USUAA is UAA's student government. Photo by Matthew Schmitz.
As part of The Northern Light’s look into advising, we felt it would be important to hear from UAA’s Union of Students, also known as USUAA, because the organization has sway over university policy. I reached out to Shanone Tejada, USUAA’s vice president for more details.
While USUAA does not have any direct legislative power to deal with the university’s advising system, Tejada said that the organization is able to “raise a voice” to issues experienced by the student population by putting out resolutions encouraging reform. Furthermore, Tejada said, “most of the work we do is advocacy in meetings by talking to […] people who make these decisions.”
In an email, USUAA President Katie Scoggin, gave an example of such advocacy – “we hope to […] facilitate focus groups to analyze and gather feedback about the new strategies being applied. Kind of like an ongoing evaluation to ensure continuous improvement of the department.”
In his interview, Tejada said that USUAA is “kept in the loop” in regard to advising issues due to the organization’s “good relationship” with Vice Provost for Student Success Melanie Hulbert and advising director Valerie Robideaux who spoke at USUAA meetings in December and February.
Tejada shared details on what the Office of Student Success is calling “Advising 2.0” – a complete overhaul of the current system, which is expected to be fully rolled out by the fall semester. This new system will put all advisors under the control of the Office of Student Success, rather than the current, decentralized system, in which first year advisors operate as their own entity under each college, and colleges are separately responsible for the advising curriculum beyond the first year.
Tejada pointed out that one issue with the previous advising system is that one advisor can be responsible for more than 500 students. “That’s the problem with miscommunication. They’re really booked up,” he said.
“The way we’re tackling that is by having some organizational structure. So that colleges are not competing against each other, but they’re working under one department, in a way consolidated, but also still within their respective colleges, so that they can tailor the needs of their students.”
According to Tejada, the university is also working to hire more advisors to alleviate the pressure and workload that stands on current advisors.
In a letter from Melanie Hulbert emailed to university staff on Feb. 3, she wrote that over the course of the spring semester the university will “develop, implement, and assess a common student outreach plan for Fall 23 advising and registration.” It is also noted that first-year engagement and appointment scheduling practices will be updated “to provide friendly and helpful support.”
Time will tell if Advising 2.0 changes will accomplish the stated goal in Hulbert’s letter, which is “to improve the student experience while also providing stability to students, faculty, staff, and administrators who rely on the important work of our advisors.”
The Northern Light will be following up with more stories on UAA’s new advising system.
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