Running head: COMMUNITY COLEGE ADVISING

Community College Advising Kelsey Cox Ball State University

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING While community colleges continue to offer fiscally responsible education and openaccess options to millions of students, academic advising seems to be an ongoing issue for

students. Few students arrive to campus already having an understanding of how to navigate the systems of higher education; how to get courses or apply for financial aid are a foreign to them (Brock, 2010). Academic advisors should have the access to students and the right information to be able to assist students in this most essential function of collegiate life; however, factors like financial and human resources and student to advisor ratios are creating complexities that many advisors cannot be expected to overcome (McCusker & Osterlnad, 1979). Is there a solution to advising in community colleges, and how do we find it? Introduction Because course selection is essential to the process of beginning collegiate work, advisors are some of the first people students have been connected with on campus. Should that experience be positive, students will likely view the coming experiences with hope (McCusker & Osterlnad, 1979). Low funding has reduced the number of advisors available to create positive experiences for students as well as the resources with which to provide them. Students reported that feeling rushed or uncared for by their advisors as a reason to leave an institution, while feeling personally attended to was a reason to stay (Capps, 2012). Group advising tends to reduce cost, but it also reduces student experiences, so a balance must be struck to positively affect retention (McCusker & Osterlnad, 1979). Advisors are often blamed for the inaccurate information and poor results students at community colleges have received. Terms like cooling out, meaning an advisor pushes students to certain programs based on perceptions of the students academic abilities, have become part of commonly used language (Bahr, 2007, 705). However, research has shown no

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING evidence of academic advisor using cooling out techniques with low-preforming students (Bahr 2007). So how does higher education continue on from here? It is not the advisors faults that students are receiving inaccurate information, and there is likely not going to be a huge windfall of money provided to these institutions from the state governments to fund more advising staff. Higher education must take a step backward and redefine its goal for academic advisors. They serve a role larger than course registration and explaining timelines. Students need help understanding the larger purpose of curricula before they can independently prepare for and select their courses (White, 2013). The general answer to academic advising at community colleges is to help students, who are blinded by deadlines, families, and poverty, understand the greater purpose of education. This is a challenge. Successful Approaches to Advising Community College Students The following set of advising examples represent a wide variety of the programs that community colleges across the country have tried to better the success rates of their students. In thinking about solving a nation-wide issue, it is important to remember that each possibility explored is in some way tailored to a group of student on a particular campus. However there may be universally useful information to be gathered and applied to the lager issue of academic advising in community colleges. First Year Experience Courses

The faculty and staff at Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC) piloted a First Year Experience (FYE) program, in which students were put into full-time course schedules blocked with three general education courses and one course called Strategies for College Success (Cornell & Mosley, 2006, 23). The program was intended to teach students problem solving techniques within the larger campus community as well as success in developmental education

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING courses, and students who participated were grouped in cohorts that navigated the same set of courses together. After the first semester, students were no longer obligated to participate, but had the option to continue if they desired. Academic and career advisors were brought into the college success course to answer any questions and conduct advising during class time. The results showed that students were more satisfied, had higher persistence rates than their peers, and took responsibility for their learning earlier. While this type of FYE program could be used at any campus with adjustments to meet the needs of various student populations, it has significant limitations. Students with families, part-time students, or students with full-time jobs will likely not be able to participate in any cohort type of model, because it requires that their schedules match a whole class of other students schedules. At PVCC, they found that faculty across various disciplines did not often want to work closely enough together to achieve success in the program (Cornell & Mosley,

2006). The piece of this program that works well in helping academic advisors explain the value of big picture curricula, however, is the fact that they have a captive audience. PVCC managed to create a course for credit that is likely a GPA helper, so students do not mind taking it. They also managed to provide a space where campus resources can come and gain access to a captive group of students who are still engaged in the early parts of their education. Proactive Faculty Advisors At Atlantic Cape Community College, faculty in the Arts and Humanities department conducted a study to find out what the effects of faculty advising on students might be. The faculty researchers gathered lists of the students contact information for all those with declared programs of study in Arts and Humanities, and then sent post cards, emails, and phone calls to each of the students (McArthur, 2005). Even though there was already a Career and Academic

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING Planning Center in place to meet students advising needs, faculty members hoped to find out how personalized and proactive advising might be received by students. Both students within

the department and within the larger student body of the community college were surveyed after the campaign was finished. The results were that 66.7% of student within the Arts and Humanities department, who had been contacted by their faculty, valued their advising experiences while only 25.7% of the general student population, who had not been contacted, were happy with their advising. The biggest limitation of this option for advisors is finding faculty so motivated and with spare time to participate in such a large, time consuming project. The idea of using faculty to help advisor disseminate information is incredibly valuable. They have access to many more students than advisors do, and students often trust their faculty members in ways they may not trust their advisors. Pre and Post Transfer Advising To find out how student viewed advising before and after they transferred from a community college to a four-year institution, researchers sent our online surveys to seven community colleges and universities about the degree to which they valued 12 topics of advising (Allen, Smith, & Muuehleck, 2013). Students both pre and post-transfer were uninterested in advising that pertained to connecting student to campus activities or resources. Student pretransfer wanted advising mostly about what general education requirement to complete and what programs of study fit their needs and interests. Post-transfer students often felt lost on their new campus and needed advisors to know them individually and express attentiveness. While the researchers found many more interesting values students have before and after they transfer, these provide a picture of the most relevant needs they have for advisors. All

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING community college advisors should gather from this study that students who express interest in transferring need very individualized advisement. They need to know which general education classes to take that will transfer as the same course rather than for no or just elective credit at their next institution. They also need some career advising to coincide with their academic advising which will require collaborations. Additionally, faculty should have access to a list of their students that are intending to transfer in order to help assess their needs especially of academic progress in a course becomes an issue. The Noncognitive Questionnaire The research presented by Noonan, Sedlacek, and Veerasamy is related to how useful high school grades and grade point averages are in the admissions process. While this is not a relevant idea to our exploration of community college advising, they provided an in-depth look at a Noncognitive Questionnaire which measures the experiential and contextual intelligences of students (Noonan, Sedlacek, & Veerasamy, 2006, 465). This tool would be helpful for advisors, because it provided a more holistic picture of a students abilities than a grade point average can. When helping students pick majors it would be helpful to know what areas in which the student may be skilled or have higher likelihood of success. Intrusive Faculty Advising

Smith conducted a study that examined expectations students had of faculty advisors and expectations that faculty had of their students. He found that faculty view problems where students do not, and students are more concerned their personal barriers than faculty (Smith, 2007). For instance, faculty were concerned that student were not paying attention when they used their phones in class, but students felt they were still very connected to class. Instead students main concerns were about the issues that may have been occurring in their personal

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING lives. Smith also found that when faculty members were frustrated by the behavior of one student or a group of students, they were not as willing to participate in student support programs. This is important to academic advisors at community colleges who rely on assistance from faculty to disseminate information to students. Faculty and students must communicate issues and expectations to one another before faculty will be able to serve as impactful faculty advisors. Academic advisors must have an in-depth understanding of their colleges culture before trying to implement faculty advisement program. Advising in Classrooms

Nitecki (2011) conducted a study at Fairview Community College to find out why two of the academic programs yielded such high retention and graduation rates in comparison with the low rates found in the rest of the colleges programs. Faculty in these programs built academic and career advising into the curriculum for courses early in the program structure. Experiential education assignments and opportunities were also built in to help student gain a full picture of their chosen career path. Institutionally, this built solid relationships between the faculty and staff. For the students, it made timely integration possible increasing the students commitment to their major and ultimately their persistence and graduation rates. This offers community college advisors an example of resourcefulness. Every community college is different and serves a different population of students, but they all have program that are achieving higher rates or recognition. Examining the stand out programs to find out how students are so often successful in one program over another will help advisors create programing to better support the needs of students at their particular campus. This examination of leading academic programs should be the first step in any wide-ranging advisement changes.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING The Possible Solution

The intention of this presented possible solution is to offer community colleges a detailed advising option that still has the flexibility to be adapted to the community needs of each college. First year experiences courses are not fully applicable to every student in community colleges, but offering a college skills course that is required and a grade booster would be appealing to any student. The first step in solving advising issues will be to create a course primarily taught in face-to-face settings. To meet the needs on many community college students, night and online options should also be developed. The course should resemble the college skills courses developed for Paradise Valley Community College in that advisor visits should be written into the courses curriculum. In these sessions, advisors should take time to explain the holistic value of general and remedial education in the forms that their community college presents them. As White (2013) noted, students must have an appreciation and understanding of how the courses that make a curriculum fit together in order to have the self-efficacy and ability to successfully select course schedules independently. McArthur (2005) and Smith (2007) both noted the importance of faculty members participation in the advising process. Faculty members have significantly more contact with students than advisors, so it stands to reason that they would make great partners in the advisement process. However, faculty must understand the curriculum themselves and have positive, proactive attitudes toward the students of each class. They must be able to clearly communicate and meet expectations with the students and the advisors. Faculty must also have a willingness to reach out to student unprovoked. In other words, faculty members need to email or send mailings to students offering services even before students have expressed interest in faculty assistance. The college skills courses should be taught by faculty from a variety of

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disciplines who have devoted the time necessary to being proactive and intrusive with students in their first semester of collegiate work. During the first days of the course, each student should be assessed using the noncognitive variables presented in Noonan, Sedlacek, and Veerasamys questionnaire (2005). They should also be assessed on a variety of issues related to retention and advising such as intention to transfer, goals for attending the college, and housing status. The received information about each student should be shared only between the teaching faculty member and the visiting advisor for purposes of gathering necessary resources and providing adequate student support services. As Allen, Smith, and Muehleck (2013) found, student who intend to transfer have very specific interests when meeting with advisors that are different from students who are post transfer or not interested in the transfer process. The background information for each student will allow faculty and advisors to tailor advising sessions per student. At Fairview Community College, two of the academic programs were much more successful in graduation and retention of students than the rest of the college programs by integrating advising and experiential learning into the course work as assignments for each student (Nitecki, 2011). Experiences with campus and community resources connected academic work to the real life experiences students would have after graduation, helping them to better understand the purpose of their course work. Academic advisors should collaborate with career advisors and faculty to create impactful opportunities for students to experience their field of study through job shadowing, informational interviews, or online tools. Conclusion While there is no blanket solution to academic advising at community colleges, this college skills course is a place to start. The course will be taught by faculty who are engaged in

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING teaching the course as well as advising students. Each academic advisor will be charged with visiting and advising a certain number of the courses. That advisor will also work the faculty

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members to develop a plan for the course that meets the needs of the students as well as heavily integrates the services of academic advising. The plan will be developed from the information that will be gathered in noncognitive assessments of students aptitudes and abilities, as well as the students goals for the course and their time at the community college. Both the faculty and advisors will need to be proactive in reaching out to students as well as receptive to student needs that arise throughout the course. Students who are supporting families and completing training for the work force will have different needs than the first-time, first-year student that is trying to raise their GPA for purposes of transferring and completing a bachelors degree. After advisors and faculty have created the course, they will need to adapt the course plan for multiple formats. If the course is adjusted for an online format then there will need to be assignments in which students meet with academic advisors rather than advisors coming to class sessions. This means faculty will need a willingness to teach courses at night or online as well. Advisors and faculty will need to provide fully accessible office hours to meet the various needs of students. If we are truly here for the betterment of our students, it will be a necessary step. Developing a solution for community college academic advising across the nation is not a flexible project, but developing a flexible idea that incorporates the unique needs of various communities and research about successful programs may be a solution. As found in the presented research, institutions have often only tried meeting the needs of their community or looking for successful programs to replicate. It is the hope of this proposal that combining the two approaches will produce more positive results than we have previously seen.

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING References Allen, J. M., Smith, C. L., & Muehleck, J. K. (2013). What kinds of advising are important to

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community college pre- and posttransfer students? Community College Review, 41, 330345. doi:10.1177/0091552113505320 Bahr, Brock, T. (2010). Young adults and higher education: Barriers and breakthroughs to success. Future of Children, 20(1), 109-132. Retrieved from: [Link] ph&AN=49893067&site=ehost-live&scope=site Capps, R. (2012). Supporting adult-student persistence in community colleges. Change, 44(2), 38-44. doi:10.1080/00091383.2012.655218 Cornell, R. & Mosley, M. L. (2006). Intertwining college with real life: The community college first-year experience. Peer Review,8(3), 23-25. Retrieved from: [Link] ph&AN=21800705&site=ehost-live&scope=site McArthur, R. C. (2005). Faculty -- Based advising: An important factor in community college retention. Community College Review,32(4), 1-19. Retrieved from: [Link] ph&AN=17355902&site=ehost-live&scope=site McCusker, A., & Osterlund, B. L. (1979). Community college advising model. Personnel & Guidance Journal, 57(6), 319. Retrieved from: [Link] direct=true&db=aph&AN=6465479&site=ehost-live

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADVISING Nitecki, E. M. (2011). The power of the program: How the academic program can improve community college student success. Community College Review, 39(2), 98-120. doi:10.1177/0091552111404926 Noonan, B., Sedlacek, W., & Veerasamy, S. (2005). Employing noncognitive variables in admitting and advising community college students. Community College Journal of Research & Practice, 29, 463-469. doi:10.1080/10668920590934170 Smith, J. S. (2007). Using data to inform decisions: Intrusive faculty advising at a community college. Community College Journal of Research & Practice, 31, 813-831. doi:10.1080/10668920701375918 White, E. R. (2013). General education: An academic adviser's perspective. The Journal of General Education, 62(2-3), 137-143. doi: 10.1353/jge.2013.0011

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