The end of each semester is a busy time for Wichita State’s academic advisers, with students trying to get advice and register for the next semester before classes fill up. 

Andrea Gartman, advising director for the College of Engineering, said her days during this season are often filled with back-to-back appointments.

“I’d say I meet with 12 students easily in a day,” Gartman said. “If (my schedule is) packed, it means other students can’t schedule.”

But advising services and availability vary across departments, as each school of study has its own unique advising requirements and methods. Some students have found that these variations, in addition to most advisers’ busy schedules, make it difficult — if not impossible — to book appointments toward the end of the semester. 

Student experiences and differences between departments

Each academic college has its own advising department, and each advising department has slight differences. For example, the Office of Online and Adult Learning employs advisers to help online students. In contrast, first-year and some international students receive advising through OneStop Student Services. 

Due to its unique accreditation, engineering is the only academic college that requires all students to attend advising appointments before registering for classes. 

Student Government Association Sen. Joseph Robertson said, as an engineering student, he’s had his fair share of trouble with advising.

After a family emergency forced him to cancel his appointment last fall, he said he was unable to schedule another meeting until late January to register for classes, a big problem in a rigorous program that requires many classes to be taken in a certain order.

“You have something like (with) me where stuff happens and that’s not the adviser’s fault,” he said. “She can only do so much with what she has, but she doesn’t have enough resources to have any latitude or for an emergency to happen.” 

“So for the caseloads of students — students that we have to fit in every semester — we split that caseload with faculty,” Gartman said. “So it’s not always academic advising from a professional adviser. It’s also from the faculty adviser … Most students have two advisers within the college.” 

Other differences between departments include the ratio of students to advisers, how students are divided up among advisers and whether the offices allows walk-ins. These can all affect students’ experiences. 

Meeting needs as enrollment climbs

Alicia Newell, the assistant vice president of Student Affairs, previously worked as an adviser in the College of Engineering. She said that over time, the university has needed to change its advising model to meet the needs of students, especially as enrollment increases. 

“We saw that there was definitely this increase of incoming students,” Newell said. “And that’s where we began to look at, ‘How do we support academic advising at Wichita State?’”

Newell said one part of that puzzle was creating first-year advising, housed under OneStop. Nearly all freshmen are required to enroll in this office.

The university also added success coaches, who work with students on things like study skills and procrastination, as well as coordinate with advisers and other student resources. 

Zachary Brown, director of advising for the Barton School of Business, said business students are divided by last name and assigned to an adviser. But they don’t necessarily have to see that adviser if another is available sooner or they prefer to meet with a different person. The Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) follows this model, too, according to LAS advising director Patricia Phillips. 

Phillips said LAS also takes walk-ins if students urgently need to see an adviser. 

“Every day we have a triage adviser so that one person in the office doesn’t have appointments,” she said. “So if somebody has an emergency, (like), ‘Oh, I was supposed to get a signature on this form,’ or ‘I need this ASAP for financial aid,’ or something like that, there’s always someone around if somebody needs to walk in and see somebody.”

Academic Adviser Feedback Act

SGA Sen. Joshua Mallard wrote a piece of legislation asking the university to look into how it might more effectively offer advising services, as well as how advising offices collect feedback from students. Mallard said he and the four other members of the SGA Academic Affairs committee worked on the legislation together.

In November, the Student Senate passed the resolution unanimously. But it was later vetoed by Student Body President Kylee Hower.

“I think President Hower just wanted more details, more proof of these things happening,” Vice President Matthew Phan said. “I’m not necessarily saying that we disagree with the resolution; (we) just (wanted) more evidence, more details for advisers.” 

Phan said despite the executive branch not approving the resolution, he’s been working with the Academic Affairs committee, as well as with university leadership and advising departments, to see if any changes can be made to improve students’ experiences with advising. 

Mallard expressed frustration that the resolution was vetoed. He said the legislation, which called for a survey of students about their experiences with advising, would go a step further than the surveys sent out to students after their advising appointments. 

The post-appointment surveys for LAS show students reported mostly positive experiences. 

“It was asking that the survey be sent out regardless of if you go (to advising) because there are seniors who have problems but they just sometimes don’t go to advising because of the fact that it’s not great, and they just try and figure it out themselves,” Mallard said.

Robertson said he understands why Hower vetoed the resolution but doesn’t think it was the right decision. 

“Maybe vetoing something because you can’t find any evidence of a thing is like, kind of chicken and the egg,” he said. “We need this to be able to tell whether or not we actually have an issue … I don’t know that it’s my favorite decision ever.” 

Working with advisers

Many advising directors said they recommend students sign up for an appointment as soon as possible after class lists become available in order to have the best chance of getting an appointment before registration begins. 

Gartman said she understands the frustration of not being able to make an appointment right away, but that some students also need to be more diligent about checking their communication and signing up as soon as possible.

“(I) love our students, but they’re not always checking emails very regularly, and they may email me like, ‘I really need to enroll, I can’t get released until I meet with you, but you have no appointments for two weeks,’” she said. “I can go find the email I sent them back in September letting them know, ‘You did get communication.’ So there’s a part where we have to all own it.”

Stevens said that at a recent College of Applied Studies meeting, the focus was on advising. She said the college had a student advisory board composed of students who shared their perspectives on the topic. Through this meeting, she identified an area where her department could improve. 

“One of the things that we heard was students weren’t familiar or forgot about using their degree audit,” Stevens said. “And so because we were helping so much, there’s times where we didn’t necessarily take the time to show, ‘Okay, remember, this is your degree audit. This is how to get to it.’” 

She said they have since implemented this into their appointments, allowing students to take the lead so advisers can make sure the students understand how to make their own schedules. 

Brown said he always recommends students look at their Degree Works audit prior to their advising appointment, and to check in whenever needed, not just before enrolling. 

“If you don’t have a degree plan, you know, check in with (your) … adviser to request one,” Brown said. “And sometimes those are the good things to make in … what we call our off-season type appointments, typically, February, early March, September, early October; that’s when our volume is the lightest.” 

The Degree Works audit can be found by logging into MyWSU. Under the “myClasses” tab, students can find the “View My Degree Evaluation/Audit” section and click on “Run My Degree Works Audit.”

Several advising directors said they also welcome student feedback, both through the post-appointment surveys and by contacting the advising office or their adviser. 

“If the students have an idea of how we can do something better, we’re willing to try it,” Phillips said. “The whole reason we exist is to help them.”