Students enter postsecondary institutions to change their lives in some way, with degree pursuits providing opportunities to grow academically, socially, and professionally. However, significant numbers of students are unable to meet the goals they had set for themselves when they entered college. Developed by the What Works Clearinghouse™ (WWC)…

Presents a nontechnical checklist to use in designing and implementing a computer-assisted academic advisement program. Discusses ideal capabilities of a computer-assisted advisement program and its benefits and potential for meeting advisement-related challenges of the future. (Author/LLL)

A tour of centralized university advising centers revealed that the busiest centers had done an excellent job of marketing themselves to their campus clientele. Factors affecting successful marketing include image, location, service, advertising, and innovative problem-solving. (MSE)

This article describes the evolution and design of a model for college academic advising program development in response to changing student needs and institutional pressures. The model demonstrates that the phases of development are interrelated, that direction and degree of change vary by program, and that every program has multifaceted…

Procedures for creating a guide to academic advising are outlined, including obtaining administrative commitment; clarifying responsibilities and chain of command; identifying general and specific objectives; developing content; organizing content; entering production; and revising. (MSE)

Quality Function Deployment, a set of concepts and tools used in manufacturing engineering to link consumer needs with product design, can also improve academic advising systems and processes. The technique promotes structured, logical examination of students' advising needs and their relationship to advising system design, processes, methods,…

Discusses the importance of academic advising to increase college student retention, graduation, and transfer in student-support-services programs designed for first-generation, low-income students and students with disabilities. An integrative, intrusive model of academic advising is defined, its benefits are outlined, and several successful…

Academic advising is a significant dimension of a campus-wide retention program, stimulating a positive, personalized student-teacher relationship. Components of an advising program emphasizing retention include: institutional commitment, faculty endorsement of advisor responsibilities, advisor training, advisor evaluation and recognition, peer…

Each semester in the 136 state-supported community colleges in California, counselors are involved in developing, maintaining, and/or revising hundreds of programs that may or may not result in helping students move efficiently through the system. Developed as a resource for administrators and counselors charged with improving community college…

Guidelines to enhancing the freshman year experience are presented in the following chapters: (1) "A Comprehensive Approach to Enhancing Freshman Success" (M. Lee Upcraft, John N. Gardner); (2) "Who Are Today's Freshmen?" (Arthur Levine); (3) "A Historical Look at the Freshman Year Experience" (John Orr Dwyer); (4) "Understanding Student…