UA urges advising overhaul

If the Undergraduate Assembly's Academic Committee had its way, residential advisors would help freshmen choose classes, students wouldn't wait in long lines for school office advisors and every advisor would share interests with their advisees. These suggestions are part of the committee's report "The State of Academic Advising at the University of Pennsylvania," released this week. The report -- in the works since last fall -- examined the advising systems of the four undergraduate schools, as well the Athletics, PENNCAP and Benjamin Franklin Scholars advising programs. The committee made suggestions to amend current advising systems, including most radically, training residential advisors to play the role of academic peer advisors. They said advisors must strengthen their networking system and know their role as it is clearly defined by the University. They also suggested that the College of Arts and Sciences match faculty advisors to students based upon interest, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences develop a professional advising staff, the School of Nursing faculty advisors become more accessible and the Wharton School start a faculty advising program as well as hire more advisors. All the recommendations came in response to the committee's finding of an overall trend of poor advising throughout the programs, with no group scoring above a 3.17 average score on a one-to-five scale. The group gathered information from students through a focus group and surveys. The report divided each school into its component advisors -- faculty, peer and office -- except for Wharton which lacks faculty advisors. Next, it evaluated each group in regards to its usefulness in helping students pick classes, fulfill requirements, choose majors or concentrations, help deal with academic problems and suggest career options. The report also gave an overall rating, taking into account the number of times the advisor is seen per semester, whether or not the advisor is in the student's area of interest where applicable and the quality of the freshmen advising programs. Notably, the report pointed to peer advisors as being especially inadequate, describing their system as "weak" and "generally not useful." The report gave the College low ratings in all areas, although its office advisors obtained good marks for accessibility. College freshmen reported seeking out residential advisors and graduate fellows for advice rather than using the other advisors their schools offer. Engineering faculty advisors received slightly better scores than the College. Freshmen, however, ranked advisors in the Engineering office higher than faculty ones. The report gave Engineering peer advisors the lowest marks in the school. Both Nursing faculty advisors and those in the school office received high marks because of the personal attention they give students. Many Nursing students, however, saw faculty advisors as inaccessible. Students rated Wharton's office advisors fairly well, but deemed the waiting times "unacceptable." Wharton upperclassmen were more satisfied than freshmen. Athletics, PENNCAP and BFS advisors scored higher than all four schools, with BFS advisors garnering the best scores throughout the University. The report found freshmen often rely on residential advisors -- although not officially trained -- because their RAs are more accessible and "just as effective" as other advisors.