Enhancing College Advising: Streamlined Tools for Student Success (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: College years are really a time for people to figure out who they are and what's important to them and who they want to be, and advising can play a critical role in that development. Any tools that can help us do a better job of focusing on each person as an individual makes my job easier for me to do and therefore I have more cognitive space and focus on the student as opposed to the tools that are required to be able to provide the student with the support they deserve.

Speaker 2: Absolutely essential to it to students graduating on time, knowing what the requirements are and making sure that they don't miss things. Those are the things that advisors help students with and this is, you know, having a tool like this when an advisor sits down with their advisee is just, you know, invaluable. We use Banner all the time, so we're very happy with all the changes that have happened just in all the different upgrades, but these two modules, the grade entry and advising profile module, you know, it's able to take the information in Banner and present it in a very easy-to-use, user-friendly way. Very intuitive, no training at all, we had a set of instructions, so we didn't really have any issues with tech support type issues at all.

Speaker 1: With the new system, it's so nice to have all the tools that we need right at our fingertips, just right there on the screen, where students have been, where they need to go, it really enhances the quality of the guidance we can provide.

Speaker 3: Well I think the real beauty of the system is that I can, on one screen, have a picture of the student, I have immediate access to the student's academic transcript, to the schedule of courses they're taking, I can get all that information with a minimum number of mouse clicks.

Speaker 2: You don't have to go looking for that information in a separate screen, or if you want to know what courses they're registered for, and at the same time you're looking to see if they are a continuing student or a transfer student, all of that is in one screen. It's just great, and the faculty advisors love it.

Speaker 3: The user interface is what I find most impressive about the system for advising. It's very convenient to have such quick access to all the different facets of Banner, so I can get in and I can view the transcript and the student's schedule with essentially one click of the mouse. Anything that saves me time is something that I'm in favor of, and I've noticed with my advising, since I use fewer mouse clicks, I am able to save time.

Speaker 1: I've been especially happy with the new advising options. You can see what people have done, and also what they still need, and it can really help people in planning their futures by knowing what requirements they've met, what transfer credits do and do not count, and for which purposes, so I feel like we have more time in meetings to talk about substantive issues and less time with me trying to find the information that would inform our discussion.

Speaker 2: It's a tool that advisors definitely are finding to be very useful, and if this makes advisement appointments, say a half-hour appointment, go smoothly, well then students are happy. I mean, obviously they're benefiting from it.

Speaker 3: The thought of going back to the old way is a little frightening.

Speaker 1: Someone who is in higher ed trying to teach classes and complete scholarship and do service and really be a meaningful presence for students, every second really matters, and so being able to have these advising tools not only saves time but also makes us more effective as advisors, so I would encourage folks to consider trying out the program, and I think just trying it out will be very, it will speak for itself.