Present: Chair Barbara Balko, Kevin Holloway, Deborah
Lycan, Michael Sexton, Dell Smith, Shannon Benfield-Blankenship,
Kristi Williams, Alicia Gilbert, and Sharon Barnes (secretary)
Absent: Greg Caldwell, Dale Holloway, Michael Ford, Glendi
Gaddis, and June Jones
Chair Barbara Balko opened the meeting at 3:10. The minutes of
December 9, 1998 were approved.
Subcommittee Reports
Kevin Holloway reported that the Academic Standing Subcommittee
had 108 student actions.
Barbara Balko reported that the Petitions and Waivers Subcommittee
met and dealt with the usual type of requests.
Deborah Lycan reported on the Honors and Awards Subcommittee. She
said the subcommittee of Cheney, Pamplin Corp and Mary Stuart Rogers
fellowships will meet Wednesday, February 24. The other subcommittee
for the Neeley and Trustee scholarships will meet Tuesday, March 2.
Both subcommittees have five faculty and one student member. The
second subcommittee also has some administrators as non-voting
members.
Wording for Latin Honors
Dell Smith submitted wording for recognition of Latin Honors in
the commencement program and also suggested wording for students who
wish to include Latin Honors in their resumés before official
determination. Dell said that the person's name would be on one line
and the honor on a separate line in the program. A minor change was
made.
The AAAS Committee approved wording.
Results of Academic Advising Surveys
Kristi Williams distributed the results of the New Student
Orientation surveys from first-year students. Most of the results
were at the midpoint (4-5 on a scale from 0-7). Kristi said the
results were a little higher than she expected, but Dell thought they
were a bit lower, or at best neutral. Deborah Lycan asked about
whether Kristi had determined the variance or standard deviation for
the advising survey scores. This number is important because it tells
us whether we have a score of 4-5 because everyone thinks we are
doing an average/mediocre job, or because half of the students think
we are doing an excellent job and the other half thinks we are doing
a terrible job. Kristi said that these numbers had not been
determined, but that the data was entered in a spreadsheet and could
be generated and that she would look into this.
Alicia Gilbert suggested that a survey of the same class be
administered the second semester of the sophomore year and compare it
to the current survey. She thinks the results will be lower at the
end of the sophomore year. Deborah Lycan said that the sciences get
majors earlier since they need to go through their classes in a
certain order. They don't do as much generalist advising. Kristi
expressed concern when a student adviser says, "I can't help you
because you are not majoring in my area." She said they should be
referred to other departments. Shannon Benfield-Blankenship wanted to
know if the students are asking the right questions.
Dell said that beginning next fall junior and senior students
couldn't register until they have declared a major.
Deborah said that when a student asks her about an overseas program,
she tells the student to go to the overseas office for information.
She also advises students to take introductory courses in areas they
are considering as their major. Dell said that one of the purposes in
first year advising is to get students connected with the college.
Alicia stated that in her almost four years at Lewis & Clark she
has not had a consistent professor/advisor connection. She said that
professors went on sabbatical and she never achieved connection with
any one person.
Michael Sexton read a comment on the survey, "My professor never
returns my call." He said if there is one, there must be others. The
problem is that advising is not rewarded. Good advisors volunteer
because they enjoy advising. Barbara Balko suggested including
advising as part of the community service requirement for faculty.
Deborah Lycan said some faculty took on a large number of advisees
and then found there was no time to adequately advise them all.
Dell Smith said there is informal and casual advising and there is
formal advising. Casual advising can happen in class and conversation
outside of class. Formal advising is a scheduled time between advisee
and advisor.
Michael Sexton said there seems to have been a culture change through
the years where the role and perception of advising has changed.
Dell asked, what goals should be set for group advising? What goals
are specific to individuals? June Jones contracts new faculty by
August 15, so a two-week period can be spent orienting them on the
classroom and advising [implemented August 15, 1998]. This
will be done each year with every new group of faculty that comes
in.
Kristi said there are not enough people when only tenure track
faculty are advisers. Alicia suggested brown bag workshops for
faculty on advising letting them know that advising has at least two
stages. The first step in advising is to sign the registration form.
The second step in advising is to get to know advisees
personally.
Deborah Lycan asked, "Is there a minimum level of responsibility that
should be required?" It was suggested to publish names of those who
are not returning calls or signing forms. Deborah said she would
rather have a system that rewards rather than punishes.
Kristi said that 60% of the students change their major once it is
declared.
Michael Sexton said we should be just as concerned about the
continuing students as well as the new incoming students. Alicia said
that we currently sell Lewis & Clark when recruiting and then
once the students are at the college, there is no continuing follow
through. Why not promote the college while they're here? Shannon
commented on the research pressure for junior faculty taking up a
great deal of their time. Kristi said that some schools have a class
with the professor in that class as the students' advisor.
Dell said that the time currently suggested for advising is 1/2 hour
for individual advising and two hours for group advising. He
expressed concern that expectations are unrealistic since there is
too small of an amount of time to get connected. Dell is a
group-advising advocate. He said group advising can take place in
many different places like in the home, at school, or elsewhere. The
purpose in advising is first to register, then at some point the
adviser should contact advisees inviting them to a brown bag seminar,
dinner, some gathering, or maybe there are other ways of
accomplishing that contact. Several years ago, advisors had tables in
Fields Dining Room with advisor names and the advisees would gather
there and then they all went to the department. We need to consider
what our real goal is.
Deborah said that maybe we need to look again at what our goals for
advising are. Should we be trying to connect to students in a
personal way, to their whole life, in freshman advising, or is the
goal more modest, to make sure they get the right academic advising,
so they can graduate on time and are working towards completing
college requirements and getting the courses they need to help them
decide what they want to major in? Lewis & Clark's current
faculty population may see their responsibilities to advising more in
the latter vein, more academic, and less personal.
Alicia said she was under the impression that because the
student/faculty ratio was advertised at 1/12 that students would get
to know the faculty. She has not found this to always be true.
Michael Sexton said that a student's making significant connection
with an adult at a college has been statistically proven to increase
chances of maintaining enrollment. He also said we need to continue
recruiting students after they are at Lewis & Clark. Michael
asked if advisers refer students to departments to talk with people
who do know the answers?
Dell asked if there is funding for having meals and other events with
advisees in order to establish connectivity.
Barbara Balko said the committee will continue with these ideas at
the next meeting. The next faculty meeting will be in March and this
committee will meet before then.
Registration Announcements Statement
Registrar Dell Smith posed the problem of students missing the
first class of the semester. Currently there is no policy and
practice is different between departments. What is appropriate at
L&C? The wording would state that students are expected to attend
the first class section -- if they must miss it, then they must
contact the professor or department. If they do not contact the
professor or department, then they will be dropped if they miss the
first class. If the AAAS Committee agrees with this, then they may
want to bring it up to the faculty as a whole. It could be published
in the Registration Announcements. This was brought up because when
classes are full and there is a waiting list, this gives students who
are on the waiting list a chance to get into the class.
Michael Sexton said that faculty meet almost every week beginning in
March.
Shannon is the chair of the Student Life Advisory Board Committee. He
will report to the AAAS Committee on the effects of large class sizes
on students and talk about issues of rentention.
Kevin Holloway asked if class sizes really make a difference? He
recently visited Connecticut College where their introductory classes
are 150 students or more. Seventy-five percent of our classes are 20
students or under.
The next AAAS Committee meetings are scheduled for Friday, February
26 at 2:00 p.m., Friday March 12 at 2:00 p.m. and Friday, April 16 at
2:00 p.m.
Meeting adjourned.