Advising at Syracuse University needs toimprove, as it is an integral part of the college experience and many students have expressed dissatisfaction with the services.

Undergraduates for a Better Education recently released its report on advising at SU, which showed that a majority of respondents were dissatisfied with these services. Some of the complaints included students having advisers in unrelated fields of study and alack of communication between advisers in different colleges.

Students should be provided an adviser according to their interests to ensure that their needs are met from the beginning. While advisers provide necessary insight for students, it’s best for a student if his or her adviser is a professional in the same field the student is interested in. In some colleges, freshman forum professors are also students’ advisers. While these professors can get to know their students well, it doesn’t always mean they will be adequate advisers for them academically.

Faculty advisers are also often unaware of a student’s academic needs, including requirements for graduation such as credits, courses and electives. To address that, there should be more professional advisers, so faculty advisers can manage career advice and foster a relationship with students while professional advisers handle academic affairs.

Currently, many advisers lack knowledge about other curriculums. This especially affects dual majors.Advisers should be well-versed in schools across the entire campus, instead of just their respective schools. This would save students both confusion and time, as they would only speak with one adviser for academic concerns.

SU should also createa system of accountability for advisers. Although the report shows that students feel they have dealt with unsatisfactory advisers in past, there is no official avenue for complaints.There should be an evaluation system adopted similar to those used for professors and teaching assistants.

Creating a system like this would allow students to voice their complaints and opinions to the administrators, who have the ability to change or remove ineffective advisers. It would also provide a way to hold advisers accountable, in the hopes they would improve.

Advising is an important aspect for college students, especially for inexperienced freshmen who are new to this campus. Students should not have to leave an adviser’s office with more questions than they came in with. By creating a system of accountability and improving communication between advisers and students, SU can start to fix this issue.

Published on April 24, 2014 at 1:00 am