Existing MIT Practices

At MIT the Office of Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming assigns academic advisors for first years. Most first year advisors team up with an associate advisor, an upperclassman, who brings an undergraduate's perspective to the advising process. First year students may choose from two different styles of advising, which they do over the summer through an online application:

1. Freshman advising seminars: available during the first term only, advising seminars are usually run by faculty who also serve as their first-year advisor. The seminars are academic in nature, cover a wide range of topics, and are small allowing students to interact more closely with their academic advisor. All advising seminars receive 6 units of credit and are P/D/F.
2. Traditional advising: students are assigned a faculty advisor whom they meet with one-on-one.

Once students declare their major at the end of their first year, they are assigned a faculty advisor within their departments.

Programs of Note

Programs where advising responsibilities are shared among diverse groups and constituencies: most of MIT’s peer institutions employ a shared model for delivering advising. However, some of these intuitions (ex: Stanford, Harvard and Princeton), go further than MIT in employing non-faculty groups in advising roles.

• Princeton: employs a shared model for delivering advising with residential and non-residential components. Each first year is assigned a faculty advisor that helps them select courses and meets with them informally. Sophomores might choose to stay with their first-year advisor or switch. Each residential college has dean and director of studies who oversees academic progress throughout the undergraduate years. The director of studies tends to work more closely with first years and sophomores while the dean focuses more on juniors and seniors. In addition, first years and sophomores are advised by peers through the Peer Academic Adviser network in each residential college. Once a student declares their major, their bulk of advising is handled within the departments although the residential advisor team continues to retain some advising responsibilities. Princeton also employs staff that specialize in various educational paths (ex: medical and law school) and experiences (fellowships, internships, etc.) and can advise on those experiences directly.
• Brown University: follows a shared model for delivering advising. All first years are assigned two advisors: an academic advisor (faculty or administrator) and a peer advisor (Meiklejohn advisor). The Meiklejon advisor program is substantial, with 350 peer advisors helping approximately 1,700 undergraduates transition into Brown both academically and socially. Additionally, all incoming students take an online workshop (1^st Year at Brown) aim to provide students with a common language and tools for building successful advising relationships.

Uses of technology to facilitate and enhance advising:

• UC Davis: in 2013 the university identified the need to improve academic advising as a top priority. The university hired 25 academic advisors across the colleges, established an Office of Academic Advising and designed an online advising platform, OASIS (Online Advising Student Information System), to improve and facilitate academic advising. Through OASIS students and advisors can make appointments, review academic records, make notes and track online forms and petitions. To provide consistent advising services, all academic advisors are required to take a four-session (12 hours total) training course, which help advisors develop communication skills and cultural awareness. In addition, the Office of Academic Advising offers additional opportunities for professional development: workshops, conferences, mentoring and coaching service and a certificate series for peer advisors.
• University of Michigan: built a personalized education platform called ECoach to assist all first-year students with course management. From their first interaction, ECoach provides students with a list of specific recommendations for achieving success in their courses based on student data. ECoach allows students to track their progress and provides students with personalized messages and resources. In particular, as exams approach, ECoach provides students with study strategies, and access to useful resources including access to libraries of past test questions and suggestions for which topics to focus based on students’ course performance.

Programs that help students navigate their undergraduate experience:

• Designing your Stanford: a 2-unit class that help students maximize what they get out of their undergraduate experience at Stanford. Using a design thinking approach, students explore the purpose of college, major selection, educational way finding and more. The class is offered to both first years and sophomores. Students meets once a week and are graded on credit/no credit.