人妻少妇专区

In Review

Students who once saved existential questions for philosophy class are increasingly asking them in places such as the College Center for Advising Services.

The paths leading to the center鈥檚 home at 312 Lattimore Hall are among the most well trod on the River 人妻少妇专区. In its labyrinth of rooms, as well as in nearby corridors, a team of more than 20 professional academic advisors help students on matters from the mundane鈥攕hould I take this class on the S/F option?鈥攖o the fundamental鈥攊s this major, these plans, these ideas I鈥檝e adopted, really who I am?

The center, known by its acronym CCAS, sits at the hub of a network of offices staffed with professionals who work collaboratively to help college students take advantage of opportunities they might not know about, and to get assistance when they need it. (You can find a list of them on the Web at Rochester.edu/studentlife/services.html.) During the 2015鈥�16 academic year, CCAS advisors held more than 5,000 face-to-face meetings with students, and responded to thousands more e鈥搈ail and telephone queries from students, faculty, and other University staff.

Marcy Kraus is the director of the center as well as the dean of freshmen. The parent of an alumnus herself (her daughter, Leah, graduated in 2009), Kraus has worked in CCAS advising students since 1999. Her training includes a doctorate in psychology, which is fitting, considering that students will often approach academic advisors with complex personal problems.

鈥淭he range of concerns that students bring to us are much greater,鈥� she says, than in previous generations. 鈥淪tudents have health issues, mental health issues, family and personal concerns, and a lot of financial concerns.鈥�

In some ways, the skills of a good advisor are similar to those of a good clinician. In addition to knowing the academic rules of the College and the resources available to students, a good advisor, according to Kraus, 鈥渋s able to listen without judgment, demonstrate empathy, and recognize how to effectively help students who are struggling with difficult situations.鈥�

Kraus took over leadership of CCAS in 2009, after founding director Suzanne O鈥橞rien took on other roles as associate dean of the College. O鈥橞rien retired from the University this summer (see 鈥淔arewell, and Meliora,鈥� facing page), leaving her position as associate dean to Alan Czaplicki, and endowing her former position at CCAS. Later this fall, Kraus will assume the title of Suzanne Jagel O鈥橞rien Director of the College Center for Advising Services.

O鈥橞rien began advising students in the early 1970s, working with Miriam (Mim) Rock 鈥�42, then an assistant to the dean. When O鈥橞rien was named the first director of a newly formed academic advising office, among her early actions was successfully petitioning to change the classification of the academic advisor position from secretarial to professional. Professional academic advising was relatively new at the time, though, and not everyone was sold on the idea.

鈥淔aculty in general were very skeptical of staff people鈥攈umph!鈥攄oing advising,鈥� says O鈥橞rien. 鈥淲e worked very hard to establish the advising office as a place where students and faculty alike could get reliable, accurate, and useful information, always based on the rules set by the faculty.鈥�

Attitudes have changed starkly since then. 鈥淭he expectation now is that professional advisors know how to do the job, and the faculty contact the advisors to find out what the rules are,鈥� she says.

There have been additional changes, both in the student population and in students鈥� approach to their education. While the center鈥檚 advisors have long made meeting the needs of underrepresented minority students a priority鈥攚orking with staff in the Office of Minority Student Affairs to do so鈥攄iversity has increased more recently in other categories, such as international students, to name just one.

鈥淭he advising staff has grown because we鈥檝e been asked to take on a greater level of responsibility for individual populations of students,鈥� Kraus says. In working with an increasingly multicultural student body, advisors need what she calls 鈥渃ultural competence,鈥� while also guarding against assumptions about individual students that are based on broad demographic data.

Undergraduates also worry about their career prospects. That鈥檚 not necessarily new, but Kraus notes that students are taking on more significant levels of debt than in the past. Understandably, she says, they want to choose majors they鈥檙e confident will pay off. Widely held assumptions about particular majors, however, often are not supported by data or by the experiences of many alumni. But merely repeating data and anecdotes doesn鈥檛 effectively address students鈥� concerns either.

鈥淭he 21st-century academic advisor needs to be able to talk to students realistically, but confidently鈥� about career prospects, says Kraus. This year, she鈥檚 working with Joe Testani, the director of the Gwen M. Greene Career and Internship Center, to expand collaborations between the two offices. Career and academic advisors have traditionally held separate conversations with students. Academic advisors have tended to see part of their role as encouraging students to view their liberal education as something valuable and important apart from their career goals.

Kraus offers a hint of how such coordination might go, through a story about a student who came to see her last year. The student badly wanted to study Japanese, but was afraid of what her parents might say. Kraus and a counterpart in the Greene Center worked together to help her see 鈥渢hat if you want to major in Japanese, there鈥檚 a place for you in the job market.

鈥淲e want to do a better job of helping students connect the dots,鈥� Kraus says.

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Vice President, Senior Advisor to the President, and University Dean Paul Burgett interviewed O鈥橞rien for the University鈥檚 Living History Project in 2014. The videotaped interview, along with a transcription, can be found at http://livinghistory.lib.rochester.edu/obrien.