Erin: So this video is an overview of 
how to conduct an advising session,

from both perspective of the faculty adviser and

the Student Success and Advising Office.

So, I'm Erin Baumgartner, currently
Director of General Education,

but also a Biology Faculty adviser.

Nikki: And I'm Nikki Weight. The Director
for Student Success and Advising.

Erin: So what we're going to do today,
is we're just going to walk you through,

sort of a basic advising session 
from beginning to end,

and share some of the associated
resources that go with that.

Now, if you're relatively new to advising,
you're going to have the opportunity

to kind of connect with Nikki's office
for some of their resources,

and we'll get to those in just a minute.

But first we're going to kind of
just start with the process

of how do you figure out who your advisees
are and how to connect with them.

So the easiest way to do that is
by going through the Portal,

and if you just click on Wolf Web,
you'll go to the Faculty Menu,

and your advisers menu, and then you can
just click on your Advisee Listing.

Now I'm not going to click on that right now, because I have some advisees in there

and their information is confidential, but this would basically bring up a list of my advisees.

And then what I normally do is, I simply
set up in Google Forms,

I'll make a little list of an advising schedule,

and what that's going to do is, I'll send 
out the Google Forms link to my advisees,

so that they can sign up for their advising time.

And then they can fill that in,
with the time that they want,

they can edit it online, 
they can make changes if they need to,

and it makes it really, really easy. They don't have to come in and see me to sign up.

They just have to do it on the Google Form.

Nikki: And then for Student Success and Advising,

for any students that come in for 
advising through our office,

we use the Wolf Connection System
for our advising appointments.

That is a feature that if you are
interested in utilizing,

we can connect our offices to see
about going to get this set up.

A benefit of Wolf Connection System for our office,

is that it allows us to track our notes in there.

It also is available if other advisers use WCS,

that they can see past history with a student.

But, having an online scheduling format is
really beneficial for students.

They can easily get in touch - they're 
not waiting to hear back from an email,

or trying to figure out when your office hours are if they're not in one of your classes,

so that way their time is set aside, so 
that we're able to focus on that student

when they come in for advising.

Erin: Ok. So at the beginning of an advising session, especially if I'm with a new student,

what I like to do is make sure that I 
have Degree Tracks up before they come in.

So, to get to Degree Tracks, you're still 
going to use the Advisers Menu,

and then you'll just select Degree Tracks,
it'll ask you for the term,

and then you'll go to Degree Tracks.

Now, we already have one set up. We 
have a simulated student account here.

So, what I would do is I would take
a look at this ahead of time,

I would look at where my students are.
And it'll tell me kind of where they are

with their academic standing and that's an
important thing to know.

And we're going to talk about what that means,
what those academic standing information means.

So I'm going to let Nikki say a 
little bit more about that.

Nikki: So, any student at Western that is not in good standing,

they could be on Academic Warning, 
Probation, Continued Probation

from a past semester, or they could 
be on Academic Suspension.

Any student that falls into 
one of these categories,

if you see that listed on Degree Tracks,
our office does advise them,

and work with them to make sure that any
challenges or barriers they're having,

that we're connecting with resources.

So I'm going to explain a little bit of
the process of what our office requires

of standing students, so if you see a 
student that is on warning or probation

or suspension, you can refer them 
to our office, but then also you can

check up and see how they're doing,
and see if they've connected with us,

and then we kind of try to loop 
that full circle to refer them

back to their assigned adviser.

A student is placed on Academic Warning

if their term GPA drops below a 2.0.
If they're on Academic Warning,

and the following term they continue to
have a term GPA of below a 2.0,

they move to Academic Probation,
and if that happens again,

they're placed on Suspension.

Students that have a Warning or Probation,
and their next term they get above a 2.0

GPA, are placed back in good standing, 
so you may see some fluctuation,

if they only take one class, or if
they took it over the summer,

it may change really quickly.
What happens if a student is placed

on Warning or Probation or Suspension, 
is that at the end of every term,

once grades have been submitted
to the Registrar's Office,

the Registrar's Office will send 
the official notification

to that student of what their
Academic Standing is and then

in that notification they are referred to
the Student Success and Advising Office.

We have two different tracks for students
that are in less than good standing,

just based on, how close they are to
reaching academic suspension.

Students on Warning have two options.
They can complete an online

Student Success Workshop, that
goes over what Warning is,

and what resources are available to them,
but also just refers them to our office.

Or they can just meet with an
Academic Success Adviser.

Those students who are on Academic 
Probation since it's their

second term below a 2.0, 
we want them to come and meet

with someone just to make sure that 
we're addressing what their needs are.

Students who are on Academic Warning or
Probation, they receive a registration

hold on the first day of the term or 
at some point after that email.

And that's just an incentive for them to 
come and actually do the workshop

or come and see us so that they know what it 
means for their standing

and resources to help them.

If students are placed on Academic 
Suspension, they actually have

to sit out for at least one term before 
being able to resume classes, and if

they happen to get a second Suspension,
that they're required to sit out a year.

Our office works with the students who 
are returning after that break.

They are required to take a Learning
Seminar class their first term back,

and that is taught by staff in 
Student Success and Advising.

Attached to this presentation on our
website, there will be a handout

with some helpful resources for doing
your first advising session.

In that resource, there'll be kind of a 
one page cheat sheet

for the Academic Standing flow chart, so
you can also refer to that for questions

on how Academic Standing works. Our 
biggest hope with Academic Standing is

that we're just getting the student connected
with all the appropriate resources

and helping them overcome whatever 
challenges they faced in dropping below

that GPA and helping them get back on track.

Erin: So, a good reason to be aware of where 
students are with their academic standing

is because that's part of 
the conversation I like to have

with them when they come in.

So, if this is a new advisee I will 
probably just start with getting to know

them a little bit better, 
asking them a few questions about,

sort of, what's, you know, what's brought them to college, what are their goals,

what are they hoping to get out of their time here,

and also to just kinda get 
a sense for who they are.

And then, at the same time, 
I'm gonna walk them through

the DegreeTracks system so that 
they know how to use it too.

So DegreeTracks, and this is really important,
the DegreeTracks is actually

the university's official record of the 
degree requirements for each student.

So if students want to see kind of where 
they are in their progress towards degree,

DegreeTracks is the best place to go.

The requirements in DegreeTracks align 
to the requirements in the catalog.

So if, for some reason, 
a program is looking to alter

what's in DegreeTracks, they need to do that

through the curriculum proposal process.

Of course, what that means is sometimes 
between years when there are program changes,

depending on the student's catalog year, which is gonna be listed here under their Catalog Term,

if they are--if the program requirements 
have changed and they're using

a different catalog term, 
those may be different in DegreeTracks.

So that's an important thing to be aware of.

The other thing to be aware of 
is that if a requirement is not marked

as complete in DegreeTracks, 
this little green check box here,

then it is not marked as complete 
in the Registrar's Office.

Sometimes people make 
a mistaken assumption that,

well it's not marked off in DegreeTracks 
but the Registrar's Office knows about it.

If it's not in Degree Tracks, it is a safe bet that

the Registrar's Office does not 
have it recorded as well.

The blue sort of squiggle here, 
what that shows is a degree requirement

that's in progress, and then if it's red
and not filled in then we know that

that requirement is not quite complete.

So those are things to sort of 
work students through.

Now sometimes it's necessary to make 
an exception or a substitution.

For example, if a student transfers something in,

so here we have some students who 
transferred in some biology classes,

these are articulated from Chemeketa, 
but let's imagine that a student transferred

something in from a college on the 
east coast where we don't have

an articulation agreement, 
if someone is making a substitution

or an exception to a requirement here 
that's usually a department head

or a division chair, somebody like that, 
that's gonna be noted in here as well,

so that is something that students can look for.

And so those can be made in DegreeTracks.

One thing to be aware of is that if 
an exception is entered in DegreeTracks,

it does not affect the prerequisites at registration,

so a student may still have to 
get that blue add/drop form signed

if they don't have a prerequisite, even though that is checked off in DegreeTracks.

So that is one little funny quirk there.

So, I like to go over kind of all 
of the basics of DegreeTracks

with students so that they know how 
to read this and interpret it, and then,

as we talk about their plans for the academic year,

what I will do is I will add notes in DegreeTracks,

and I just do that by adding a note.

You can choose a pre-defined note, 
but what I usually do is I like to kind of

do a custom note, and I might describe 
what the student, what classes

we talked about, if I recommended they 
take a placement test before next term,

something along those lines, 
and what's really great is I can always

go back to those notes, but so can the student,

so it's of course really important 
to remember that your student advisees

can see everything that you put in these notes.

So if they are frustrating you, 
maybe that's something

to write down some place else.

But the other thing that's nice 
here is if a student decides

to change their major, 
or change their advising plans,

then as they move forward, their new adviser will also have access to these notes.

Nikki: Just a note on the note section,

oftentimes there will come a situation 
in the future where a student

will look back and say, 
"Well my adviser told me A, B, and C",

and it's really helpful to have those 
notes written down at the time

so that it doesn't become a 
"he said, she said" scenario.

So I use notes, not only for you know, 
a resource for the student

and when they come back to meet with me, 
but also as we talked about

degree requirements and things they need 
to get done, like prerequisites

or specific graduation requirements,
that I can look back and say,

"Look on this date is when we 
discussed these requirements",

so that's recorded if it ever, 
a student ever tries to petition it

or question it down the road.

The thing I also like to do with the notes is, as

Erin mentioned, those introductory 
conversations asking about why

they're at Western, or what their career goals are,

the next time the student comes in 
I can review those notes before they come

in and ask them kind of a follow-up 
on our conversations from last time.

I get really funny reactions from students
when I do that because

they think I have this great memory, 
and that I just pulled that off

the top of my hat, but really I 
just pulled it from their notes,

but it really helps me keep that 
sense of connection with the students

as we move forward, that they really do 
feel like I care about what's going on

in their life, and I care about what 
they're doing with their degree,

and so as we move further along their degree path

and away from more of the new student,

where we have to go through this is
DegreeTracks, these are your generals,

these are your major requirements, 
and we move more into how do we

prepare you for graduation or graduate 
school or internships that we've developed

that rapport over time 
and we can kind of shift that focus.

DegreeTracks is a really great tool 
and my expectation when I advise

is early on I'll teach students 
very much how to use it,

but then over time I want them to be 
using it themselves and then coming to me

with questions, rather than just them 
assuming that I'm going to tell them.

One area I think that is not very obvious 
for students that I always

like to point out is right here at the top
of the screen where it has the

degree requirements, I think it's fairly 
straightforward to explain like

the check boxes and you haven't 
met these degrees,

but a lot of students aren't aware 
that you need 180 credits to graduate

and you have to have so many upper 
division credits and if they're a transfer

student they have to have 45 of their 
last credits at Western for that to count

and so they're not reaching 
graduation and having 11

elective credits to graduate, 
but their lower division electives

didn't count because they 
weren't the upper division.

So that's an area both Erin and I really
try to make sure students

are aware of very early on that's 
not kind of a checklist type.

The other feature of DegreeWorks, 
DegreeTracks, that I use fairly regularly

is over on the left-hand side 
there's this "What If" option.

This is really helpful if a student 
is not 100% sure if the major

they're currently in is the right fit, 
or if they want to add a minor,

and this allows them to add whatever 
changes they would wanna make

and see what their worksheet would 
look like under the new requirements.

Now in this test environment it 
doesn't let us pick the major or minor,

but what you would typically do, and 
the student is able to do this as well,

so usually I'll just show them how to do it 
and allow them to go and do it themselves

is under the "Select Additional Areas" 
under the primary--make sure you pick

the most recent academic year, 
and then under the major, select

the most recent one and then 
you can also add a minor or a concentration.

They'll show up under the chosen 
area of study drop list

and once they have shown up 
there you go back up

to the process "What If" button at the top.

And it will look the exact same as their 
current worksheet just with

the updated information, 
so the student will be able to see

how close they may be to 
finishing a minor in one area,

or how close they may be if they 
decide to switch majors so that

can be a really helpful feature if, 
or another option is if they're pre-major.

For example, if they're currently looking 
at going to pre-nursing but they

want to maybe have a backup degree 
like biology or something else,

you can do a What If for if they stay 
in your major that they have a plan

of what they should be working on 
while they're maybe pursuing

alternative plans at the same time.

Erin: Yeah, and this brings up a really good point.

One of the conversations I 
regularly have with students,

especially early in their degree process 
is oftentimes they will come in

and I will simply ask them you know, 
"How are things?

How are things going with your major right now?

Tell me a little about your classes."

And that gives us an opportunity 
to have some conversations,

especially when they start to recognize that maybe

they want to make a change to their major.

And that can be a really important conversation.

I find oftentimes students aren't 
always comfortable opening

that conversation because they 
mistakenly feel like they have to stay

committed to their major.

I have had several students worry 
that they would hurt my feelings

by wanting to change majors.

So by opening that conversation 
with them I think it gives them

an opportunity to kind of ask 
the questions that they need to ask,

and then we have the opportunity 
to investigate what happens when

we want to make a change to a major.

And so, the way to do that is the 
university Registrar's Office,

if you go to "Forms", there is a form, 
the "Major/Minor/Adviser Change Form"

which is a PDF.

I think I'm clicking the right button.

And so, this is an opportunity if students 
do decide they wanna change their major,

or add a minor, or perhaps they want 
to choose a different catalog year

because they want some, 
the major was just updated this year

and they wanna come in under those requirements.

This is the form that you use to do that.

It's really straightforward, it's 
form-fillable, put all the

student information up here, 
depending on what they're doing

you just mark all the intended changes.

Most frequently for me, that's a change of major.

Occasionally it's a change of catalog 
year, because I advise pre-biology

sometimes it's also a change of advisor.

And then you can make a note of what 
their major is, and then what happens

down here is this is going to be listed 
and signed by the advisor for the major

that they are switching into.

So if they come to see me because they 
want to switch into biology I would

complete this and sign off on it for them.

But if they are wanting to leave biology, 
I might get them--help them get started

with this, but ultimately they are going 
to need to go to whatever department

program is going to be taking them in.

And if you're not sure about that there's 
a really good way to find out,

and that's through the Student 
Success and Advising Office website,

and there's this advising contact sheet.

So let's imagine we wanted to find out 
who a student needed for biology,

it's got all the information, 
Cinda DeVoe is our academic

program administrator, 
we're gonna give her those forms to file.

But then we can see who all the 
different advisers are as well.

So, if for example, a student is 
interested in pre-med we'd wanna

make sure they go see Dr. Baltzley.

If they're not sure he would also 
be a good person to talk to because

he's the department head.

But let's say maybe a student 
is interested in botany,

that would be perhaps Dr. Howard.

So this gives you an opportunity 
to kind of help them so that

they're not chasing around 
all over campus.

This is a really helpful resource.

[Nikki]
And with the changing majors,

once the student has taken the new form 
to the correct department,

that department will assign the student 
an advisor and get the form

over to the Registrar's office so that 
the student's curriculum is changed

so that way their DegreeTracks 
shows up accurately.

Couple things of note with 
the change of major form

is I try to keep copies of them.

Often times if it doesn't make it 
from the department to the

Registrar's Office and the student 
is emailing saying,

"Why hasn't my DegreeTracks updated?"

Or they haven't been assigned 
to you as an advisee,

that can cause some frustration 
so keeping record of when that

was submitted so that you 
can quickly submit it again.

One thing to note is if the student 
is coming to you and they want to change

into your major, 
and they have an advising hold,

you may not be able to remove 
that hold right away.

One thing to note with 
Western Oregon University is we do

require every student every term 
to meet with their assigned

academic advisor so their changing majors 
and that assigned adviser changes

then that may require a little bit 
of emailing with their current advisor.

And Erin pulled up the advisor menu again 
and when you have a student you want

to remove a hold for you go 
to the same advisor menu,

instead of going to advisee listing you 
go to remove advisor hold

and they'll be a check box there you 
can select advisee's name and remove it

after you've met with them.

There is a search bar you can 
enter a student's information,

but if you get an error that says, "You 
do not have access to remove this hold",

that's because you haven't been 
assigned as the advisor yet,

then you can often times I'm just 
calling whoever their past advisor

was and just say, 
"We met.

We're changing their major. 
Can you remove the hold?"

On kind of that same note, 
if a student knows that their

current major is not a good fit, 
that they don't quite have a,

"What next?",
they're not necessarily need to stay

in their current major that 
is one of the resources the

Student Success and Advising Office 
provides at Western

is advising students who are exploratory.

And just in case you 
can't see it on the slide,

the website for Student Success 
and Advising is wou.edu/advising.

We have academic success advisors 
who are specifically focused on advising

exploratory students, and this is a big 
area that we wanna make sure students

know it's OK that students don't know 
what they wanna do yet.

We'd rather them start the process 
of exploring earlier and be OK with that

uncertainty so that they make a good 
decision, then staying in

the wrong major too long, 
and then maybe having it effect

their GPA because their classes 
didn't go very well,

or they get two years into a major 
and realize it's not a good fit.

So if any students are just not sure, 
they have questions definitely

having that conversation about 
why maybe it's not a good fit,

but then if they need to have further 
conversation that's outside the realm

of knowledge area and they don't 
have a direct area we welcome

them to come see an advisor in office.

We can actually change their major 
to "Exploratory" while their exploring

so they will have an 
assigned adviser in our office,

and we work very closely with various 
resources and opportunities on campus

and do training to really help these 
students have opportunities to explore,

so there are definitely is an area 
I encourage students to be willing

to explore and usually they end up 
doing better if they do that earlier.

So if you have any students 
that they're not doing well,

it's not a good fit, but they just don't 
really know what they wanna do

or what the next step would be, 
that is a great opportunity

for us to connect with our office.

[Erin]
However, at some point the students

are going to pick a major that's 
a good fit for them,

they're gonna stick with that major, 
and they're gonna approach

their graduation day.

So at that point, again, 
one of the things I wanna make sure

I do is I'm double checking that they have
all of their requirements checked off.

One of the things that's really 
nice especially as they get close

and we use DegreeTracks is if 
they want to, for example,

figure out remaining requirements 
like maybe I have a student

who still needs to take their PE 131 
they can check on this box

and it'll pop up and it'll tell them 
what the class is and it will give

them a historic record of when 
it has been offered.

So they're likely to see here, 
"Oh, this class

is offered pretty regularly. I shouldn't
have any trouble picking it up."

As opposed to a class that might 
not be offered all that regularly.

So that can be really handy.

The other thing that's great is that 
the Student Success and Advising Office

does provide guides to advising the 
liberal arts core curriculum so students

can look at those and see 
what classes they need, as well.

As the new general education program 
comes online we will have

similar guides to advising 
that particular program.

[Nikki]
And the current guide is included

in the handout on our website 
so that's attached with this presentation.

[Erin]
So, but in the meantime as students

get closer and closer they're going 
to want to prepare for graduation.

And the easiest way to do that 
is to send them back to the university

Registrar's Office website and there's 
this fantastic turn-by-turn steps

to graduation for undergraduate students.

So making sure that they're aware 
that two terms before their graduation

term they should be applying to graduate, 
reminding them to always double check

with their advisor's to make sure they 
have everything checked off

in DegreeTracks all the way up through 
what happens when they graduate.

So this is a very handy resource to share 
with students so that they know

what they need to be doing.

Depending on your program there 
may also be some test requirements.

For example, I advise students who 
are often times planning to apply

to the Master of Arts and Teaching 
program, and so they have some testing

requirements that they need to complete 
prior to application for that program.

So making sure that they're aware of all 
those little fun quirks that specific

to your academic program 
as they get closer

to graduation can be really helpful.

[Nikki]
And kind of on that same note with going

with a purpose of the advising appointment
is that really make sure students

are on track for graduation 
and not reaching their last year

and realizing that they're 
six credits short,

or they're missing a key requirement.

So a big portion of the advising 
appointment opportunity is reviewing

that DegreeTracks and seeing 
where they're missing areas.

But kind of the bigger scope of that 
advising appointment is getting them

a connection with campus and helping 
them be connected with resources.

The Student Success and Advising Office, 
we work as a resource for all students

in a lot of different areas, 
and so as you're meeting with students

that maybe they're struggling 
with a particular class,

or maybe they are having 
some things going on,

just to kind of make you aware 
of some of the other resources

that are available through our office, 
but not only that, through campus

in the handout that's attached 
to the website with this powerpoint

there is a list of common 
resources across campus.

Everything from helping students 
get more engaged, like through

Service Learning Career Development 
to maybe volunteer or career internships

and things like that to you know, 
Student Health and Counseling Center,

Office of Disability Services.

There's a pretty broad range of resources 
across campus that the advisor can

kind of serve as sort of the keychain 
so to speak as connecting those students

with those resources they 
may not know exist,

or may be hesitant to go 
and explore 'cause they're,

they don't know somebody there 
so someone can help make the introduction.

Student Success and Advising, 
couple areas that we offer is we do have,

we coordinate tutoring for some of 
the main general education opportunities.

There is a separate writing center, 
science center,

and computer science tutoring, 
as well as math tutoring,

so our office with tutoring focuses a lot 
on common general education classes.

We also offer a study skills 
tutoring option, so if a student

just wants help with time management 
or note-taking but they don't necessarily

have a specific class they're struggling 
with they can meet with a tutor for that.

They can also always meet with an 
academic success adviser to talk

about study skills and that type of thing.

We also have some resources 
on our website for students

who have any questions about tutoring, 
they can schedule it online through WCS,

the Wolf Connection System, 
or they can always just come

and contact our office and were located 
in the Advising Center on the south side

of the street across from the 
Werner University Center.

Another resource with our office 
is as students, and this for faculty

may apply also as you're teaching, 
if you have students that

you're concerned about, 
they're not showing up to class,

or they aren't turning in assignments, 
they aren't doing well on tests,

you can create an alert through the 
Wolf Connections System to say,

"We're concerned about this student", 
and the academic success advisors

in our office will reach out 
and make connections with that student

to see what challenges they're facing 
and help them get connected to campus.

Basically, whenever we can we're trying 
to give the student as many connections

to campus as possible to help them 
with being successful,

and the Wolf Connections System 
allows us to maybe know which students

to reach out a little bit sooner to try 
to help them overcome any obstacles

so that's another area 
that our office works with.

And then as I mentioned 
the academic standing, we also do

teach a student success class 
so if any students are interested

in really in-depth skills for learning 
how to be a better student

we teach a class in that area, as well.

[Erin]
So I think one of the things

that's important there as I often times 
wrap up an advising session with students

is I will also remind them while 
they are required to come

and see me during that advising week 
and I have an advising hold

that I can use to force them to do 
so they're not limited to that time.

They're always welcome to stop back by, 
to send me an email,

occasionally during registration, 
for example, a class they thought

they wanted to get into will be closed, 
they have a prerequisite error

because of that funny little quirk 
in DegreeTracks where a course

substitution won't sub out a prereq, 
so those kinds of things

occasionally come up after we've 
finished our advising conversation

for that term, so I like to make sure 
that they know the they're always

welcome to come back and ask questions.

And, in fact, they're not bothering me 
when they do that,

they're saving us both a lot of time 
and effort because when they self-advise,

if they make a mistake 
and something goes wrong,

it's a lot more challenging for me 
and for them to go back

and take care of that issue, 
whereas if they just ask

we can usually figure it out together.

[Nikki]
And a couple other helpful notes

with the advising holds that are placed 
on students is that those,

that's something that the 
Student Success and Advising Office

does facilitate that happens 
the 5th week of every term,

a student receives an email with, 
from our office that an advising hold

has been placed encouraging them 
to meet with their advisor.

And then a couple things to note 
with holds, often times students

will have multiple holds 
placed on their account.

They might have an advisor 
hold that's cleared by you,

but they might also have 
a hold from admissions,

or a hold for doing a 
sexual assault training,

or something from the business office, 
and so every time I'm meeting

with a student I also encourage them 
to look up their holds prior to

their registration time and make sure 
they contact the office that

placed the hold to get the hold resolved.

And often times those holds 
will be placed after the advising hold,

and so whenever I'm meeting with 
a student I always make sure to tell them,

"Check before you're 
registration time your holds",

and students can do that by logging 
into the WolfWeb and they'll be a student

and then student records 
and then a "View Holds" option.

And even doing that the day before they 
register or the week before

so that they're not caught 
off guard and emailing saying,

"Why didn't you remove my advisor hold?"

And we check and we did but they 
had some other holds placed on there,

so that's another thing I like to check 
when I'm meeting with students is to just

make them aware that there may be other 
holds and they should've received

emails about it, but in 
case they missed that to always check.

And then advising, another piece that 
I've seen faculty advisors do is to talk

to students about when they will register 
'cause it's assigned based

on how many credits, 
but it's broken down into several

different time slots based on 
they're day and so students

can see their registration 
time also in WolfWeb.

They receive an email about that 
so just letting the student to watch

for an email about their registration 
time, but also how to go into WolfWeb,

click on Student, click on Registration, 
and it will tell them

when their time ticket is.

So not trying to register the day of, 
that kind of leads into another just

with advising it helps students to kind 
of just be aware of important dates

and deadlines like maybe when the drop 
deadline is, when the add deadline is,

and all of that information can be found 
on the main Western page,

but also on the Registrar's Office page.

So a lot of advising is just helping 
students be aware of some

of those university policies and 
dates and deadlines so that

if they have concerns or challenges 
that they're able to take care of those

and not be emailing you the day 
after the withdraw deadline saying,

"I didn't know that there was a deadline."

And so those are just some resources 
to help with making students aware

of when you're meeting with them.

[Erin]
So those are sort of the basic things that

may come up during an advising session.

Every student is different so every 
advising session is different.

If you have questions, 
it's always good to talk to

the more experienced advisors 
in your department,

but just to reiterate the 
Student Success and Advising Office

is a wonderful resource that 
can be really, really helpful

in getting your students succeeding 
towards graduating as well.

[Nikki]
And I am always welcome to talk

with people one on one for strategies 
and we're hoping over time

to be able to get more and more 
resources put together to create kind

of a resource library for advisors so that
you don't have to try

to remember everything, 
you can refer back to it.

I do agree with Erin that if you 
have the opportunity to sit in

with a current faculty adviser, 
maybe someone who actually advised

some of the students you will be 
seeing to help with that transition,

that's a great training opportunity.

And just never being afraid to ask 
questions is one thing I've learned

with this university is everyone 
is very willing to help.

So rather than be unsure, feel free 
to reach out to the Registrar's Office,

Financial Aid, any of those areas just 
to try to help the student be bounced

around from office to office and get 
the resources from you as their advisor

and that there's a lot of 
resources available to help you,

so you don't feel like you have to know 
everything that you're not gonna reach

out to if you have questions.

If you have any suggestions for further 
training that you would like to see,

or discussions you would like to have 
as advising that is something

I would like to hear, so feel free 
to email me, my email is Weight,

W-E-I-G-H-T-N@wou.edu, or feel free
to come see me in the advising center.

[Erin]
And we wish you good success

with advising!