Advisement working to make changes
Ben Garcia
Registration at MCC can sometimes be an unpleasant experience for those trying to get their schedules in order at the last minute.
To help alleviate some of the problems in the advisement office, MCC has taken a proactive step by creating a new position titled “Director of Advisement Services.”
Filling in this position is Deborah Hull who brings almost 24 years of experience in higher-education, 14 of them spent as an advisor at ASU.
In Hull’s office a sign reads “advising is teaching” and is an indication of MCC’s push to better align the institutions goals with the needs of students.
According to Hull, academic advising standards hang in the cubicle of every MCC advisor and it is her responsibility to ensure each and every advisor is preforming up to the standards set by MCC.
This list of academic advising standards, created about a year ago according to Barbara Boros interim dean of enrollment services, has sections titled “Provide an Education Completion Plan” and “Exemplify Service Excellence.”
Boros said this list of standards has been revised several times since its inception in order to adjust accordingly to new advisement policies and procedures which to this day continues to be refined.
In the works for advisors at MCC is a refresher training that is going to reteach some of the proper techniques of advisement and provide additional training on “how advisors are relaying information to students,” says Boros.
Regardless of possible misadvisement by an advisor, Hull said “ultimately it is the student’s responsibility to know what they are studying and to know what classes they should be in.”
Hull feels students should be comfortable enough to stop in and see an advisor anytime during the year, not just the first and last weeks of a semester.
One problem Hull noted in the advisement process is that students wait until it’s crunch time to see an advisor.
Hull believes this could hinder the ability of an advisor to fully understand the students wants and needs which is a major issue because, as she put it, “advisement is such a critical part of college.”
“We want to hear what the student has to say,” Boros said.
MCC will host an open forum in order to allow students to sound off with suggestions or identify problematic issues they encountered during the advisement process.
