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How To Advise Sixty Students The advising situation here is approaching catastrophic. Each year, my number of advisees has grown from 25 a decade ago to 50+ today. It is simply impossible to see all of them and, there is no doubt that the number will continue to grow. A colleague asked me today what we could do about this. I said that there were no revolutionary solutions. For example, some years ago, peer advising seemed promising -- experienced students who know the system giving course advise to new students seemed like a winner until it became clear that there were legitimate privacy issues with students reviewing other students' grades. Students are used to advise students about college activities but not about courses. Some colleges are hiring non-academic folk to advise; my college could do that but my department can't so that isn't an option. Hiring more faculty isn't an option either though we have 300 majors for seven faculty where other programs have 30 majors for seven. That doesn't seem fair. Technology might help -- at least with the "clerking" aspects of the work but would take funding to get someone to write a program that would access the student database to present accurate information. My response to my colleague isn't terribly positive but, frankly, I don't see what individual faculty or academic departments can do. In the meantime, everyone suffers. Two Sisters Comment On Teaching Today Two Takes on Teaching. Paula M. Krebs and Mary Krebs Flaherty -- sisters who work at very different institutions -- trade stories and questions. [Inside Higher Ed] |
Last modified: Friday, October 31, 2008 at 9:20 PM.
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