Advisor’s Toolbox:  Promoting Student Engagement and Success

As new first-year students stare back at you from their seats in the classroom or your office, what new and different ways have you decided to try this year to encourage these students to strive for success and become involved in productive activities both in and out of the classroom.  In Promoting Student Success: What Advisors Can Do, D. Jason De Sousa examines the advising principles and practices at the 20 Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practice) colleges and universities.  These institutions participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement, as does OHIO (see results at www.ohiou.edu/instres/involve/index.html), and through the survey have been identified as having higher than predicted graduation rates and having “policies and practices for working with students of differing abilities and aspirations.”

De Sousa offers six practices that advisors may adopt to promote student success.

1. Adopt a talent development approach to advising.  To accomplish this advisors must meet students “where they are----academically, socially, and psychologically.”  Advisors need to really know their students, where they are from, how they learn, and what they need assistance with.  With this knowledge, advisors can challenge students to work beyond what they might be accustomed to doing and support them by referrals to on-campus services and positive feedback about the student’s efforts.
2. Think of advising as a tag team activity. Advisors get to know each other and develop contacts in student services offices, such as the Academic Advancement Center, the library, Career Services, etc. so that they know who best can help a particular student.
3. Help students map out a path to success.  Discuss with your students what they may want to do be doing at certain times to move towards their goals, such as dates for campus events, when to apply for a selective major, when to look for an internship, etc.
4. Focus on meaningful interactions with students. Early and often are the keys here.  Send a welcome email to new advisees at the start of each quarter, take students to lunch or coffee, develop mentoring relationships with your students.
5. Connect students to co-curricular learning opportunities.  Encourage students to become involved, both on and off campus.  Refer them to the Center for Community Service in Baker Center or to play intramurals or to a student organization related to their major.
6. Encourage students to seek out and learn from experiences with different forms of diversity.  Students, especially first-year students, do not always seek out activities in which they interact or engage with diverse people or ideas.  Encourage students to participate in a community service project in the region or attend at a cultural event, or discuss the benefits of study abroad.

De Sousa, D. J. (2005). Promoting student success: What advisors can do (Occasional Paper No. 11). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research.