General guidelines for faculty advisors are available at : General Advising Guidelines
Faculty advisors to first-year college students have unique opportunities to work with students who are new to college life. Perhaps the most important part of your role as an advisor is providing an atmosphere of trust, which becomes the foundation for a variety of meaningful conversations for the advisor-advisee relationship in the future.
Virtually all experienced faculty advisors stress the importance of finding effective ways to interact individually with their advisees. Teaching and advising are interrelated and often enhance one another. The role of the First-Year Seminar professor/advisor, which serves to develop closer, stronger relationships between students and faculty during the first year of college, is a key element to a student’s successful transition to college life.
Summer Advising
• By the end of June, First-Year Seminar assignments will have been made and you will receive a list of your students’ names and Dickinson email addresses
• At this point a general welcome to your seminar and a short introduction of yourself is appropriate, if you wish. You need not begin advising your seminar until they arrive on campus because:
• A team of Summer Advisors consisting of faculty and class deans will be providing direct phone and/or email advising to students during the second full week of July. Students will then select courses the following week. It is expected that all entering students will have a conversation and receive their Alternate PIN from a member of the summer advising group working during the Advising/Course Selection period in July.
• The advising conversations that Summer Advisors have with entering new students focus on continuing/starting a foreign language, requesting an appropriate lab-science course, and exploring a potential major or area of academic interest. Please note the above three categories of courses are encouraged for entering students in an effort to create a balanced schedule, and to enable them to complete the foreign language and lab-science requirements by the end of their sophomore year.
• Schedule Adjustment Period –third week of August - first week of September. Students who request additional assistance will communicate with Summer Advisors during Schedule Adjustment Period. If you have questions during this time, please contact the Advising Office at ext. 1080.
• Please note: No paper advising files will be sent to advisors. Advisors have access to academic information for each of their advisees through CLIQ (2.0 – accessed directly through your Gateway portal).
When you first meet your advisees – a week before classes begin
• Consider using this opportunity (your first meeting with your seminar) to discuss basic issues related to course registration for fall and, in particular, your relationship as advisor-advisee.
• You may find it helpful to use an advising syllabus (see form) to open the conversation about the advisor-advisee relationship with your advisees.
• Advisors have found it useful to ask their advisees to fill out “Starting your college career at Dickinson College” and bring it with them to their advising appointment later that day.
• During the individual sessions with advisees -- Review the courses your advisee is enrolled in this semester. Check to make sure all courses on their schedule are appropriate for first-year students (Registrar’s website).
• Consider group advising using Blackboard for general announcements and getting basic information regarding deadlines to your students.
• Begin to stress the importance and value of using the Program Evaluation (degree audit) function with your advisees. This evaluation provides important information regarding how the student’s AP credits and current courses meet individual degree requirements. Using this evaluation tool early in their college years, students can begin to be responsible for monitoring their own academic progress.
During the first week of classes –
• Check by Wednesday to make sure all of your advisees have four courses for the term and that they understand that this is the only week for Add/Drop for Fall semester.
• Consider using Blackboard for appropriate group advising.
During the third week of classes-- Early Alerts for first-year students
• During the third week of classes you will be asked to notify Bob Winston if you have concerns about any of the students in your Seminar. The three areas for evaluation are: a) graded work; b) participation in class; and c) class attendance.
• Your follow-up with advisees during these early weeks is important and can often help student address academic and/or social adjustment issues and concerns.
October is advising month
• Schedule individual appointments with your advisees to review how things are going, discuss course selection for coming Spring , and provide them with their Alternate PIN. Ask students to select at least 6 courses to discuss with you before they submit their course requests for next term.
• At the end of your advising session, give the Alternate PIN, which you can find in the CLIQ program listing your advisees. (Please remember -- sending Alternate PINs by email without an advising conversation undermines good advising.)
• Consider asking your advisees to bring their most recent Program Evaluation (degree audit) with them each semester prior to Course Request Period.
• If any of your advisees receive “U” grades, ask them to make an appointment with you to discuss their strategies for improving their performance. They should also meet with the faculty member/s who assigned the “U” grade(s). It may be necessary for a student to consider using a course withdrawal to salvage his/her semester. (Remember, students have only 2 discretionary course withdrawals to use and must petition the Academic Standards Committee for any additional ones. Please check academic calendar for the last day for a withdrawal from a fall term course).
During November
• Let your advisees know that you will be meeting with them in the spring to discuss their academic goals, and course selections for spring.
• You will be invited to send the Advising Office the names of two or three students in your seminar who are particularly articulate (orally and/or written), academically talented, and/or think beyond the obvious. These identified first-year students will be invited during the spring term to consider preparing and planning applications for post-graduate scholarships and fellowships that may be appropriate for them.
December Seminar Wrap-up
• Many advisors find it useful to take a few minutes to write more extensive notes for their files about each of their first-year advisees. Most likely you will be asked to write a recommendation for your advisees who will be applying for Global Education/Study Abroad and details about each will come in handy next year.
In January
• Welcome your advisees back to campus for the spring term and invite them to make an appointment with you to discuss their academic interests and goals. (Words of wisdom from an experienced advisor, “With one semester of college under their belt . . . they have been home to discuss their college experiences with their family and friends during the holiday break . . . they often return with more realistic expectations and different interests for their second semester of college. Although they may still consider making course registration changes for their second semester of college, February is a prime time for thinking very broadly with them about their future – academically and personally.”)
February Advising
• The February and March advising appointments should be more than course planning for the fall semester and giving out alternate PIN numbers to your advisees. As an advisor, this is one of your best opportunities to talk about academic goals, potential majors, summer jobs and internships in career fields that interest them, their plans for going abroad, and what is generally important to your advisees.
March Advising
• Remember the continuing importance of reviewing each advisees’ Program Evaluation in your advising conversations and prior to giving the Alternate PIN.
• Course Request Period
April Advising
• You will be notified when the system opens up for Schedule Adjustment Period. At this point your advisees will be able to see what courses they are registered for during fall. They should be encouraged to check and add available courses to fill out their schedule of four classes. Remind them that any changes or additions at this time will be “live” and immediate.
General Advising Information (click here)
Roll Call Grades
Students are evaluated in all courses at mid-term through Roll Call grades. These grades indicate generally how the student is doing in each course. Although the grades are not specifically equated to the traditional grades they are often important sources of information for the student and his/her advisor.
• "S" means a satisfactory level of achievement has been observed to that point in the term, but doesn't specify what is satisfactory. The student should understand that the “S” grade could mean barely satisfactory or much better
• "U" means that the achievement is unsatisfactory in some way
• "I" means that there is work due but not received
• "NE" indicates that there has been no means of evaluation used to date in the course
In all cases, if there is an unsatisfactory grade, or an incomplete grade, the student should make an appointment to discuss the specific course with the professor. Advisors are notified of all “U” grades for their advisees and are urged to follow-up with the students to determine the best course of action to help the student improve his/her academic status. When there are multiple “U” grades, clear strategies for turning the situation around are important.
In general, Roll Call grades provide an opportunity for professors to let their students know that, at this point in the semester, the student is meeting (or not meeting) their expectations and requirements to pass the course. For graded work, a common rule-of-thumb to use is the break between C and C- (i.e. C and above = S; C- and below = U). Roll Call grades can also be used to alert the student (and their advisor) that other aspects of the student’s performance are currently below expectations (i.e. attendance, class participation, completion of homework, etc.).
Please note: When students receive a “U” grade, they are urged to first meet with the professor to find out what they need to do to improve their performance. Advisors and Class Deans also receive notification of “U” grades and should contact each student to help the student plan a course of action to improve his/her work in the class.
Roll Call is also the final opportunity in the semester to confirm the student's course schedule. If a course is missing, or a course is listed on the report that the student is not taking, he/she should go immediately to the Registrar's Office to resolve the situation.