Update on NOVA’s Advising Redesign Efforts

Under the leadership of Dr. Michelle Brown-Nevers, vice president for enrollment management and student success, the Advising Redesign Committee is working diligently to ensure our advising model is comprehensive and student centered.

As the advising redesign progresses, there will be a series of updates in the Daily Flyer. While there are a total of nine subgroups, some of their work will be combined. The focus of this update is the Advising Calendar and Advising Assessment/Evaluation.

Advising Calendar: The purpose of the Advising Calendar subgroup is to develop an internal/external advising calendar to include Advising-100/101/Career-101, as well as events and activities throughout the year to be “future ready.”

Presently, we are tracking current events each month that may have impact on institutional decision-making, resource allocation, student processes and service delivery. The events are being documented on a spreadsheet to include dates, times, purpose of event, target audience and the event sponsor as a point of contact. Subgroup members were asked to populate the spreadsheet with the activities/events and the calendar cycles [seasons] for when these activities/events occur.

The subgroup determined that we will have a more formalized process for:

• Who reviews or gives approval for the event
• How are events promoted
• What are the protocols for requesting support from other departments

Advising Assessment/Evaluation: Identify goals to be used to create an assessment/evaluation plan to determine the success of the model and if it is achieving the goals of the redesign.

Academic Advising is considered a college resource and we track [assess] how students are making use of our advising centers and services to ensure they are having their designed impact. We also evaluate the types of early alerts and interventions to provide support to students in their experiences.

To assess and evaluate academic advising, the Council for the Advancement of Standards [CAS] in Higher Education states advising goals must be aligned with the institutional priorities and expectations; and advising programs should identify relevant and desirable development goals and Student Learning Outcomes (SLO’s) that are purposeful and holistic.

The subgroup determined that we will:

• Refer to the advising goals to identify priorities for assessment and evaluation, including formative and summative approaches
• Develop an assessment and evaluation plan to include data use, process improvements and key performance indicators

Submitted by:
Lynn Bowers, MA-Dean of Student Success, LBowers@nvcc.edu