Ben Harding, a pre-business sophomore, made time in his schedule to book an early appointment with his academic adviser during the semester in order to avoid long waits that are a “pain in the butt,” as he put it.
“When I was a freshman and I tried to see [an adviser] toward the end in November, I had to wait hours,” said Harding. “It makes me feel bad for the advisers, because they are so swamped.”
Academic advisers like Susan Dobson, coordinator and adviser for the School of Accounting, has recently seen an influx of students sent her way. She isn’t able to help a lot of them because she’s one of the few advisers left at FAU.
The National Advising Association, an educational organization working with academic advising, recommends the ratio for students to advisers to be 300 to 1. But that’s not the case for FAU; the average ratio is 500 to 1.
According to Michael Armstrong, associate provost, he’s trying to fix the imbalance of the students to adviser ratio. As part of enrollment management, Armstrong has been attempting to convince the Board of Trustees to recognize the adviser shortage as an immediate issue.
At the Board of Trustees retreat on Sept. 22, Armstrong stressed the importance of increasing the number of advisers at FAU.
The Trustees are a governing body of the university appointed by the state governor. They’re responsible for hiring and firing the university president, who is responsible for hiring everyone else throughout departments. Armstrong told the Trustees that the adviser shortage is a result of three years of excessive budget cuts, which have resulted in some positions being eliminated and not being replaced.
“There have been serious budget reductions that have cut the university by more than $35 million; we have had to make certain decisions on what things would be protected. The guiding principal has been to protect the academic program,” said Armstrong.
Part of the reason for the shortage is because returning advisers are being encouraged to teach if they have the qualifications to do so in order to protect the core of teachers at FAU. According to Armstrong, when the advisers are reassigned into the classroom, the adviser roster is not being replenished.
According to Dobson, a lot of advising is done online, through e-mail or over the phone, not in time-consuming meetings, in order to deal with the shortage.
“We’ve kind of streamlined a lot of things to help us save time,” said Dobson. As a temporary solution, students are encouraged to seek out the answers to their questions within the FAU Web site or to speak to their adviser over the phone.
She stresses that these methods of advising are also more convenient to students with hectic schedules.
“More people are calling on the phone. I also do a lot of advising via e-mail now,” said Dobson.
When it’s necessary for a student to speak to an adviser in person, the wait isn’t too long, Armstrong claimed. In the worst case, students wait three weeks, but if the issue is urgent and needs to be resolved before the semester ends, students will be bumped up on the waiting list.
Dobson is usually able to see students within the same week of their request.
Armstrong said that the long-term solution to the shortage lies within the Board of Trustees. They’re also responsible for setting general policies for the university, such as budget approval and determining priorities within the budget. At a retreat, the Board of Trustees assesses the current state of the university, and determines a future path to fix the school’s weaknesses.
“One of the things that were pointed out to the Trustees [at the retreat] is that we have gone through serious budget reductions, which have come at a cost. [Advising is] one of the areas where we think it’s critical that we focus attention as soon as we have the capability. We’re not there yet; we’re not in the position to think we’re going to have new revenue anytime soon. But we’ve told the Trustees that that’s one of the areas we want to address,” Armstrong said.
There is hope that the advising shortage will turn around as the economy does, and that, as soon as the university starts seeing increased budgets, advising will be one of the first issues financially addressed.
“If we can go through a year with no more cuts, we can hope for a little more money next year. As soon as we can get to the point where we can get some more money, we’re saying to the Trustees, ‘This is something you need to think about,'” Armstrong said.
With better budgets, advisers won’t be endangered anymore.
Advising by the numbers
Ratios of students vs. advisers
The average ratio of students to advisers for colleges is 280:1, but not for FAU.
Freshman Advising – 424:1
College of Arts and Letters – 1,332:1
College of Science – 719:1
College of Business – 583:1
College of Education – 505:1
[Source: Edward E. Pratt, dean of undergraduate studies]
