Advising Your Students

When meeting with your advisees, it’s always a good idea to run a degree audit and review the Hope College Catalog and general education requirements. This provides our students reassurance they are on track for graduation.

Advising students before they declare a major

Most undeclared students are advised by their First Year Seminar (FYS) professor. FYS advisors support and challenge new students as they become familiar with college life and expectations.

Objectives for new students include:

• Discerning and articulating strengths and interests
• Evaluating whether major or career choices are coherent with strengths and interests
• Becoming familiar with resources (library, plus.hope.edu, Degree Works, etc.)
• Being introduced to the liberal arts
• Understanding general education requirements and goals
• Developing an accurate sense of the time and effort required for academic success
• Assuming responsibility for their own education and choices
• Learning how and why to associate with faculty in and out of class

The summer before they arrive, incoming first year students are asked to respond to several questions that serve as great points of conversation between them and you. Your advisees’ answers will be uploaded to your B-lite.

Asking questions and encouraging your advisees to reflect, as well as self-assess, should continue throughout the advising relationship.

Questions to ask newer students might include:

• What’s going well for you?
• What excites you? What do you always gravitate toward?
• Are there any goals that you bring with you to Hope?
• How are you changing as a result of your education?
• What extra-curricular activities would you like to be involved in?
• What’s been the most challenging academic situation you’ve faced? How did you deal with it?
• Are you working as hard as you can and stretching yourself to reach your goals?

Advising declared students in your department

Students sometimes assume that once they declare their majors, decisions are ended. Our job as major advisors is to encourage students to deepen their understanding of their gifts and abilities and to consider how they may be used in their life after Hope College.

Many of the questions for newer students (listed above) are valuable for declared students to consider. Other questions might include:

• What do you plan to do and be after Hope College? In 10 years?
• What skills and knowledge do you need in order to do what you plan? How can you acquire or enhance them?
• Can you articulate, orally and in writing, how your education and life has helped you develop the skills you need and employers want?
• What other experiences or activities (e.g., research, internship, volunteering, job shadow) can help test your strengths, interests and possible career direction?
• Have you met with staff in Boerigter Center or pre-health advisors to help you prepare for graduate or professional school and admissions testing? For job searching, interviews, resume creation, etc.?
• Are you getting to know professors and others well enough that you can ask for letters of recommendation?

Pre-registration advising

Helping students through the registration process can be challenging. We have a lot of resources to help you make the most of your pre-registration advising meetings.

When students meet with you about registration, they should be ready to discuss general education requirements for their degree program, their degree audit and course ideas from the class schedule or the Hope College Catalog. Students are also encouraged to use the Schedule Planner, which is a class scheduling tool. Advisors can also draft schedules for students or use it to give students ideas.

Keep in mind that some students may be doing this for the first time and need help finding or using these resources or selecting classes. Some may wonder what happens if a class they choose closes before they are able to register. Try to help them through these questions and give them suggestions for handling situations like this — planning for alternate courses, how the wait list process works, drop/add, etc. You can refer to the registration and schedules portion of our website for more details.

At the end of each meeting, check in with your advisee to make sure they understand their degree audit. They should feel confident with their course choices before you give them their registration PIN or signed registration form.

COURSE OVERRIDES

During pre-registration advising week, students may ask you, as the instructor of a course, for an override. You can use the Course Override form to submit information about the student and the course(s) to be overridden. This form should only be used by instructors or departmental chair/staff of the course, not students. The form can only be used for the following overrides:

• Permission-only courses (listed PERMISSION on the schedule)
• Prerequisites
• Corequisites
• Declared major/minor
• Class standing (junior, senior, etc.)

This form cannot be used to override class limits. It does not replace a drop/add slip. If a permission-only course becomes full, the student must add the class through the drop/add process, not via this form.

When we receive your override request, we will code the student in our system appropriately. This will allow the student to register themselves for the course(s) online in plus.hope.edu. It does not automatically register the student for the course(s).

WAIT LISTS

Online registration will remain open for an extended period of time, so wait lists will remain active. Instructors and departments assistants/chairs can see who is wait listed for their classes. Additionally, students can see that they are on the wait list in plus.hope.edu, but they will not be notified if a seat opens up. In order to maintain integrity of the wait list, no one will be able to add themselves to a class that has a wait list. We suggest that instructors refer to it before making decisions about who to give permission to add. However, it is ultimately up to the department to decide who gets added to a course with a wait list.

Sending appropriate messages

The words we use can help students understand what to expect from us and from themselves in the advising relationship.

• What do you think will happen if you don’t make any changes?
• I can suggest advantages and disadvantages, but the decision is yours.
• What can you do to break your challenges into manageable tasks?
• Have you spoken with your professor about your concern?
• You have lots of concerns and questions. What are you most concerned about?
• What brings you in today? (Put the focus/responsibility on the student more clearly than “How can I help you?”)

Making effective referrals

Though few of us have training in counseling, we can be an early warning system and direct advisees to appropriate resources.

If we have concerns about a student, we want to let the student know, “I’m concerned about you because… ” Because they feel comfortable and trust us, students may come to us with concerns. One of the most important and helpful things we can do is to listen and to summarize what we’ve heard so students know we’ve understood. Avoid, “Don’t worry,” or “That happens to many students,” or “It’ll get better.” Instead, express concern and ask if the student would like suggestions. We want to indicate that the decisions are the student’s, not ours.

When concerned about a student, but the student resists getting help, you can contact Counseling and Psychological Services for guidance. You can also contact advisors in the Registrar’s Office if there is an attendance concern or Student Development if you are concerned about the student’s wellness.