IPSE - Position Paper on Advising and Placement

Advising Theory

The two most common theories of advising are known as the developmental advising theory and the prescriptive advising theory. Prescriptive advising sees the advisor's role as primarily that of information giver. It assumes that all students are equally prepared for the work required of majors in a particular field and merely provides them with a list of courses needed to complete the program or degree. The burden of eliciting additional information falls on the student; the student's failure to elicit that information is often seen as evidence of the student's unreadiness for university-level work.

Developmental advising, on the other hand, sees the advisor's role as primarily that of an enabler. It assumes that each student is unique, with a particular level of preparedness academically, socially, and emotionally. Under this theory, seeks to assist in the development of the student's potentialities. The burden of providing information necessary to the student's success is accepted, initially, by the advisor; the student's inexperience with higher education suggests a need for the advisor to guide the student to reliable sources of information on a broad range of topics. The student's responsibility is to take advantage of information and guidance and become active in seeking it out.

Considering the very great diversity of Partnership students, the committee sees no alternative to requiring development advising as its approach.

Advising Responsibilities: Campus Coordinators and Learning Center Coordinators

Coordinators are in a position analogous to on-campus advisors of undecided students, having varied responsibilities:

1. to provide students with accurate, timely information about higher education in general
2. to provide students with accurate, timely information about distance education, in particular IPSE
3. to provide students with accurate, timely information about their home institution and its academic programs
4. to help each student ascertain his/her level of preparedness for higher education and guide the student to appropraite developmental education where needed
5. to help students select appropraite classes for which they are academically prepared
   1. to help undecided students select classes which will either fulfill general education requirements or provide an opportunity to explore a career field
   2. to help declared students select classes which will either fulfill general education requirements or meet the requirements of a particular major, and to help students establish relationships with advisors in their chosen majors
   3. to help non-degree-seeking students select classes which meet their particular needs
6. to help academically underprepared students find appropriate sources of developmental education

As Partnership students choose academic programs and majors, their academic advising needs change. They should at this point have access to advisors in their major. The Coordinators become facilitators of this advisor/advisee relationship.

Recommendations

1. Academic advising of Partnership students should be developmental in nature, rather than prescriptive.

2. Campus Coordinators and Learning Center Coordinators should be carefully and thoroughly trained, with frequent updates, and must be provided with printed materials from each Partnership institution to help them assist students with pre-enrollment advising.

3. The Partnership should designate a representative to take responsibility for designing training for Coordinators and for training those who deliver this training. This training should include administration and interpretation of placement testing. (See the Position Paper on Placement Testing.)

4. Each Coordinator should be provided with access to email and fax communication with all Partnership campuses.

5. Students determined to be academically underprepared for Partnership courses should be referred to the nearest ITSC campus, to Vincennes University, or to regional satellite campuses.

6. The Partnership must make provision for Partnership students to work with academic advisors at their home institution as soon as appropriate. This can be facilitated by email and fax through the Learning Centers; efforts to make optimum use of electronic communication technology as it develops will be in students' best interests in this as in other matters.

   The Partnership should require review of the transcript and records of all undecided students after each semester, to insure that degree-seeking students don't accumulate credit hours which do not lead toward any goal.