Student comments on a recent national survey point to a central theme – the University’s advising process needs help.

The National Survey on Student Engagement asked nearly 1,000

freshmen and 1,000 seniors about different aspects of the University. Of the 280 write-in student comments, 30 responded negatively about advising.

The comments were from majors across campus, and some attacked specific advisers, the approval process or setbacks due to poor advising.

“The advisement in the dorms are terrible and the adviser has no idea how to help accordingly. She does not know what classes are useful, etc.,” one student wrote.

“Many people have had inept and clueless advisers who give bad advise or don’t know what they are talking about. This misinformation had caused lots of my friends to not graduate on time,” another wrote.

A third student put it simply:

“Advising is broken.”

The NSSE steering committee, a group of 14 faculty and administrators, decided to address advising because of the high number of comments.

Ann Crowther, associate vice president for instruction who has administrative oversight of undergraduate academic advising, spoke with the Academic Advising Coordinating Council during its November meeting.

“The Council had a good discussion about a variety of advising-related issues, including improving student understanding of what academic advising is and is not, informing students about resources for the many areas that constitute student academic services and suggesting possible changes to the Orientation schedule and program,” according to meeting minutes.