The Director of Academic Advising and Associate Director of Academic Advising attended Institute II of the SUNY Guided Pathways initiative hosted by Rockland Community College in June and the Director of Academic Advising along with the Director of Career & Internship Services attended and co-presented at Institute III hosted by Mohawk Valley Community College in September. The goal of our session, "Starting Smart", was to garner feedback from our cohort of community colleges regarding career exploration in order to better align our on-boarding activities such as the New START (New Student Advising and Registration Tutorial) and the administration of the College Student Inventory (CSI) with the Guided Pathways model. The CSI provides students' self reported information about their career plans and receptivity to career guidance. Mainly, we sought feedback on how to utilize this information to further career exploration during students' first semester and onward. Simultaneously, the Division of Academic Affairs introduced the SUNY Orange Experience Council (SOEX) during the Fall 2018 semester to encourage the College community to engage in important discussions related to the implementation of the Guided Pathways model at the College. Timely conversations about clarifying our curricular pathways to our students by creating "meta-majors" and the implementation of the accelerated learning program (ALP) among other topics were discussed. These discussions are integral to the success of our on-boarding activities for Guided Pathways and academic advising.
The upcoming Guided Pathways Institute IV which will be hosted by SUNY Orange Community College in January 16-17 will provide more guidance on how to introduce Degree Works Planner to our students as well as help determine the role of faculty advisors in updating students' plans of study electronically. We plan to introduce this advising tool to students in the Fall 2019 semester.
The first year support team continues to administer the CSI instrument to new students during the online New START. We discuss these results with students during early advising meetings. Results from the CSI inventory were shared during a SOEX meeting this Fall 2018 semester and the dialogue will continue on how to utilize these results more strategically.
We continue to systematically record our Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) and incorporate students' feedback to improve the content and flow of the information delivered during the New START. SLO data obtained during the Summer and Fall of 2017 (April 2017 through January 2018) showed that about 40% of our incoming students were not assessed in terms of their ability to independently select appropriate courses in their plans of study and/or provide adequate information about their courses when creating their draft schedules after the New START workshop. There is room for improvement in capturing this data and we are currently looking into the Spring and Summer/Fall 2018 data as we work with staff to properly record this information.
During this year, we have also undergone some staffing changes which include the hiring of an Associate Director of Academic Advising (former interim Assistant Director of Academic Advising) and backfilling the position of the Assistant Director of Academic Advising. The latter position will focus on advising training and the introduction of advising tools to support student success as well as the accessibility of advising services. The Associate Director of Academic Advising position has been instrumental in providing more support to advising at the Newburgh campus and as a result, it has become clear that student triage by a receptionist is necessary to improve the quality of our students' advising experiences at the Newburgh campus. A reception area independent from Student Services Central (SSC) in Newburgh that provides clear guidelines for advising and registration is extremely necessary. The traffic flow in Newburgh needs to mirror the one-stop model in Middletown which has proven to be successful at managing student traffic especially during peak periods.
The Office of Academic Advising will continue to work with offices in Student Services and Academic Affairs to facilitate our students' successful transition to college from their point of entry and throughout their studies to degree completion.