The State of College Advising

Beeman to overhaul advising You have just been admitted to the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Congratulations. Now what are you going to do for the next four years? The decision is up to you -- and your peer advisor, freshman year faculty advisor, assistant dean for advising and college house advisor. After an external review committee criticized the College this summer for failing to connect its numerous advising components with students' needs in a cohesive system, College Dean Richard Beeman is proposing to overhaul the system, especially where it pertains to freshmen. "We are going to fix this," Beeman said. He added that a task force will have a "dramatically improved" advising system in place for the incoming Class of 2004. Currently, Penn has a four-tiered advising system, where a peer advisor, faculty advisor, assistant dean for advising and residential advisor offer their services. Among the problems, the report states, is that those four advisors never meet to communicate and that each advisor's role is unclear. According to Beeman, the task force now hopes to appoint one primary advisor -- either a faculty member, college house dean or assistant dean for advising -- for each freshman to consult throughout the entire college career. "Especially for freshmen, we believe that it would be useful to have an unambiguous point of first contact," Beeman said, noting that the task force still has to work out logistical obstacles such as creating the context for such a relationship and training more faculty advisors. Beeman said he is "strongly" in favor of adding more academic components to new student orientation week, which currently focuses on safety, drug and alcohol issues and acquainting students socially to campus life. "I'm not suggesting that [the present activities] be eliminated," Beeman stressed, adding that he is not responsible for setting the schedule of events. He said that he feels it is "imperative" to devote more time to preparing freshmen for academic success. The task force will also consider the idea of eliminating summer preregistration and delaying course registration until students have arrived on campus and met with advisors in the fall. "A number of our [College Office academic advisors] have seen many of the practical disadvantages of allowing students to preregister by telephone and electronically over the summer without first having had a serious set of advising meetings," Beeman said. Beeman noted that this proposal is exploratory, pointing to the possibility that increasing academic planning and doing away with preregistration might mean expanding orientation week and bringing freshmen to Penn before the standard Saturday move-in. Most students agree that preregistration does not make sense. College senior Ralph Vasami pointed to the "irony" in that students do not need to talk to an advisor to pre-register before the first semester freshman year, but do have to speak with a faculty advisor to lift the hold off registration second semester. "By the time I met with an advisor [freshman year], it was like three weeks into the semester," Vasami said, adding that he made a poor decision without advice and consequently signed up for the wrong math class. Many College Office advisors support Beeman's plan for providing one primary advisor instead of the four-tiered system, saying they will be able to pay more attention to a smaller load of advisees as long as faculty and house deans are sharing the load. "[The system] will create more accountability and more continuity," Assistant Dean for Advising Srilata Gangulee said, adding that College advisors currently have as many as 200 freshmen to handle. Director of Academic Advising Diane Frey, who sits on the advising task force, said a primary advising system should nurture the relationships currently lacking in the system. "We hope this will increase the chances of students having a four-year relationship with somebody," Frey said, adding that students would have the option of switching advisors should the matches prove problematic. The College, Beeman said, is consulting students during the advising reconstruction. Former Student Committee on Undergraduate Education Chairperson Rachael Goldfarb, a 1999 College graduate, worked with the advising task force over the summer. Also involved are the Committee on Undergraduate Education's three student members, the undergraduates on the Dean's Advisory Board and members of a seminar called "The University." While the College Office agrees that changes are needed, many faculty and advisors are calling on students to utilize available resources. "We have to raise the consciousness of our students," Beeman said.