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Beginning this fall, first-year students can use the myMiami Web portal to identify their first-year advisers and other staff assigned to support their needs. Other students will be able to take advantage of this new service later in the semester.
Advisers will also be able to use myMiami to see a list of students assigned to them as advisees. Providing this conduit for basic advising information is part of an ongoing process to enhance the connection between a student and his or her adviser.
Advising is recognized as a critical component for a student's academic success. To ensure that Miami's advising procedures meet student needs, university-wide committees were convened in 1997 and in 2001 to review the advising system and recommend improvements.
"When we talk to students, they are often highly critical of advising at Miami. They feel that as academic disciplines and work environments grow more complex, they do not have the guidance that they need to make the best course and career choices. By making bad course decisions, students dig themselves into academic holes that are hard to climb out of," says Richard Nault, vice president for student affairs.
A team consisting of Judith Delzell, Linda Dixon, Susan Mosley-Howard and Claudia Scott-Pavloff was asked to implement 10 improvements identified by the advising review. The committee's final report is posted on the student affairs Web site.
Some aspects of the team's work is visible and includes changes in the classifications of academic standing and new procedures to identify and advise students having academic difficulties. Other improvements have been made behind the scenes, such as intervention for first-year students on probation and increased communication with students via e-mail and the Web.
To ensure continuous improvement of the advising system, the advising implementation team has recommended the creation of a coordinating council for undergraduate university academic advising. The council will address coordinating the advising function and increasing cohesiveness and effectiveness across the university.
"I'm particularly encouraged by the important work of the advising implementation team. The team made the regulations clearer and found better ways to link students with good advisers. The new oversight group will insure that we build further on these reforms," Nault said.
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