COLUMN: Some Poor Advice

From Abby Beshkin's "All Set," Fall '95 From Abby Beshkin's "All Set," Fall '95The other day, I was reading a Student Committee on Undergraduate Education report on academic advising. It outlined what seems to be a current complaint about advising at the University: "Rosters are signed without a question, and the freshman soon adopts the attitude that advisors are merely rubber stamps for the University bureaucracy." The report was from 1966. The next day I picked up my spring course register, and, perhaps because it is the last time I will register for classes at Penn, I read through it with a little regret -- there are still so many classes I want to take. Before pre-registering for next semester, freshmen have to approve their schedules with their faculty advisors and get registration sheets signed. Toward the middle of my first semester freshman year, I found a slip in my mailbox scheduling me for an appointment with my advisor. My meeting, the note said, would last from 7:00 to 7:15 in the evening. Fifteen minutes to plan an academic career. There is no doubt the College holds a strong commitment to undergraduate advising. In the "four-tiered" system made up of peer advisors, faculty advisors, assistant deans for advising and assistant deans for residence, the College tries to cover every base in a student's academic career. But in many ways, the College's advising system still fits the description written 30 years ago. Walk into the hectic College office and find stacks of fliers with titles like "How Can You Decide which Courses to Take?" and "Some Basic Advice from the College Office." Open Netscape to the College office's Web pages. Access Penn InTouch and see which classes you've taken to fulfill general requirements. Interestingly, Diane Frey, director for advising services, laughed when I asked her whether all this information has decreased traffic in the College Office. College advisors have been fielding questions from about 1,000 students a month. Students, she explains, are hungry for "more advising." And though this written information also tries to guide students toward asking important questions about their academic goals, it can't replace consistent, one-on-one advising. It can't make students raise questions that an advising relationship, begun early in an academic career and cultivated for four years, could make them ask. The College's multi-faceted system detracts from a look at the broader picture. I spoke last week to Deborah Burnham, a College advisor, about what she would like to see changed in College advising. She told me she would take more time with students to discuss what she calls "genuine planning." Instead of merely asking students what they wanted to learn, she would encourage them to delve into deeper, more complex topics that may trouble them -- issues about social justice, for instance, or gender equality. She would force them to say: "How can I make something that's coherent out of my education?" Often, though, that seems to be a far cry from what is actually happening. One friend, for instance, told me she has told her academic "story" to "about 10 different" walk-in and major advisors. Having to start over and over from the beginning doesn't lead to broad academic planning. It leads to inconsistency and confusion. Many people opted to come to a large University wanting, perhaps for the first time, to be able to make their own choices. They didn't want to be spoon fed. But there is a difference between spoon-feeding and advice, and I can safely say that if I had had one advisor from the outset who met regularly with me, discussed my academic and non-academic interests, and was familiar enough with the system to guide me toward different resources at Penn, my academic career would probably look slightly different, a little more focused. A friend pointed out that College advising does exactly what it was designed to do. It guides students through paperwork and phone registration. Advisors help students decide which courses to take, and which classes can be counted toward their requirements. But in my thinking, academic advising should do more than that. In an attempt to get as much information to as many people as quickly as possible, academic advising has lost sight of the basics. And while many committees work to improve the advising system, and while many students seem to want more consistent and broad-based academic planning, the two just don't seem to be in sync. While much has changed since 1966, the system seems to have outgrown itself. There still is little focus on the broader picture. Maybe 30 years from now, a student on the verge of graduation will be writing a column on advising, and maybe the columnist will read a description of advising in 1995. Hopefully, the similarities won't be as striking.