Establishing an Advising Presence in Residence Life NACADA Region 4 Miami 2012

1. ESTABLISHING AN
ADVISING PRESENCE
IN RESIDENCE LIFE
Working Together to Encourage Academic
Success

2. Welcome!
Aparna Saini, M.S. Stephanie Lang, M.A.
Senior Academic Advisor Senior Academic Advisor

3. Academic Advising Center
 Advising for freshmen and most sophomores
 General education and lower division
requirements
19 Central 11 Bridge
Advisors Advisors
located in main housed in 8
office colleges

4. Goals of Session
 Understand the unique needs of housing students
 Discuss programs and services to meet the needs
of housing students from an Academic Advising
perspective
 Be better able to integrate Academic Advising into
a Student Affairs setting
 Recognize the successes and challenges of
establishing and maintaining relationships
between an Academic Advising Center and
University Housing
 Discuss strategies to publicize services and
programs to the housing community

5. Florida International University
 Located in Miami, FL
 4 year public research university
 46,000 students
 Hispanic-serving institution
 Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral programs

6. Student Demographics
Asian or
Pacific
Islander Other Asian or
4% 7% Pacific
Islander Other Hispanic
African
7% 7% 19%
America
n
13%
Hispanic White
White 61% Non-
Non- African
Hispanic
Hispanic America
23%
15% n
13%
Total Population On-Campus Residents

7. Student Demographics
Graduates
Number of 8%
students
living on
Seniors
campus: 16% Freshmen
37%
2,700
Juniors
22%
Sophomores
Classification 17%

8. Recent Findings
 According to the National Survey of Student
Engagement annual report (2007):
 Students will gravitate toward what they view as
comfortable and convenient
 Conditions must be intentionally structured and
promoted for students to take advantage of them

9. Needs of Housing Students
 In order for students to be academically
successful, students need a support network

10. Our Goals
 Outreach to an already established population
 Create an environment where students feel
comfortable
 Provide more accessible services
How can we achieve this?
In addition to the central academic advising
office, we integrated ourselves into the
Academic Resource Center located in University
Housing & Residence Life.

11. Academic Resource Center
 A structured and convenient environment
for students located within housing
 Provides:
 Tutoring
from peer mentors
 Academic Advising
 1:1advising
 Academic workshops
 Collaboration w/ First-Year Librarian

12. ARC Peak Times
Monday-Wednesday 5-8pm & Thursday 1-4pm

13. Number of Students
 Spring 2011: 75 students
 Fall 2011: 65 students
 Spring 2012 (as of March 8th):15 students
ARC Advising Numbers
80
60
40
20
0
Spring 2011 Fall 2011

14. Marketing
 Tabling
 InResidence Halls
 Campus-wide
 Postcards/posters
 Orientation
 Facebook
 RAs
 Academic Programming
 Advising sessions

15. Integration of Academic
Advising
1. Identify existing population of students
2. Current resources
3. Avenues that are available to bring Academic
Advising to these students
4. Collaboration with department to establish
goals or outcomes before initiating services
5. Brainstorm strategies on how to meet and
implement goals
6. Review and evaluate the results

16. Breakout
In groups of 2-3, please discuss the following:
 How has your institution adapted Academic
Advising in your Residence Halls, or how do
you see this adapting to your institution?
 What are some possible challenges?
 What is the most important component to this
type of program?

17. Challenges
 Privacy of Housing information on students
 Marketing constraints
 Poster locations
 Door-to-door
 Mailbox fliers
 Lack of support and buy-in by residence life

18. Benefits
 Outreach to greater number of students
 Specified advising for housing population
 Convenience
 Flexible hours
 Comfortable environment
 Accessibility of Advisors

19. Moving Forward
 Evaluation
 Marketing/Outreach
# of students
 Peak times
 Workshop topics
 “In house” Academic Advisor

20. References
 Dalton, J. & Crosby, P. (2008). Challenging
college students to learn in campus cultures
of comfort, convenience and complacency.
Journal of College and Character. 9(3), 1-
5.
 National Survey of Student Engagement.
(2007). Experiences That Matter: Enhancing
Student Learning and Success—annual
results 2007. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Center for Postsecondary
Research.

21. Thank You!