Improve student advising
Action Taken
- Enhanced undergraduate advising programs, including a new sophomore advising initiative, an expanded advising partnership program, and a redesigned advising Web site
- Improved sophomore publications and electronic advising bulletin
- Repeated and expanded sophomore midyear orientation; piloted sophomore advising workshops throughout the year
- Endowed the Fund for Innovation in Advising, created by a major anonymous gift to seed ongoing improvement in advising
- Offered advising sessions in first-year student residence halls through a collaboration of undergraduate peer academic advisors and residential peer counselors
- Restructured Orientation Program for fall of 2007 to improve faculty-student advising and provide a more effective introduction to the Brown community
- Expanded advising sessions in residence halls to include concentration and internship selection
- Conducted “best practices” survey on undergraduate advising with sponsorship from Teagle Foundation
- Hired Deputy Dean of the College to help coordinate all advising functions in the DOC
- Reorganized advisor assignment process to create continuity between 1st and 2nd year students
- Increased number of faculty advisors for the incoming class to a participation level of 30 percent – highest in over 10 years
- Launched new website for the Office of the Dean of the College to clarify policies and procedures and to make advising resources more readily available to students, faculty, and parents
- Initiated the Committee on the Residential Experience to conduct review of programs in place for co-curricular education and development of community outside the classroom
- Reviewed and implemented appropriate best practice recommendations from student survey results
- Evaluated Orientation to identify further improvements to programming; developed plans for new sophomore “re-orientation,” identified improvements for transfer orientation, and added sessions on adapting to college learning
- Conducted external review of Career Development Center to discover areas of potential improvement
- Received and began to implement recommendations from the Task Force on Undergraduate Education about enhancement to advising programs at Brown
- Received and began to implement recommendations from the Committee on the Residential Experience for changes in residential programming and staffing
- Developed a program of peer and staff support specifically for students who are first in their family to attend college
- Developed a new data system that facilitates matching of incoming first-year students with advisors in shared areas of interest
- Developed a new online application that provides a single point of entry for students in need of funds to support research, internships and other projects
See Phase II for other recent actions that support this objective
Action Needed
Responsible
- Dean of the College
- Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services