2008 Woodie Awards
SGA survey to determine effectiveness of advisers
By Jessica Rupell
Rocket Focus Editor
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: News
At Slippery Rock University, degree audit reports can be put away until fall scheduling, the master schedule no longer needs to be scanned hourly to look for class openings and professors can finally take their sign-up sheets for advisees.
Scheduling frustrations for the spring semester are over for now. Or are they?
For the students who struggled to find classes in their major that still had seats open, got no help from their advisers and have nothing more than liberal studies classes for the spring semester, is the frustration really gone?
Within the next few months, the Student Government Association Academic Affairs Committee intends to find out about student satisfaction with their advisers and class size by an e-mail survey.
Meghan Oefinger, the SGA vice president of academic affairs, said the SGA academic affairs committee has not done much in the past, and it has been a struggle to see what to work on.
"So we began to throw out ideas (about) what students are concerned about regarding academics and the topic of advisers came up," said Oefinger, a senior exercise science and psychology dual major. "It grew into a lengthy conversation but then we said, 'What are we going to do about it, though?'"
The Academic Affairs Committee originally planned to have the SGA senators conduct a Palm Pilot survey during common hour, but they scrapped that idea and now plan to do an e-mail survey that they hope to have out for students to take by the end of January.
The survey, which Oefinger said will probably consist of multiple-choice questions and at least one open-ended survey, will be used to see what problem areas, if any, exist in the advising process and will most likely offer an incentive to those who participate in it.
"We have concern advising isn't being done properly," Oefinger said.
Cathy Brinjak, the director of academic advisement and FYRST seminar, a course designed to teach freshman the basics of college life, said that while a previous e-mail survey regarding student satisfaction with academic advising has been sent out to freshmen and sophomores, the academic advisement department received a "pathetic" response, which Brinjak said is not uncommon for Web-based surveys.
Scheduling frustrations for the spring semester are over for now. Or are they?
For the students who struggled to find classes in their major that still had seats open, got no help from their advisers and have nothing more than liberal studies classes for the spring semester, is the frustration really gone?
Within the next few months, the Student Government Association Academic Affairs Committee intends to find out about student satisfaction with their advisers and class size by an e-mail survey.
Meghan Oefinger, the SGA vice president of academic affairs, said the SGA academic affairs committee has not done much in the past, and it has been a struggle to see what to work on.
"So we began to throw out ideas (about) what students are concerned about regarding academics and the topic of advisers came up," said Oefinger, a senior exercise science and psychology dual major. "It grew into a lengthy conversation but then we said, 'What are we going to do about it, though?'"
The Academic Affairs Committee originally planned to have the SGA senators conduct a Palm Pilot survey during common hour, but they scrapped that idea and now plan to do an e-mail survey that they hope to have out for students to take by the end of January.
The survey, which Oefinger said will probably consist of multiple-choice questions and at least one open-ended survey, will be used to see what problem areas, if any, exist in the advising process and will most likely offer an incentive to those who participate in it.
"We have concern advising isn't being done properly," Oefinger said.
Cathy Brinjak, the director of academic advisement and FYRST seminar, a course designed to teach freshman the basics of college life, said that while a previous e-mail survey regarding student satisfaction with academic advising has been sent out to freshmen and sophomores, the academic advisement department received a "pathetic" response, which Brinjak said is not uncommon for Web-based surveys.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Aly
posted 11/30/07 @ 7:56 AM EST
In my situation, I would disagree with the fact that advisors are not helpful. My advisor is amazing, he helps you find classes, he knows basically every class in the system and its course number and when they are provided, he goes through your DARS and figures out how many classes you need and when you will take what classes in order to graduate, i. (Continued…)
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