that means is sometimes we use certain words to remind
us as advisors that there's an extenuating circumstance so an example
of that situation where student is pregnant and is wanting to take online
classes I would put something in the advising note that says you know Teresa
has chosen to take online classes due to extenuating circumstances there are some
advisors in the office that will also say due to life circumstances which
again I that's okay I don't edit that I also think it's important where another
when we talk about that advising language there's a difference for me
when I use the word encourage and urge so encourage means you know I encourage
the student to do this urge means I've told the student you have to do this
and that's just something I picked up on that I've used for years so I know the
difference in how important it is that the student does this because I
primarily focus on the developmental side of advising however there are times
where a student has to do what is being advised and there's no way you know
around that and so that's how I've without having to say I told the student
to do this in this exact way I'll say I'll oftentimes use the word urge
correct that's correct so I guess they'd have to talk
yeah and again when it comes to the like going back to the student that's
pregnant I I guess my thought on that would be why would the adviser need to
know that the student was pregnant and now a single mom or a parent you know so
yes I could see though we're I would say due to extenuating circumstances the
student took online classes and the next adviser may think well I wonder what
those circumstances were that required the student to take online classes but I
would hope that that would be something that you know you would want to talk to
the student about and then the student would inform me why but yeah you're
right as we develop our own advising languages I've developed my own advising
language for advising reports that's a great point other people may not know my
language a newer adviser wouldn't know my
language even someone that's been at the University as long as me would not know
my language know that when I'm talking about developing that advising language
it really is for me as the advisor it's not necessarily for all the other
advisors who will meet with that meet with that student okay
great thank you so again just to kind of show you real quick what ours looks like
and like I said we do call ours advising notes instead the advising report so
this is my advising report now again I
graduated before we had the online advising reports so you're gonna see
that I don't actually have any posted notes but if I did the advising report
would be there and right above this Kim there would be something that shows
personal notes and I would be able to click on that and then it would inform
me that I create a personal note on that student I know that other places that
don't have that option to create personal notes often times they will
flag something in the scheduling system where whether it's an asterisk whether
it's a highlight just something to remind them but that again has to be
something that you all figure out you know what works for you next okay so
using advising reports to facilitate student success so when I talked earlier
about the idea of retention and and things that we can do to further build
that relationship with our with our advisees midterm or final grades each
semester I will email my advisees who have both high midterm grades and low
midterm grades so any student of mine that has a D or an F grade at midterm I
send an email and then I copy that email and paste it into the advising report
again students who have all A's at midterm I'm also going to send an email
and say congratulations your midterm grades are great and then I copy and
paste that into the advising report and again if you have a standard email that
you use it it may not be as much work as some of you may think you just copy and
paste the same email and and change out the student's name some even use
like advising templates to do that returning to good academic standing when
we have a student who has been on academic probation so the student has
lower than a 2.0 GPA and then that student has a good semester and returns
to good standing the student does exactly what the student needs to do to
get back in good standing again I'm gonna send an email that says
congratulations you're back in good academic standing because sometimes the
one thing that I've really worked hard throughout the years is to make sure
that the advising report system isn't negative that there are especially for
when students are viewing these advising reports I don't want it to be where
students don't want to look in an advising report because they're afraid
of what they're gonna see I think it's just as important to celebrate the
successes of our advisees as well as encourage them to do better when when
they need to yeah
oh okay absolutely that's great that's that's really great feature um give
assignment with deadlines or due date again that's something I mentioned visit
the Career Center by October 31st I with transfer students often times I
encourage transfer students to complete our evaluations if a course came in as
an elective and perhaps that student I feel like that course could count toward
something and I'd want the student to meet with the department head or reach
out to a department head through email I'll paste that or I'll put that in the
advising notes I'll say I encouraged Jill to complete this reevaluation by
midterm reinforces referral so again if you do refer a student to the Student
Success Center I like to copy and paste the website information so not only will
that remind me that I referred the student to the Student Success Center
but now the student has a lot more information about what the Student
Success Center does and how that can be a benefit to the student embed phone
numbers locations emails and websites congratulations or welcome message now
this is something that I don't currently do but others at the University do and I
I've always told myself I like this idea and I need to do it but they welcome new
transfer students and new freshman students by sending an email that has
the advising syllabus by show of hands how many of you in here have an advising
syllabus so a few of you that's something I would encourage you all to
to look into that's something that I usually send out my advising syllabus I
email it out usually the second week of classes and the reason I do that is the
first week oftentimes students are getting overwhelmed by all the syllabi
in the classrooms and class expectations so I intentionally wait until that
second week and then I'll send out the advising syllabus again if you want to
view my advising syllabus feel free to go to the website Missouri
State edu and just type in my name Ross Hawkins and it's gonna pull up
you'll see my picture and all my information as well as a link to the
advising syllabus that has been something that's absolutely helped
facilitate advising appointments I encourage students to read the advising
syllabus and in our waiting room when a student's waiting for the advisor
we have booklets of all of our advisors in our so in our office we have nine
advisors in the academic advisement Center for exploratory students and so
we have the syllabi printed out and so wallis students waiting if they didn't
read the email they would be able to read that advising syllabus and so I
like the idea of sending out these welcome messages though our one of our
departments the Department of Biology they do a really great job with a
welcome message that they embed different links and different
information and it's just been really helpful to jumpstart that advising
process for a new student and again I think that that's good to have in the
advising report encouraging positive student behavior so often times I may
put in an advising report that student and I discussed time management skills
because realistically it can be challenging for a new freshman to or for
any student really to to me Anna's time sometimes even as advisors right it can
be challenging for us to to manage our time when we have a lot of different
things going on so there are things I can put in an advising report that says
we discussed time management skills I referred we've got an online resource
for study skills often times I will refer students to our study skills
website and then I mention already developing advising language for
yourself the encourage versus urge 3 blanks I want you all to take a minute
and think about some things that you can do here at Virginia Tech with the
advising report system to encourage student success
so each of you go ahead and type or write down three things that you think
you can do to facilitate student success by using advising reports I'll give you
a minute or two and then I'm going to have each of you share one thing no
don't bother okay so let let me have one good or one suggestion from each table
so which table would like to go first a suggestion yeah okay good
okay so Sindh yep I'll repeat it send out a reminder regarding important dates
and deadlines so registration dates and deadlines I know that's something that I
usually send out the first week of the semester as well and that would be nice
for that to be in the advising report because oftentimes students do have that
question when's the last day to drop a class when's the last day to drop for a
certain amount of refund yeah okay good so perhaps email report on different
activities academic interest organizations meetings they're going on
within your particular unit your particular college again that's a great
way for students to be engaged and we know students who are engaged or
oftentimes retained at a higher rate than those who are less engaged what
else from the other tables
reminders of program specific policy okay that's good
and that's important when we some of our programs may have different requirements
than University requirements as far as GPA requirements to get admitted to a
program at Missouri State we have an unlimited repeat policy so that means a
student can take a course as often as the student likes and only the last
grade earned counts in the GPA however I know right however there are some majors
on campus where they do not view it that way
that the admission requirement is any attempt or the second attempt and beyond
or averaged so again that would be something that would be important for a
major to recognize what else what are some other ideas would you all come up
with back here okay okay there are times where I have parents sent in on advising
appointments and that's often times when a transfer student drives in from out of
town they oftentimes bring a parent because it's a you know maybe a three or
four hour drive so they come down for the day and go have lunch and two other
things I'll put in the advising report that you know Kim and her mom were in
this advising session and oftentimes again I've used that as a relationship
builder when Kim comes back to me without her mom hopefully I will I will
say Kim how's your mom doing what else what all did did you all suggest
College of Business has like an advising worksheet that we're working on while
the students in our office and we take notes or created a report meant summary
report summary and navigate more than emailing the student with that
attachment link with a worksheet separately so I think we're just trying
to figure out kind of mechanics of how to make that okay steps and then we have
the advising worksheet okay right now their requirement report
summaries aren't you one of the students it's only a note so then it's like
absolutely cuz it would be a one-stop-shop right they could get into
the advising report and see all then instead of having to try to search for
an email I like that what about you all did you come up with good that is
something I do in all my advising appointments is I will based on what we
discussed during that advising appointment I recommend when our next
appointment should be and if it is a student that I'm very concerned about I
may have the student come back in a couple weeks to touch base with me or in
a month if it's a student that I felt like we accomplished a lot in our
advising appointment and realistically I don't need to see that student until
next semester I'll put that and I will say what was your first name Ally I
would say I encouraged Ally to schedule an appointment to meet with me in
February or March now again I always put some of the notice to you know Ally
could come back anytime she has questions or concerns but the next
appointment that I encouraged her to make would be in February or March and
then that way if Ally comes back to see me in April and classes or clothes that
Ally needs to get into in the advising report it says Ally I asked you to come
back in February or March and so again I think it helps
that accountability aspect okay so guidelines for writing advising reports
and we're gonna go through these couple yep go ahead banks thank you and banks
is also gonna pass out a handout that I made for each of you so you can take
with you today you'll also want to use this handout for the case studies I'm
gonna go through these couple slides pretty quickly because we're gonna be
discussing a lot of this through the case studies that I'll have you work on
um so things to include in an advice and report current academic and career plans
a list of recommended courses for future semesters including alternates in the
event that a student can't get into all the courses that we discussed during our
advising appointment I'll I always include at least one or two alternate
options in the advising report constraints on class scheduling so there
are times when I meet with an athlete on campus and perhaps they need to have all
their classes finished by two o'clock on Monday Wednesday Friday due to practice
times that's something that I think is important to know so I would put that in
an advising report if I encourage a student to do an internship or we talk
about internship opportunities I'll put that in the report
again notation of referrals except those restricted by legal guidelines including
mental or physical health or learning disability now again I just learned from
the middle table that in navigate you have a way within that system to refer a
student to I can't do the counseling system so at Virginia Tech that may be
slightly different we don't have an online system at Missouri State to do
that I know though for us in an advising report I would not put in there refer to
student to a Counseling Center because that is implying mental health and that
is something that again that's the student should have that right to
disclose that information to future advisors directions for student
including follow-up which we talked about dates for completion dates for
next appointment and then there are some advisors who do multiple semester
planning which it sounds like the College of Business with your advising
worksheet you may be doing that so again having that attached to the advising
report that way if you're doing a multiple semesters of scheduling a
student could be able to view that and you would be able to update it if a
student couldn't take a class because it was closed
things not to put in an advising report again we don't write in our advising
reports anything with physical or mental health or a learning disability personal
evaluations are subjective objective statements you'll see a few of these in
the case studies that we're going to start comments regarding a student's
instructor so one thing in in southwest Missouri often from our rural areas
we'll have students who have never been exposed to a professor with an accent
and so sometimes students will come to us and they'll say I can't understand my
professor so that's something that I'm not gonna put in an advising report
however I am gonna absolutely encourage the student to go meet with that
professor and not just drop the course there's some students that want oh I
can't understand I need to drop the course let's talk about this because we
as advisors know that we live in a very connected world where this is going to
happen whether it's in the school university setting whether it's in a
place of employment so this is a great learning opportunity it's a great way
for the student to become more aware of cultural competence
information that's irrelevant to their academic planning and process and also
unprofessional language we would not want to use an advising report so
guidelines again a good rule of thumb remember your audience that's something
that when you're writing a report think to yourself
who's going to view this report the student other faculty other advisors
advising administrators know the audience when in doubt leave it out if
you're sitting at your off in your at your office at your desk and your you
know should I should I not should I should I not more than likely you
shouldn't and again when those situations arise I hope you all have
someone that you feel comfortable talking to a director within your unit
and associate provost whoever that may be
I know that Kathy the director and myself have really made ourselves
available campus-wide for for people to contact us in those
situations is this appropriate to put in an amazing note and so that's something
that Kathy and I have really worked hard to educate the campus community on and
also to be a resource for the campus community there are times where a
situation arises that you just may want some help you may want to talk to
someone about it and I hope you have people here at Virginia Tech who are
those people that you can reach out to to talk about and I already mentioned
the importance of personal notes