Monday, March 5, 2018 Marriott Downtown, Salon J This Isn’t Working: One Institution’s Revisioning of Exploratory Advising Heather Searcy, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Dana Saunders, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Monday, March 5, 2018 Marriott Downtown, Salon J

Who’s in the room? By a show of hands how many folks in the room work for a public institution? For a private institution? How many work in Enrollment Management? Academic Affairs? Student Affairs? Other units? Finally- how many work in academic advising? Work with Exploratory students in some capacity?

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Public, coeducational, doctoral-granting residential university 20,000 students (13,000 undergraduates) Over 100 undergraduate programs Student to faculty ratio is 20:1, average class size is 25 Undergraduate student body: Fall 2017 first-year cohort = 2,790 students 43% ethnic minorities 2016-2017 retention rate = 77.31% Decentralized academic advising model Celebrating our 125th anniversary! Most diverse in the UNC system Mention establishment of EM division and adoption of predictive modeling as part of substantive administrative change at UNCG

The Students First Office Established in Fall 2011 as UNCG’s academic one-stop-shop Academic Advising Academic Recovery Starfish EARLY ALERT Provides supplemental advising for any undergraduate student Serves as the centralized academic advising center for Exploratory majors since Fall 2012 Total # of Fall 2017 Exploratory majors = 553 Fall 2017 Exploratory first-year cohort = 350 Generalists for academic majors; Experts in academic policy 2016-2017: 3,347 unique students; 6,118 total student visits

Today’s Agenda The Historical Context for Undecided Students at UNCG The Call for Institutional Change SFO’s Exploratory Advising Model Outcomes and Success Metrics Challenges and Opportunities for Continued Development Questions

Exploratory Majors - A Historical Perspective Advising Model From 2004-2012: Assigned a faculty advisor in the College of Arts & Sciences Received advising identical to declared majors Designated as “Undecided” students Retention SWOT Team’s Findings - “By the Numbers” Identified as the group having the highest risk of attrition at UNCG Average Cohort Size = 223 Average retention = 74.1% (University average = 76%) Average Cumulative GPA = 2.45 % who declared a major by 30 hours = 45.8% Not trained in student development theory; not professional advisors EXP students divided among 5 faculty advisors as part of a larger advising load of declared students in their unit

“This isn’t working!”

Exploratory Advising Organization/ Infrastructure Programmatic Support Advising Models/ Theoretical Foundations

Goals of the *New* Exploratory Advising Model Drastically expand contact time students have with their assigned academic advisors Intentionally guide and support students to find academic majors that are the best fit based on students’ personal, academic, and career goals Actively promote an “advising as teaching” approach to academic advising through both developmental and appreciative advising practices

SFO’s Exploratory Advising Model 2 GPA Projection Reinforce Campus Resources Registration Advising Check Goal Progress Review Major Interests Schedule Development 1 Relationship Development Explore Interests, Strengths, & Skills Exploratory Planning Review Exploratory Advising Syllabus Teach Three Advising Tools Develop Plan for Exploration

Starfish EARLY ALERT Implemented university-wide in 2012 Allows instructors to raise flags and kudos to alert students and their “support network” of academic progress/challenges Coordinated outreach from Exploratory advisors to advisees throughout semester

Exploratory FFL 100: Exploring Self, World, and Future Partner with our New Student Transitions and First Year Experience office to coordinate Exploratory-specific first year transition course Taught by Exploratory advisors or campus partners with a special interest in working with Exploratory students Common components across all EXP FFL sections

Advisor/Instructor Partnership Model Advisors

Common Components of Syllabi Exploratory Planning meeting Strengths Finder assessment and correlating presentation by Career Coach Informational interview assignment Liberal Arts Advantage Video Series Personal Success Plan

UNCG Explorers Living Learning Community Students elect to live in Explorers community Located in on of UNCG’s largest first-year residence halls Students are assigned rooms on the same floor All students in the community are Exploratory majors and are enrolled in the same section of FFL 100, taught by the Coordinator for Residence Life of the building All students in the Explorers community are assigned to the same academic advisor Schedules advising hours in residence hall during peak advising times Same involvement in FFL class that I mentioned on the previous slide - periodically joins students in the classroom Challenges: enrollment in community, participation outside of the FFL classroom, responsible use of resources for size of community, little Housing and Residence Life staff support beyond CRL

Career Services Center Collaborations (Past and Present) Exploratory Road Trip The Liberal Arts Advantage Video Series Map It! Major and Career Maps UNCG’s Major/Minor Fair Explore It! Job Shadowing Program

Outcomes Exploratory Metric (Average) 2004-2011 2012-Present First-Year Cohort Size 223 Retention Rate 74.10 (76.00) Cumulative GPA 2.45 Major Declaration Rate (30 hours) 45.80% Major Declaration Rate (60 hours) *Not Tracked* 291 80.10 (77.15) 2.91 53.45% 71.71%

Challenges and Opportunities Moving Forward Advising Model Participation in Exploratory Planning meeting following first semester Development of and recruitment for Exploratory programming Refinement of the curriculum in Exploratory sections of FFL 100 Exploratory Student Profile Enrollment growth of Exploratory major first-year cohort Increasing number of first-year students with college credit Changes to University policy requiring major declaration Growing population of “transient” majors from other academic units Exploratory Planning participation declines in spring semesters. 2016-2017: 49.8% of our EXP advisees came in for Exploratory Planning compared to 34.9% in spring We will be the first to admit that we are not a programming office - so our partnerships across campus are critical to our programming efforts Student participation is often low...which is why our programming has changed so much over the years

Questions???

References Bloom, J.L., Hutson, B.L., & He, Ye. (2008). The Appreciative Advising Revolution. Stipes Publishing. Darling, R.A., & Woodside, M. (2007). The academic advisor as teaching: First-year tranisitons. In M.S. Hunter, B. McCalla-Wriggins, & E.R. White (Eds.), Academic advising: New insights for teaching and learning in the first year. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina. Hagen, P.L., & Jordan, P. (2008). Theoretical foundations of academic advising. In In V.N. Gordon, W.R. Habley, and T.J. Grites’ (Eds.), Academic Advising: A Comprehensive Handbook (2nd edition). San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Hunter, M.S., Henscheid, J., and Mouton, M. (2007). Collaborations beyond the advising office. In M.S. Hunter, B. McCalla-Wriggins, & E.R. White (Eds.), Academic advising: New insights for teaching and learning in the first year. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina. King, M.C. (2008). Organization of academic advising services. In V.N. Gordon, W.R. Habley, and T.J. Grites’ (Eds.), Academic Advising: A Comprehensive Handbook (2nd edition). San Francisco: Jossey Bass. McDonald, M., & Steele, G.E. (2007). Adapting learning theory to advising first-year undecided students. . In M.S. Hunter, B. McCalla-Wriggins, & E.R. White (Eds.), Academic advising: New insights for teaching and learning in the first year. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina. Nealy, M. (2005). Key to student retention—strong advising. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 22(14), 12. O’Banion, T. (1994). An academic advising model. NACADA Journal, 14(2), pp. 10-16. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2009). Undergraduate Studies Retention SWOT Team, Fall 2009 committee report. Greensboro, NC.

Heather Searcy Dana Saunders hakern2@uncg.edu dfsaunde@uncg.edu

Thank you for joining us today! Please remember to complete your online evaluation following the conference. See you in Los Angeles in 2019!