Peer-advising program could eliminate advising issues

Raise your hand if you feel dissatisfied with the level of service you receive from your academic advisor. Now look around. You will find that you are not alone. Many students report feeling rushed out of their advisor's office or feel that their advisor's only function is to sign paperwork. Kristen Doghranji, a 3rd-semester journalism major, said that her advisor's schedule is so limited that she will not be able to meet with them until early November. She was told that she should read the course catalogue to figure things out.

The truth is that there are not enough academic advisors at UConn and that advising is just one of their responsibilities as university faculty. Cristina Conte, an Academic Center for Exploratory Students advisor, said that each advisor in the ACES program has between 300 and 400 students assigned to them. The ACES advisors are full-time advisors for exploratory undergraduate students. Once a student declares a major, they are reassigned an advisor within their department. These faculty members are likewise assigned hundreds of students to advise, but must also teach classes and produce research for the university. The result is an overextended faculty struggling to give individual attention to students. Even the most diligent and pro-active students can struggle to achieve their goals due to this burden placed upon their advisors.

The academic advising program at UConn was not always stretched this thin. The economic crisis has constricted the university's budget, forcing it to cut spending and assign more work to fewer faculty members. Advising has not been the only program to take a hit from the changes; across the board, university departments are operating with smaller staffs. Students have even noticed that there does not seem to be any student employment available like there used to be. If departments cannot afford to hire part-time students for low hourly wages, they certainly would have difficulty hiring more full-time faculty to advise students.

There are alternatives. The most time-consuming element of an academic advisory meeting is going over each student's plan of study to ensure that it fulfills all of the criteria for graduation. Not only can this process cut into a faculty member's time to fulfill other obligations to the university, but there are simply too many students to provide this level of service at this time. Also, most of the department faculty did not graduate from this university and are not familiar with the nuances of graduation requirements. Therefore, I recommend the commissioning of a peer-advising program in which seniors within each department will provide individual attention and guidance to younger colleagues as a form of work-study.

This kind of program has many short term and long-term benefits. In the short run, it will alleviate some of the burden from faculty, who are stretched too thin. It will provide more individual attention to students along their academic path. It would provide more financial assistance to students in need. Its cost would be minimal: the initial administrative restructuring to accommodate the program and the work-study cost itself. In the long run, the program would be both beneficial and sustainable. Students understand one another, and - with faculty oversight - can provide personal and professional advising. Whether the budget waxes or wanes in the future, this program can deliver fruitful benefits at a fraction of the cost of hiring more professional faculty.

Right now, students serve as front-line adjuncts in critical administrative offices from financial aid to the registrar. Their implementation has been successful and now goes without questioning. In the face of expanding workloads, a shrinking budget and students that demand individual attention, I advise that the university develop a new academic advising program recognizing the benefits and past success of employing students alongside professional faculty. Until such time, students should assume that their advisor may not have the time to give them individual attention and guidance, and they must take more control of their own plan of study.