A new advising website aims to supplement academic advising and make important information available in one place for University of Idaho students.
Stephen Parrott, 2010-11 ASUI president, said improving academic advising was a goal of his and one of the first steps to achieve the goal was hiring Andrew Brewick, director of Academic Advising.
“The next goal was to help and partner with that director to evaluate advising and look at ways to improve it,” Parrott said.
The advising committee sent out a survey in the fall semester of 2011 to students and advisers to gather information regarding what needed to be improved. Based on the results of the survey, the committee then implemented the website.
“It’s not just on students to make their advising better,” Parrott said. “The website compiles all advising information such as how to drop or add a class, how to find their new adviser if they switched majors, or how to get directed to a degree audit.”
The website also contains links to other places for information such as the Career Center which can help students with internships in a specific major. The website launched in time for fall 2011 advising, which began this week.
At www.uidaho.edu/academicadvising, students can find information to supplement advising meetings and information for advisers such as video tutorials on various topics.
Brewick said the website was created to make advising more clear, efficient and fulfilling. Students lacked a way to connect with the information they needed, Brewick said.
“There was a need because before this, all these different types of information were housed in different places like the registrar or others,” Brewick said. “Now it is consolidated in one place to guide students and advisers.”
Brewick hopes the website will be a place to find information and resources. Brewick encourages advisors to share advising templates, best practices and other helpful information and input.
“Just send (helpful information) to [email protected] and we will see if we can include them on the site,” Brewick said. “If students have documents or resources, send them as well and we’ll see if we can put them up.”
Brewick said advising is important because it is one of the only activities that all undergraduate students take part in. He said UI has some fantastic advisers and students, and their skills should be used to help refine advising across campus.
Mark Neilsen, associate dean of the College of Science, said from an adviser’s perspective, the website is a great tool.
“A large part of the problem is we have faculty members asked to be advisers. They don’t always know the answers to the questions that come up,” Neilsen said. “There are 100 different situations you have to be prepared for and the website puts information at an easy-to-find location.”
Neilsen, an adviser in the mathematics department, said when he first started to advise, he was lucky to have an experienced adviser who could help with any questions he had.
“I had a ton of questions and the only thing I could do was walk down the hall and ask Dr. Newhouse,” Neilsen said.
Neilsen said the website will help make faculty feel at ease with the process of advising. He also said students sometimes don’t know who their adviser is, and as easy a fix as that should be, it tends to be a problem.
“It would be nice if the advisers initiated contact but sometimes that doesn’t happen, so students need to be proactive and find that for (themselves),” Neilsen said. “The adviser-student relationship is very important and needs to be nurtured.”