Graduation Oriented Advising WHAT An approach to advising

Graduation Oriented Advising WHAT: • An approach to advising that focuses on identifying, planning for, and achieving a graduation target • Student Ownership • Connects to – Degree Maps / Milestones – Prospect for Success

Graduation Oriented Advising WHY: • For students: Estimated cost of attendance @ UNC Charlotte is $10, 000 (plus lost earnings) • For us: – Meeting graduation targets (4 -yr, 6 yr, and 4 -yr Transfer) – More efficient use of course availability

Graduation Oriented Advising PROCESS • Select target population • Identify students you want to reach (place advising holds if desired) • Prepare GOA communication and worksheets • Inform students of GOA process and their responsibilities • GOA advising

GOA -- OPTIONS Target Population • 4 th Semester (Entered as Freshmen, Fall 2012) • 6 th Semester (Entered as Freshmen, Fall 2011) (IR and UCOL can help generate and process the data) Advising Holds? • Balancing potential impact vs workload and potential logjams • GOA ‘Waiver’ is an option Materials • Adapt current advising materials • Develop new advising materials GOA Process • What’s expected of students • Changes to advising (eg. small group advising)

Graduation Oriented Advising Examples • History • Chemistry

Criminal Justice and Criminology Department 571 Majors 402 Pre-CJ Majors 120 Minors 1093 fantastic students!

Our Advising Team • Susan Hodge, Lecturer and Advising Coordinator • Kathleen Nicolaides, Senior Lecturer, Academic and Pre-Law Advisor • Joe Marinello, Lecturer and Advisor (We all leap buildings in a single bound. )

Graduation-Oriented Advising • OH NO!!! MORE WORK!!!!

Are there additional advantages to the Graduation Oriented Advising? • The earlier students connect and become engaged in their department, the better it is for both the students and the department. • Students become familiar with the advisors, what the department has to offer, and…. Wait for it… THE CURRICULUM!!!

Now, on to the issues • TOO MANY STUDENTS!! • We place holds on our majors and pre-majors at 85 -100 hours and any students in academic trouble. • They must come in for advising before registering for the upcoming semester. • At least 150 students come in during this period to see the 3 of us. (Granted we are super…. But not super human) • So we are adding how many students? ? ?

So how do we handle MORE students that we require to come in? ? ? • Group Meetings?

Next issue: • Flexible curriculum. • Therefore it is hard to help a student plan out what courses to take in a particular order.

Our Requirements • Intro to Criminal Justice is the pre-requisite for all 3000 level courses. • Intro to Criminal Justice and Statistics (grades of C or better) and a Writing component must all be completed before the major can be declared. • Students must have 60 hours to register for any 3000 level courses.

However… • Problem: Once they reach 60 hours, they can take any elective in any order. • Also different electives are offered different semesters, so you cannot predict which classes will be taught when.

How to solve this issue: • Advise students regarding the importance of taking Intro to CJ and Statistics as soon as possible so they can declare the major and continue on. • Also recommend that they begin their foreign language sequence EARLY (CJ requires 3 semesters of latin alphabet based language or 2 semesters of non-latin alphabet based language) • And- encourage students to begin taking classes in a minor.

Conclusion • Our advising team sees the benefits of the Graduation Oriented Advising. • However, we would need to adapt the procedures to make it work for our department. • What issues do you see with this process for your department and how can you overcome them?