Advising Guidelines

Advising is an opportunity to make a diﬀerence in studentsʼ lives.

Advisor System

ICU employs an advisor system in which all students are assigned faculty advisors. In general, this faculty member will continue to serve as a studentʼs academic advisor until the end of his/her third year.

For more information on the Advisor System, please make use of ehandbook.

Academic Planning

The mission of the College of Liberal Arts is to cultivate men and women who can think for themselves and play responsible roles in global society. The universityʼs emphasis on the liberal arts aims at the education of the whole person. Members of the faculty are expected to provide professional and caring advice for each student in areas of academic, vocational, and personal planning. A major goal of ICUʼs advisor-advisee system is to encourage students to take an active role in developing their own academic program. Advisors help students to become “intentional learners,” able to make informed decisions about their individual academic program. Below are some guidelines to help achieve these goals:

Advising on Registration Day

1. On Registration Day all students must visit their advisors to get approval for course selections for the new term. Advisors should be in their oﬃces from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Advisors should ask students to reﬂect on what they learned in the previous term and how that experience relates to their overall study plan. If students do not have a long-range study plan, encourage them to develop one. Furthermore, ask students to explain how their particular selection of courses for the new term ﬁts in with an overall plan. On the one hand, students should be encouraged to explore different ﬁelds of interest, but at the same time students should be continually urged to add coherence to their overall educational experience.

*Students write their Academic Planning Essays for reﬂection of their academic progress. The Essays are archived electronically in icuMAP. Please read your adviseesʼ essays and make use of them for advising on Registration Day.

2. Pay attention to regulations on the maximum number of units allowed, and to the deadline for the Registration Change Period. Especially the students with a GPA of less than 2.0 require special attention and should not be allowed to register for more than the normal course load. Since it is impossible to add or drop courses after the deadline, advisors should warn students of the consequences of failing to follow instructions and meet ﬁxed deadlines.

Please refer to ehandbook for more details about the normal course load and the Registration Change Period.

3. Pay attention to the studentʼs grades and state of health, and consider adjusting the number of courses or units accordingly. In cases where a studentʼs GPA is less than 1.00 for three consecutive terms, or in four terms overall, the student may be subject to dismissal. Please talk with the students carefully and try to discover the cause of the poor grades. In some cases, it may be necessary to encourage the student to visit the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), Counseling Center, Health Care Office, etc.

4. If the student requires advice about taking courses in an area outside the advisorʼs expertise, be sure to introduce the student to a suitable faculty member in that ﬁeld of specialization. Make a telephone call and set up an appointment as soon as possible.

5. Since time is limited on Registration Day, encourage students with problems or questions to come back in the near future for further discussion. Instead of giving students an open invitation (“Come and see me sometime”), make an appointment to see the student at a speciﬁc time and place.

* Advising “Low Grader (LG)” students: Part of an advisor’s role is to provide assistance and to be the first point of contact for students receiving poor grades. CTL is able to support them as well. If one of your advisees becomes an LG, is not an LG but is close to becoming one, had a sudden drop in GPA, or requires support in any way, we ask that you spend some time advising and listening to the student on Registration Day in order to get an idea of the problems that the student may be facing. we recommend that you read the essays that the student wrote. These essays can be found on icuMAP.

For the definition of “Low Grader (LG), please refer to the link . (Educational Affairs Group)

Advising

Advisors are encouraged to become familiar with the “Core Values of Academic Advising” devised by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) in the U.S.

These “core values” are designed to guide professional practice and remind advisors of their responsibilities to students, colleagues, institutions, society, and themselves. There is an article about the Academic Planning Support, which provides students who enter under the major system with current and comprehensive information regarding majors, please click here.

Dealing with Personal Problems

Advisors are encouraged to express an interest in studentsʼ academic and non-academic concerns. Always show respect and understanding in helping students discover their learning goals and in dealing with the myriad problems young people in their late teens and early twenties encounter in the process of maturing into independent adults. Watch carefully for signs of depression or other psychological or health problems and encourage students with problems to visit the University Counseling Center or Health Care Office. If students agree, call and make an appointment for them. A better outcome can often be expected if psychological problems are identiﬁed and addressed in their early stages. Naturally, advisors should not act beyond their level of competency; when in doubt, consult professionals at the Counseling Center or at Health Care Office. As issues of privacy are involved, advisors should be careful with forms of communication.

Communicating with Parents and Guarantors

It may be necessary to consult with a studentʼs parents if they so desire, or to contact a studentʼs parents or guarantor as the occasion demands. In such cases, be careful to respect the studentʼs rights for conﬁdentiality. Advisors should obtain the studentʼs permission before discussing sensitive issues.

Office Hours

Faculty members are urged to designate two hours each week as “Office Hours,” during which time the advisor is available for advisees. Especially during the Late Registration Period and the Registration Change Period, advisors are requested to be available for advice and signatures. Students may also require the signature of their advisor when applying for leave of absence, withdrawal from school, and re-admission. When an advisor is absent at a time when a signature is needed, the Department Chair may in exceptional cases assume the role of the advisor.

Please make sure to update your office hour from the following URL when there is a change.

https://campus.icu.ac.jp/icumap/InstructorTop.aspx

Letters of Recommendation

Advisors are expected to provide letters of recommendation for scholarships, study abroad, employment, and graduate school applications. Interview students applying for letters of recommendation in order to include speciﬁc and relevant information in the letters. Under no circumstances should faculty members request students to write their own letters of recommendation. Please remind students that they should ﬁrst consult the Placement Group when they request letters of recommendation for employment. Students must also be informed that they need to allow a reasonable amount of time for letters of recommendation to be prepared.