Popularity of host advising dwindles among students and faculty

Roughly ninety students and faculty members gathered for "Asking for Directions: A Dialogue on Advising" at the Experimental College's 14th annual "Opening Up the Classroom" event last night.

Main topics of this Experimental College (ExCollege) event included offering incentives to attract advisors, leaving open the option to be advisors for faculty, the phasing out of host advising, and instituting a mechanism to clarify the expectations of the advisor-advisee relationship.

According to Director of the ExCollege Robyn Gittleman, considerable debate took place before an appropriate theme for this year's event was decided upon. After academic advising was suggested, it quickly became clear that it was a contentious issue worthy of discussion.

"When advising was mentioned, the entire ExCollege Board had something to say about it. We figured that if we expressed so many divergent opinions about what advising is and should be, the rest of Tufts probably did as well," Gittleman said.

According to sophomore Alicia Harvie, advising, whether good or bad, is a vital campus issue because it affects both faculty and students.

Eight separate groups, each consisting of students and faculty members, engaged in casual discussion about advising over dinner. Each group was given the formal task of coming up with three suggestions to improve advising at Tufts. These recommendations were shared at the end of the meal and submitted to Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser.

Most participants agreed that host advising, the least personal of the advising options, should be scaled down because it is least favored by both students and faculty. Students also suggested setting up an "emergency" help desk during freshman orientation to assist freshmen with technical concerns usually answered by advisors. This would provide students with a quick, direct resource for straightforward registration questions while giving advisors more time to focus on students with more complicated concerns.

Attendees proposed that advisors and advisees to begin communication before the new school year commenced in order to ensure the maximum possible advisory benefit. Students suggested that advisors have available a template for letters sent to incoming freshmen to begin establishing the goals of the advisor-advisee relationship.

Other recommendations included creating an advising web page where students could post questions and receive answers and upperclassmen could post helpful information regarding classes and majors. At the same time, however, it was acknowledged the web page should in no way replace the current multi-pronged advising system and that students prefer to interact with humans as advisors instead of computers.

Students cited curiosity, the desire to discuss personal advising experiences, and the appeal of a free dinner as reasons for attending last night's event. Though the event drew a diverse crowd, many of the same faculty members return every year.

Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser said he was "very pleased to be here tonight in support of the ongoing dialogue between students and faculty that the Ex College has successfully initiated and perpetuated."

The evening also marked the 40th anniversary of the Ex College.