(153b) Putting Students First: Building Quality Academic Advising from the Ground up

Academic advising is an incredibly important part of an undergraduate student’s experience and contributes strongly to their success. There are numerous models for schools and departments to consider, including faculty-based advising, professional staff-based advising, and hybrid models that combine elements of both. As enrollments in many engineering programs grow and engineering becomes more multidisciplinary, programs need to consider how to best meet the advising needs of their students. Many see academic advising as focused on coursework or other purely academic topics, but advisors also counsel students on their professional development, career choices, and in many cases, personal lives as well. As such, developing a skill set that treats students more holistically and also allows the advisor to connect students to other resources on campus is imperative. In this presentation, we discuss the best practices we have observed and built as the director and associate director of advising at a large, public, R1 engineering program, where we have focused on student success, student self-actualization and agency, and building collaborations with faculty in the school and with resources across the university.