Connecting the Dots

First in a three-part series on the “shared responsibility model” of advising in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LA&S)

Faculty advisors create an academic context for students

What’s distinctive about DePaul’s approach to student advising?

While the model for undergraduate advising varies by college or school, every student at DePaul can draw on multiple resources — faculty, academic affairs, student affairs, and staff counselors in some of the departments — to get information, gain perspective, and find the right level and type of support.  Each resource provides a different value to the student; working together, we provide more comprehensive advising than any one group could alone.

In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, we’re building liaison relationships among these resources to help ensure that students get useful, timely guidance at various points during their progress toward graduation. Now, if a student sitting with one type of advisor has a question best addressed by another, the answer is a simple phone call or referral away.  In this way, we’re collaborating to help each student “connect the dots” in his or her own education.

Students who enter LA&S “undeclared” are assigned a staff advisor in the Office of Academic Advising Support (OAAS), a relatively new resource housed jointly in LA&S and Academic Affairs.  These professional counselors act on the assumption that “undeclared” students benefit, first and foremost, from an “exploration of self” and only after that from a weighing of their academic options.  

Once a student declares a major he or she is assigned a faculty advisor. Also, in some of the departments in LA&S — the very large ones such as Political Science, English, and Psychology — resident staff advisors conduct intake conversations and advise the faculty on how to approach different types of problems.   

Within a major, the faculty advisor answers core questions: What’s the reasoning behind the course requirements? How do the courses within the major fit together? Why does DePaul structure a path of study in a particular way? Does the student have the fundamental academic skills to succeed in the major?  After an initial meeting, we try to coax the student back into the conversation at important points during his or her development, and each time the conversation changes.

The value that a faculty advisor brings to an undergraduate student is — at its most basic — an understanding of how to solve problems in a particular way; each advisor’s style tends to be shaped by his or her discipline. For example, faculty advisors in the English Department might listen for the student’s story, search out its plot and characters; they’ll offer academic advice based on their skills in deconstructing narrative.  An advisor in the Physics Department might follow a pre-test/post-test approach: “Let’s try one path, then recalibrate as necessary.”

At its best, faculty advising in any college or school extends learning beyond the classroom; the advisor might suggest a study abroad program or a special seminar hosted by a Chicago cultural institution with the intent of helping the student imagine a “bigger idea” of what constitutes an education. In making these recommendations, faculty advisors know from their own experiences in their academic disciplines how a student majoring in a field might benefit from the “extra” opportunity. They also might help students identify specialized internships and begin to network in their field.

Perhaps most important, while the overall goal of faculty advising might be to help the student become an independent adult, able to make his or her way in the working world, we also want students to become lifelong learners who continue to explore and enjoy the world of ideas long after graduation.

Advising is an important way that a student “connects the dots” and sees how or her personality, goals, ambitions, and interests coincide with the content, demands, and opportunities in a field of study. That’s why, over the last three years, the University’s administration has invested in advising — because strong advising is core to DePaul’s mission of helping students succeed, academically and personally, right now and for the rest of their lives.