Talking Stick - July/August 2008 - (Page 44)

Support System to have an advisor-on-call system in place. Because advisors are familiar with general strategies for academic success, are likely to be well informed about firstyear courses and assignments, and are familiar with the sources of academic support throughout campus, they are good referral agents and can be a major source of academic support for residential students. Embedding advising in the residence hall has been particularly effective for institutions like Prairie View A&M University in Texas and Iowa State University in Ames, which have adopted an “intrusive” approach to working with first-year students. Because advisors are stationed in the residence hall, they are in a good position to establish immediate contact when they learn from faculty or hall staff about student behavior or performance that seems troublesome. Even if the advisor does not have an office in the halls, a powerful support relationship can still develop. Advisors and residence hall staff share many ideas about working with college students, beginning with a developmental philosophy, and they are natural allies in supporting students to reach their goals. Advisors can be assigned to a residence hall, which often happens in learning communities, and this creates continuous communication between hall staff and advisors. Where the links are not as well defined as sharing a particular group of students, advisors and hall staff can still communicate and can collaborate on programming initiatives such as arranging advising meetings for registration procedures. For example, the residence hall is an ideal environment for introducing the life-skills approach that developmental academic advising theory advocates. This setting has great potential for supporting interaction between students and advisors. It also facilitates group advising in an environment where peer support is already built into the participants’ social structure. sid Re ence Hall Exper ien c e collaboration Peer Support Academic Support in Residence Halls com g munity learnin common features of residential academic support services at the University of Charleston in West Virginia is placed on a support list of at least five different people that includes faculty mentors, first-year mentors, advisors, resident assistants, faculty in the student’s academic discipline, and peer educators. When any member of this group observes any non-attendance or other problematic behaviors, they report it immediately. At Purchase College in New York, the campus uses upperclass “Lifeline” students to intervene quickly with other students and to report possible concerns to the Lifeline supervisor. At the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, the academic affairs and student affairs staff meet regularly and encourage early interventions in a “students can’t hide” environment. Many schools have grade deficiency warnings for first-year students. How these deficiency notices and other warnings are distributed is important. Many schools include the residence hall staff in the notification process, and that can add a significant dimension to the speed and effectiveness of the help. When the academic warning comes to the hall, a quick and focused response from staff is likely. While a faculty member may have just noted excessive absences, residence life staff may be able to identify behavior patterns that suggest an underlying cause for the absences. For example, if a student is showing signs of depression and spending an inordinate amount of time in the hall, he or she receives more than encouragement to return to class. The student is referred to counseling. Being able to address the underlying reason for the absence is more likely to support future success than merely warning students about too many absences. AcAdEmic AdviSing intERvEntionS At some institutions, academic advising offices are housed within residence halls. On other campuses, schedules are set for advisors to meet with groups at specified times during the week or Talking Stick

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talking Stick - July/August 2008

Talking Stick - July/August 2008 Contents Online Now Vision Just In Your ACUHO-I Transitions Res Life Facilities Business Calendar When Politics Come to Your Town Support System Conversations First Takes Reporting Out New Members Snapshot

Talking Stick - July/August 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.