Content uploaded by Joe Cuseo
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Joe Cuseo on Oct 25, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
Academic Advisement & Student Retention:
Empirical Connections and Systemic Interventions
Joe Cuseo
Professor Emeritus, Psychology; Advisor, AVID for Higher Education
jcuseo@earthlink.net
Purpose and Scope of this Manuscript
Advising and retention are terms found frequently married in higher education discourse; they
seem to fit together like hand and glove. For example, academic advising has been referred to as
the “cornerstone of student retention” (Crockett, 1978). While the practice of advising and the
outcome of student retention are often connected conceptually, their empirical connection has yet
to be carefully documented and systematically synthesized. The primary purpose of this
manuscript is to provide such documentation and synthesis. Although a direct, causal connection
between advising and retention has yet to be established, a strong case can be made that
academic advising exerts a significant impact on student retention through its positive
association with, and mediation of, variables that are strongly correlated with student persistence,
namely: (1) student satisfaction with the college experience, (2) effective educational and career
planning and decision making, (3) student utilization of campus support services, (4) student-
faculty contact outside the classroom, and (5) student mentoring.
As Wyckoff (1999) notes, “To establish a high degree of commitment to the academic
advising process, university and college administrators must become cognizant not only of the
educational value of advising but of the role advising plays in the retention of students” (p. 3).
The evidence marshaled in this manuscript may be used as a position paper to persuade high-
level administrators of the power of effective academic advisement for student retention and
institutional revenue. It may also be used in advisor development programs—to motivate and
validate the work of veteran advisors, and in advisor-orientation programs—to inspire and
energize new advisors.
The manuscript begins with a discussion of why both student retention and academic
advisement deserve immediate attention in American higher education, and it ends with a series
of suggested systemic strategies for enhancing the quality and retention-promoting impact of
advising programs.
The Case for Attention to Student Retention
The majority of new students entering higher education leave their initial college of choice
without completing a degree (Tinto, 1993), and national attrition rates have been increasing since
the early 1980s at two-year and four-year institutions, both public and private (Postsecondary
Education Opportunity, 2002). The most critical period or stage of vulnerability for student attrition
continues to be the first year of college—at all types of higher education institutions, including
highly selective colleges and universities (“Learning Slope,” 1991). More than half of all students
who withdraw from college do so during their first year (Consortium for Student Retention Data
2
Exchange, 1999), resulting in a first-year attrition rate of more than 25% at four-year institutions,
and approximately 50% at two-year institutions (ACT, 2001).
The economic implications of these alarmingly high rates of attrition for enrollment management
were anticipated more than 20 years ago by John Gardner, during the nascent stages of the
freshman-year experience movement he helped launch: “Higher education must make changes if it
is to survive in anything resembling its present form. The student has become a precious
commodity. Institutions must now concern themselves with retaining students so that, if nothing
else, budgets can be preserved” (Gardner, 1981, p. 79). Vince Tinto, a nationally recognized
retention scholar, notes further that strengthening institutional efforts aimed at increasing student
retention may be a more effective enrollment-management strategy than devoting more resources
to increasing student recruitment: “As more institutions have come to utilize sophisticated
marketing techniques to recruit students, the value of doing so has diminished markedly.
Institutions have come to view the retention of students to degree completion as the only
reasonable cause of action left to ensure their survival” (Tinto, 1987, p. 2).
The cost effectiveness of focusing on student retention as an enrollment management strategy
is insightfully captured by Alexander Astin, who reminds us that, “In four-year institutions, any
change that deters students from dropping out can affect three classes of students at once,
whereas any change in recruiting practices can affect only one class in a given year. From this
viewpoint, investing resources to prevent dropping out may be more cost effective than applying
the same resources to more vigorous recruitment” (1975, p. 2). In fact, cost-benefit analyses of
student recruitment efforts, which require substantial institutional expenditures (e.g., hiring of
staff, travel funding, and marketing costs), range between $200-$800 per student (Kramer,
1982). In contrast, retention initiatives designed to manage student enrollment are estimated to
be 3-5 times more cost-effective than recruitment efforts, i.e., 3-5 already enrolled students can
be retained at the college for the same cost incurred to recruit one new student to the college
(Noel, Levitz, & Saluri, 1985; Rosenberg & Czepiel, 1983; Tinto, 1975). One Canadian
university calculates that because of recruitment costs, the college loses $4,230 for each student
who is not retained to the second year (Okanagan University College, cited in Grayson &
Grayson, 2003). According to Bean and Hossler (1990), a student who remains with an
institution for four years will generate the same income as four new students who leave after one
year. For example, at the University of St. Louis, it is estimated that each 1% increase in first-
year retention rate generates approximately $500,000 in revenue by the time these first-year
students eventually graduate (Nicholl & Sutton, in Grayson & Grasyon, 2003). Another fiscal
advantage associated with student retention efforts that effectively promote student persistence to
graduation is that graduating students are much less likely to default on their student loans than
students who drop out—due, in large measure, to the fact that graduates are more likely to find
gainful employment (Seaks, cited in Levitz, 1993).
Most importantly, however, improving student retention not only fulfills the institutionally
self-serving function of promoting fiscal solvency, it serves the more altruistic, student-centered
purpose of promoting learning and development. As Astin (1975) notes: “More important from
an educational standpoint, changes that help students complete college, represent a real service to
them, whereas successful recruiting efforts may simply change students’ choice of institutions”
(p. 2).
Lastly, it should not be forgotten that student retention is an assessment outcome, and one that
is amenable to accurate measurement. Furthermore, retention functions as a fundamental or
foundational student outcome, serving as a precondition or prerequisite for meaningful
3
assessment of other outcomes. For instance, other commonly assessed outcomes of college, such
as knowledge acquisition, critical thinking, and attitude change, cannot possibly be accurately
measured as final outcomes of the college experience unless and until students have persisted to
completion of the college experience. Any outcome assessment data collected on students who
have graduated from a postsecondary institution where sizable numbers of other students have
withdrawn prior to degree completion (e.g., institutional attrition rates of 50% or higher) is, in
effect, conducting assessment on an unrepresentative sample of students, i.e., these college
graduates do not represent the general population of students who matriculated at the college.
Using a medical metaphor, if 50% of a school’s entering class completes their college experience
and displays positive outcomes at graduation and the college concludes that it is doing an
effective job, it would be akin to a pharmaceutical company concluding that a newly approved
drug was highly successful because it produced positive outcomes for 50% of the patients who
completed the drug-treatment plan, while blithely ignoring the fact that one-half of the treated
patients failed to complete the treatment plan due to the drug’s intolerable side effects and high
mortality rate. Thus, it may be argued that any institution seriously interested in outcomes
assessment should include student retention as a primary outcome measure, and should use it to
make meaningful interpretations of other assessed outcomes.
Lastly, if the ultimate purpose of assessment is institutional improvement, then improvement in
student retention should be an intended outcome of any postsecondary institution that is serious
about using assessment results as a vehicle for promoting positive institutional change. Given the
distressingly high levels of student attrition at many colleges and universities, retention
represents a student outcome that can be dramatically improved, not only because there is so
much room for improvement, but also because it is influenced as much or more by institutional
behavior than by student characteristics (e.g., lack of academic motivation or academic
underpreparedness). As Tinto (1987) reports:
Though the intentions and commitment with which individuals enter college matter,
what goes on after entry matters more. It is the daily interaction of the person with
other members of the college in both the formal and informal academic and social
domains of the college and the person’s perception or evaluation of the character of
those interactions that in large measure determine decisions as to staying or leaving. It
is in this sense that most departures are voluntary. Student retention is at least as much
a function of institutional behavior as it is of student behavior (pp. 127, 177).
The Case for Attention to Academic Advisement
Academic advising is one of the major academic and social domains of the college experience
that affect student decisions about staying or leaving. Findings from national advising surveys,
conducted regularly for the past 25 years by American College Testing (ACT), repeatedly point
to the following elements as being essential to, but often absent from, academic advisement
programs in higher education.
1. Formulation of a program mission statement that clearly articulates the meaning and
purpose of academic advising.
Only 54% of postsecondary institutions have a written statement that articulates the purposes
and procedures of their advising program (Crockett, Habley, & Cowart, 1987). At best, this
4
suggests a lack of clarity about program mission and goals; at worst, it suggests that advising is
not considered to be a bona fide educational program with important goals and objectives.
2. Provision of sufficient incentives, recognition, and reward for effective academic
advising.
Approximately one-half of faculty contracts and collective bargaining agreements make
absolutely no mention of advising as a faculty responsibility (Teague & Grites, 1980). Less than
one-third of campuses recognize and reward faculty for advising and, among those that do,
advising is typically recognized by giving it only minor consideration in faculty promotion and
tenure decisions (Habley, 1988). A more recent survey of first-year academic practices at close
to 1,000 colleges and universities revealed that only 12% of postsecondary institutions offered
incentives or rewards that recognize outstanding advising of first-year students (Policy Center on
the First Year of College, 2003).
In a review of national survey data relating to advisor evaluation and rewards, Creamer &
Scott (2000) reached the following conclusion: “The failure of most institutions to conduct
systematic evaluations of advisors is explained by a number of factors. The most potent reason,
however, is probably that the traditional reward structure often blocks the ability to reward
faculty who are genuinely committed to advising” (p. 39).
3. Established criteria for the recruitment, selection, and deployment of academic
advisors.
Over two-thirds (68%) of postsecondary institutions surveyed have no criteria for selecting
advisors (Crockett, Habley, & Cowart, 1987), suggesting lack of attention to professional
preparedness of academic advisors and indifference to the identification of advisors most
qualified to work with students who are at risk for attrition—e.g., underprepared and
underrepresented first-generation students, or students with special needs—e.g., undecided
students, transfer students, commuter students, and re-entry students.
It is also noteworthy (and disturbing) that academic advising effectiveness is almost never
mentioned as one of the selection criteria listed in job advertisements or position announcements
posted by postsecondary institutions seeking to recruit and hire new faculty.
4. Substantive orientation, training, and development of academic advisors.
Only about one-third of college campuses provide training for faculty advisors; less than
one-quarter require faculty training; and the vast majority of institutions offering training
programs focus solely on dissemination of factual information, without devoting significant
attention to the identification of the goals or objectives of advising, and the development of
effective advising strategies or relationship skills (Habley, 1988).
The upshot of the foregoing findings is encapsulated in the following conclusion reached by
Habley (2000), based on his review of findings from five national surveys of academic advising:
“A recurrent theme, found in all five ACT surveys, is that training, evaluation, and recognition
and reward have been, and continue to be, the weakest links in academic advising throughout the
nation. These important institutional practices in support of quality advising are at best
unsystematic and at worst nonexistent” (p. 40). This conclusion, based on national surveys, is
reinforced by national reports on the status of American higher education. For instance, a blue-
ribbon panel of higher education scholars working under the auspices of the National Institute of
Education (1984), concluded that, “Advisement is one of the weakest links in the education of
5
college students” (p. 31). Similarly, a national report issued by the Carnegie Foundation, based
on three years of campus visits and extensive national survey research, arrived at the following
conclusion: “We have found advising to be one of the weakest links in the undergraduate
experience. Only about a third of the colleges in our study had a quality advisement program that
helped students think carefully about their academic options” (Boyer, 1987, p. 51). More
recently, drawing from the results of in-depth interviews with more than 1600 undergraduates
over a 10-year period, Light (2001) concluded that, “Good advising may be the single most
underestimated characteristic of a successful college experience. During more than ten years of
research, I visited more than ninety colleges. Some are highly selective. Some are close to open
admissions. Most are in between. They include private and public colleges, large and small, state
universities, and junior colleges. Of all the challenges that both faculty and students choose to
mention, good advising ranks number one” (pp. 81, 84-85).
Empirical Relationships between Student Advisement and Student Retention
There has always been a logical link between high-quality advising and high rates of student
retention, and there is a growing body published studies demonstrating a clear empirical
connection between the two, including studies that use statistical techniques to control for
potential confounding variables, such as students’ academic preparedness and socioeconomic
status (Bahr, 2008; Elliot & Healy, 2001; Peterson, Wagner, & Lamb, 2001; Smith, 1993;
Steele, Kennedy, & Gordon, 1993; Young, Backer & Rogers, 1989). Perhaps the most
methodologically rigorous study was conducted by Seidman (1991) who used an experimental
research design, randomly assigning over 275 first-term community college students into two
groups. The experimental group received advising both before and after matriculation, which
included an initial meeting with an advisor for course selection and to discuss how they could
become more involved in academic and co-curricular aspects of college life. Two subsequent
meetings with an advisor were held during the term to discuss students’ college adjustment and
progress. In contrast to this treatment group, the control group proceeded through the traditional
orientation process, which did not involve any intentional and proactive advisor contact. Results
of the study revealed that students in the experimental group who had advisor contact persisted
to the sophomore year at a rate 20% higher than students who only participated in orientation.
Probably the largest-scale study of the relationship between academic advising and student
success was conducted by Klepfer and Hull (2012). Working under the auspices of the National
School Boards Association’s Center for Public Education, they tracked the postsecondary
persistence of over 9,000 students who graduated from high school and enrolled in college (at
either a 2-year or 4-year institution). Among the results reported in this extensive longitudinal
study was finding that “both four-year and two-year students who reported talking to an
academic advisor either “sometimes or ‘often’ had significantly higher persistence rates than
those who did not” (p. 11). This relationship was particularly strong for low-income students
with lower levels of academic preparedness. At four-year institutions, those who saw an
academic advisor “often” had a persistence rate that was 53% higher than those who “never” met
with and advisor. At two-year institutions, it was 43% higher.
Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) thoroughly reviewed research published in higher education
between 1990-2002 and reached the following conclusion about the relationship between
academic advising and student retention: “Research consistently indicates that academic advising
can play a role in students’ decisions to persist and in their chances of graduating” (2005, p.
404).
6
Described below is a larger base of research that provides additional, albeit indirect, empirical
evidence of a link between academic advising and factors or conditions strongly associated with
student retention.
1. College Satisfaction, Academic Advising, and Student Retention
There is a well-established empirical relationship between students’ level of satisfaction
with the postsecondary institution they are attending and their rate of retention at that institution
(Bean, 1980, 1983; Noel, Levitz, & Saluri, 1985), i.e., college satisfaction is a “primary
predictor” of student persistence (Noel & Levitz, 1995). Furthermore, college satisfaction is an
assessment outcome that has been found to be the least influenced or confounded by students’
college-entry characteristics—e.g., academic preparedness, educational aspirations, gender, and
socioeconomic status (Astin, 1991). Students who rate their advising as good or excellent are
more satisfied with their overall college experience; in fact, it has been found to be the single
most powerful predictor of satisfaction with the campus environment (National Survey of
Student Engagement, 2001).
Unfortunately, national research on the level of student satisfaction with the quality of
academic advisement reveals a pattern of disappointing findings (Kuh, et al. 2005). Astin (1993)
reports the results of a national survey in which advising ranked 25th among the 27 different
types of types of services evaluated by students, with only 40% of the surveyed students
indicating that they were either “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the quality of academic
advising they received at their college. In their seminal and influential tome, Developmental
Academic Advising, Ender, Winston, & Miller (1984) conclude categorically that, “The greatest
difficulty students cite with the quality of their academic experiences is advising” (p. 14).
Ironically, despite widespread dissatisfaction with advising, students express a strong desire for
advisor contact and place a high value on academic counseling relative to other student services
(Wyckoff, 1999).
Given the fact that student satisfaction is a “pure” outcome that is unlikely to be confounded
or “contaminated” by students’ personal characteristics, its established association with student
retention, plus empirical evidence pointing to low levels of student satisfaction with academic
advising in higher education, it is reasonable to conclude that institutional efforts that are
intentionally designed to improve student satisfaction with academic advising should serve to
improve students’ level of college satisfaction and, in turn, their retention to degree completion.
Empirical evidence for a relationship between student satisfaction with the quality of advising
received at their college and their retention at that college is provided by Metzner (1989), who
conducted a longitudinal investigation of freshman-to-sophomore retention rates of students
enrolled at public university. The study involved a large sample of first-year students and it
incorporated a sizable number of influential student variables (e.g., students’ academic
preparedness, employment status while in college, college grades, and college satisfaction).
Results revealed that students who perceived advising to be of “good quality” withdrew from the
university at a rate that was 25% lower than that of students who reported receiving “poor
advising,” and they withdrew at a rate that was 40% less than that of students who received no
advising at all. Further data analysis revealed that high-quality advising had a statistically
significant, indirect effect on student persistence, which was mediated by its positive association
with students’ level of college satisfaction and its negative (inverse) association with students’
intent to leave the university. High-quality advising may be particularly important for the
retention of undecided students. As Tinto (2012) notes: “The inability to obtain needed advice
7
during the first year or the point of changing majors can undermine motivation [and] increase the
likelihood of departure” (p. 11).
National surveys of student retention practices provide additional evidence for a link between
institutional improvement made in the quality of advising delivered to students and improvement
in student retention. For instance, in a national survey of 944 colleges and universities, college
administrators identified “inadequate academic advising” as the number-one characteristic linked
to student attrition on their campuses; the same administrators reported that “improvement of
academic advising services” was the most common retention strategy adopted by their
institutions (Beal & Noel, 1980). The effectiveness of this institutional strategy is suggested by
other national-survey data indicating that institutions which make improvements in their
academic advising programs experience substantial gains in their student retention rates
(Cartensen & Silberhorn, 1979).
Consistent with the foregoing survey findings are the on-site observations of Lee Noel, a
nationally recognized student-retention scholar and consultant, who reports: “In our extensive
work on campuses over the years, [we] have found that institutions where significant
improvement in retention rates has been made, almost without exception, give extra attention to
careful life planning and to academic advising” (Noel, 1985, p. 13).
More recently, data generated by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) from
469 institutions revealed that students reporting the highest degree of satisfaction with the
quality of their academic advisement were most likely to demonstrate the highest levels of
student engagement in college (Kuh, 2002). Since high levels of student engagement
(involvement) have been found to be empirically associated with higher rates of student
retention (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Tinto, 1993; Astin, 1993), the strong relationship
between level of student engagement and quality of academic advisement by the NSSE
data may be interpreted as providing additional evidence of an empirical link between
academic advisement and student retention.
2. Effective Educational & Career Planning/Decision-Making, Academic Advising, and
Student Retention
Retention research suggests that student commitment to educational and career goals is
perhaps the strongest factor associated with student persistence to degree completion (Wyckoff,
1999). Thus, effective advising can exert appreciable impact on student retention through its
salutary influence on students’ educational and career planning and decision-making. The need
for student support in the academic planning and decision-making process is highlighted by
research findings, which indicate that (a) the majority entering college students are uncertain or
tentative about their career choice at college entry (Gaffner & Hazler, 2002; Gordon, 2007;
Titley & Titley, 1980; Frost, 1991; ), (b) only 8% of new students feel they know “a great deal
about their intended major” (Lemoine, cited in Erickson & Summers, 1991) (c) over half of all
students who enter college with a declared major change their mind at least once before they
graduate (Foote, 1980; Gordon, 1984), and (d) only one senior out of three will major in the
same field they preferred as a freshman (Willingham, 1985). This degree of student uncertainty
and propensity for changing educational plans has been reported at all institutional types,
including selective private universities (Marchese, 1992), large research universities (“What We
Know About First-Year Students,” 1996; What Do I Want to Be,” 1997), and small liberal arts
colleges (“Alpha Gives Undecided Students a Sense of Identity,” 1996).
8
Such findings strongly suggest that students’ final decisions about majors and careers do not
occur before entering college, but typically materialize during the college experience. Thus, it is
not accurate to assume that students who enter college with “declared” majors are truly
“decided” majors; instead, it is more accurate to conclude that 75% of all students entering
college are actually undecided about their academic and career plans, and at least half of all
declared majors are “prematurely decided” majors, who will eventually change their minds.
Naturally, some of this indecisiveness and changing of direction about majors is healthy,
reflecting initial exploration and eventual crystallization of educational goals that naturally
accompany personal maturation and increased experience with the college curriculum. It is
unrealistic to expect first-year students to make long-term educational commitments until they
have gained experience with specific courses and academic programs that comprise the college
curriculum, some of which they may have never encountered in high school (e.g., philosophy or
anthropology). As Vince Tinto, nationally recognized scholar on student retention, points out:
Among any population of young adults who are just beginning in earnest their search
for adult identity, it would be surprising indeed if one found that most were very clear
about their long-term goals. The college years are an important growing period in
which new social and intellectual experiences are sought as a means of coming to
grips with the issue of adult careers. They enter college with the hope that they will be
able to formulate for themselves, not for their parents, a meaningful answer to that
important question. Lest we forget, the college experience is as much, if not more, one
of discovery as one of confirmation (Tinto, 1993, p. 40).
While acknowledging this healthy trial-and-error process of discovery, it is also true that some of
the student vacillation underlying the major-changing phenomenon reflects confusion,
procrastination, or premature decision-making—due to students’ lack of knowledge about
themselves and their compatibility with their initial choice, or lack of knowledge about the
relationship between college majors and future careers. Upcraft, Finney, and Garland (1984) also
note that some of the confusion about majors and careers may result from, “Students [being]
pushed into careers by their families, while others have picked one just to relieve their anxiety
about not having a career choice. Still others may have picked popular or lucrative careers,
knowing nothing of what they’re really like or what it takes to prepare for them” (p. 18).
The relationship between effective educational decision-making and student retention is
empirically documented by Astin (1975), whose research indicates that prolonged indecision
about an academic major and career goals is correlated with student attrition. Lenning, Beal, and
Sauer (1980) also report that students’ goal motivation/commitment correlates positively with
persistence to graduation, and this correlation has been found to hold true for both men and
women (Anderson, 1988). In addition, Willingham (1985) reports “poor sense of direction” to be
one of the most frequently cited reasons identified by students as a factor that detracted from
their experiencing a more successful and satisfying college career. In fact, Levitz and Noel
(1989) found “lack of certainty about a major and/or career” to be the number-one reason cited
by high-ability students for their decision to drop out of college. The implication of these
findings for academic advising is suggested by survey data gathered from 947 institutions by
Beal and Noel (1980), who found that, “Many students transfer—or sometimes drop out—simply
because they do not know that a particular course of study is available at their college, or because
they think they cannot have a particular option in their program of studies” (p. 103).
9
College students clearly need support from effective academic advisors to negotiate the
challenging and sometimes confusing process of educational planning and decision-making. As
Tinto emphatically states:
It is part of the educational mandate of institutions of higher education to assist
maturing youth in coming to grips with the important question of adult careers. The
regrettable fact is that some institutions do not see student uncertainty in this light.
They prefer to treat it as a deficiency in student development rather than as an
expected part of that complex process of personal growth. The implications of such
views for policy are not trivial [because] unresolved intentions over an extended
period can lead to departure both from the institution and from the higher
educational enterprise as a whole. When plans remain unformulated over extended
periods of time, students are more likely to depart without completing their degree
programs (Tinto, 1993, p. 41).
Viewed collectively, the research reviewed in this section point directly to the conclusion that
students need support from knowledgeable academic advisors to engage in effective educational
planning and decision-making, and if this support is received, they will more likely persist to
degree graduation.
Moreover, if this support is delivered proactively to first-year students, they may make more
thoughtful, more accurate, initial choices about majors and careers. This may serve not only to
promote student retention, but also reduce the probability of prolonged student indecisiveness
and premature decision-making, which can eventuate in changing of majors at later stages in the
college experience. Student indecisiveness and late major-changing may result in delayed
progress toward degree completion by necessitating the need for students to complete additional
courses to fulfill specific degree requirements for their newly chosen major. This may be one
factor contributing to the extended length of time it now takes college students to complete their
graduation requirements (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1994); for example, the number of students
who take five or more years to graduate from college has doubled since the early 1980s (Kramer,
1993). Only two-thirds of full-time, four-year college students complete a baccalaureate degree
within 6 years (Lutz, He, & Cataldi, 2003).
The inability to obtain needed advice during the first year or at the point of changing
majors can undermine motivation, increase the likelihood of departure, and for those
who continue, result in increased time to degree completion. Although students may
make credit progress, they do not make substantial degree-credit progress (Tinto,
2002, p. 322).
Thus, it is reasonable to anticipate that receipt of proactively delivered developmental advising
will promote earlier and more complete crystallization of college students’ major and career
plans, thereby reducing their average time to degree completion.
3. Student Utilization of Campus Support Services and Academic Advising
One way in which colleges can improve both the academic performance and retention of first-
year students is by increasing their utilization of campus support services, because research
clearly suggests that there is a positive relationship between utilization of campus-support
10
services and persistence to program or degree completion (Churchill & Iwai, 1981; Pascarella &
Terenzini, 1991). In particular, students who seek and receive academic support have been found
to improve both their academic performance and their academic self-efficacy—that is, they
develop a greater sense of self-perceived control of academic outcomes, and develop higher self-
expectations for future academic success (Smith, Walter, & Hoey, 1992). Higher levels of self-
efficacy, in turn, have been found to correlate positively with college students’ academic
performance and persistence; this is true for Hispanic students in particular (Solberg, O’Brien,
Villareal, & Davis, 1993) and underprepared students in general (Lent, Brown, & Larkin, 1987).
Unfortunately, it has also been found that college students under-utilize academic support
services (Friedlander, 1980; Walter & Smith, 1990), especially those students who are in most
need of support (Knapp & Karabenick, 1988; Abrams & Jernigan, 1984). At-risk students, in
particular, have trouble recognizing that they are experiencing academic difficulty and are often
reluctant to seek help even if they do recognize their difficulty (Levin & Levin, 1991). These
findings are especially disturbing when viewed in light of meta-analysis research, which reveals
that academic-support programs designed for underprepared students exert a statistically
significant effect on their retention and grades when they are utilized, especially if these services
are utilized by students during their freshman year (Kulik, Kulik, & Shwalb, 1983).
Taken together, the foregoing set of findings strongly suggests that institutions should deliver
academic support intrusively—by initiating contact with students and aggressively bringing support
services to them, rather than offering services passively and hoping that students will come and take
advantage of them on their own accord. Academic advisors are in the ideal position to
“intrusively” connect students with academic support professionals, who can provide students
with timely assistance before their academic performance and persistence are adversely affected
by ineffective learning strategies. Large-scale studies have found that institutions with high
graduation rates have proactive and intrusive advising programs that actively monitor student
performance, intervene early when students experience academic difficulty, and follow-up on
student progress (AASCU, 2005; Kuh, et al., 2005; The Pell Institute, 2004), particularly for at-
risk students (Karp & Logue, 2002-2003; Mann, Hunt, & Alford, 2003-2004).
Another major way in which advisors may promote student retention is by connecting students
to student development services and co-curricular programs. The importance of student
involvement in campus life for student retention is documented by findings demonstrating that
students who are more socially integrated or involved in campus life, and feel they are part of the
campus community, are more likely to persist to graduation (Terenzini, 1986; Tinto, 1987;
Berger & Milem, 1999). Academic advisors are well positioned to promote student persistence
by educating students about the value of co-curricular participation and encouraging their
involvement with student development services. Roger Winston (1994) argues that this is the
way in which developmental advising exerts its greatest impact:
Developmental advising has the greatest impact through supporting and challenging students to
take advantage of the multitude of learning opportunities outside of their formal classes and to
use the human and programmatic resources designed to promote development of their talents and
broaden their cultural awareness. Developmental advising has a multiplier effect that increases
students’ involvement in institutional programs and services; this positively influences retention
for the institution and increases the overall impact of educational experience for students (p.
114).
11
4. Student-Faculty Contact Outside the Classroom, Academic Advising, and Student
Retention
In a national report on higher education, the Education Commission of the States included
out-of-class contact with faculty as one of its 12 essential attributes of good practice claiming
that, “Through such contact, students are able to see faculty members less as experts than as role
models for ongoing learning” (1995, p. 8). This assertion is supported by a broad base of
research, which demonstrates that student-faculty contact outside the classroom is strongly
correlated with student retention (Bean, 1981; Pascarella 1980; Pascarella & Terenzini 1979,
Terenzini & Pascarella, 1977, 1978; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991).
Drawing on data generated by a longitudinal study of 200,000 students at 300 institutions of
all types, Astin (1977) reports that, “Student faculty interaction has a stronger relationship to
student satisfaction with the college experience than any other variable [and] any student
characteristic or institutional characteristic” (p. 223).
Consistent with Astin’s quantitative findings is the following observation made by Lee Noel
(1978), based on his extensive consulting experiences with colleges and universities interested in
promoting student retention:
It is increasingly apparent that the most important features of a “staying” environment
relate to the instructional faculty. Students make judgments about their academic
experience on the basis of such factors as quality of instruction, freedom to contact
faculty for consultation, availability of faculty for consultation, and faculty
involvement outside the classroom (pp. 96-97).
Vince Tinto offers a similar observation: “Institutions with low rates of student retention are
those in which students generally report low rates of student-faculty contact. Conversely,
institutions with high rates of retention are most frequently those which are marked by relatively
high rates of such interactions” (1987, p. 66).
Tinto (1975) also reports that out-of-class contact between faculty and students has particularly
powerful effects on the persistence of students who are “withdrawal prone.” After conducting
interviews with especially high-risk students who overcame the odds and succeeded in college,
Tinto found that, “In every case, the students cited one or two events, when someone on the
faculty or—less commonly—the staff had made personal contact with them outside the
classroom. That’s what made the difference” (quoted in Levitz, 1990). Pascarella and Terenzini
(1979) also found that the frequency of non-classroom contact between students and faculty to
discuss academic issues had its most positive influence on the persistence of students with low
initial commitment to college, and students whose parents had relatively low levels of formal
education.
It is noteworthy that student-faculty interaction outside the classroom has been found to exert a
direct effect on student retention that is independent of other potentially influential or
confounding variables (e.g., students’ level of involvement with college peers, academic
preparedness, or educational aspirations at college entry). As Pascarella (1980) concludes, after
critically reviewing and synthesizing a large number of studies investigating the relationship
between student-faculty contact and educational outcomes:
The significant associations between student-faculty informal contact and educational
outcomes are not merely the result of covariation with individual differences in
12
student entering characteristics or with college experiences in other areas, such as peer
culture. Rather, various facets and quality of student informal contact with faculty
may make a unique contribution to college impact. In turn this suggests the possibility
that colleges and universities may be able to positively influence the extent and
quality of student-faculty contact, and thereby faculty impact on students, in ways
other than the kinds of students they enroll (pp. 564-565).
Furthermore, the type of student-faculty interaction outside the classroom that has been found to
exert the most positive impact on educational outcomes is that which involves discussion of
students’ academic interests and career plans (Wilson, 1975; Terenzini, 1986), including the
outcome of student retention (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1977).
Given the direct empirical association between student retention and student-faculty contact
outside the classroom, particularly when it involves students’ academic and career plans,
strongly suggests that academic advisement may be one way that colleges and universities can
increase the frequency and quality of student-faculty interaction outside the classroom and,
thereby, increase student retention.
It may also be reasonable to predict that high-quality advising will have particularly positive
impact on the retention of at-risk (withdrawal-prone) students in particular. In fact, academic
advisement may be the institution’s only structure that ensures that students have personal, one-
to-one contact with a faculty member. The need to ensure such personal contact is underscored
by national survey research conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching, which reveals a substantial decline in the percentage of undergraduates who agree
with the statement, “There are professors at my college whom I feel free to turn to for advice on
personal matters” (Boyer, 1987). The implications of this finding for student retention becomes
clear when juxtaposed with other research, which indicates that first-year students who can name
a college-affiliated person to whom they can turn with a personal problem are more than twice as
likely to return to that college for their sophomore year than students who cannot (Levitz &
Noel, 1989).
5. Student Mentoring, Academic Advisement, and Student Retention
The number of colleges offering mentoring programs is on the rise (Haring, 1997), and
mentoring is increasingly being viewed as a tool for promoting student retention (Walker & Taub,
2001), particularly the retention of first-year students (Johnson, 1989). Mentoring has the potential
to reduce students’ feelings of marginality, increasing their sense of personal significance—that they
“matter” (Schlossberg, Lynch, & Chickering, 1989), and can provide an important “validation”
experience for first-generation students, for whom the transition to college is not a normal or routine
rite of passage (Rendon, 1994).
The importance of mentoring for contemporary college students is well expressed by the
indefatigable leader of the first-year experience movement, John Gardner:
Students need mentors and facilitators. They need, in the words of Carl Rogers, authentic
professional human beings who are worthy of emulation. They need models who exhibit
professional behavior, a sense of commitment and purposefulness, and a sense of
autonomy and integrity in a world that generates enormous stress. Students cannot be
told how to do this; authenticity cannot be transmitted through lectures” (1981, p. 70).
13
The availability of exemplary, caring role models is valuable for all students, but may
be especially critical to the retention and success of underrepresented, first-generation college
students who do not have college role models at home. Vince Tinto notes that, “While role
modeling seems to be effective in retention programs generally, it appears to be especially important
among those programs concerned with disadvantaged minority students” (1987, p, 161).
Research on mentoring indicates that it has a positive impact on the personal and professional
development of young adults (Levinson, 1978). There is also a growing body of research in higher
education that suggests an empirical link between student mentoring and student retention
(Campbell & Cambell, 1997; Wallace & Abel, 1997). For instance, Miller, Neuner, and Glynn
(1988) used an experimental research design in which students were randomly assigned to either an
experimental group—who received mentoring, or a control group—who did not. It was found that
students who received mentoring evinced higher retention rates than non-mentored students with
similar pre-enrollment characteristics.
Despite the retention-promoting promise of mentoring, one of the major logistical stumbling
blocks for implementing mentoring programs on a large-scale basis is the fact that mentoring is
traditionally delivered via dyadic (1 to 1) relationships, thus making it difficult to find a sufficient
number of mentors to sustain a mentoring program that reaches a significant number of students
(Redmond, 1990). However, the results of one recent study reveals that “network” mentoring
programs, in which multiple students are mentored by one college faculty or staff member, are
comparable in effectiveness to traditional “dyadic” (1 to 1) mentoring arrangements—as measured
in terms of student satisfaction with the quality of the mentoring relationship and the frequency of
contact with their mentor (Walker & Taub, 2001). This finding suggests that traditional academic
advisement programs have the potential to co-function as mentoring programs, because a ratio of
multiple mentees (students) to one mentor (advisor) may also enable the advantages of mentoring to
be realized. While advising and mentoring have been traditionally deemed as distinctly different
programs, even a cursory look at some of the criteria cited in the scholarly literature for effective
mentors appear to be very compatible with the characteristics of effective advisors. For example,
Johnson (1989) identifies the following characteristics as qualities of effective mentors: (a) more
mature than the mentee, (b) interpersonal skill, (c) willingness to commit time, and (d) knowledge
of the campus. Certainly, these are qualities that also characterize effective advisors.
Research on the perspective of students, as advisees, repeatedly points to the conclusion that
they value most highly academic advisors who serve as mentors—who are accessible,
approachable, and helpful in providing guidance that connects their present academic experience
with their future life plans (Frost, 1991; Gordon, Habley, & Associates, 2000; Roberts & Styron,
2010; Winston, Ender, & Miller, 1982; Winston, Miller, Ender, Grites, & Associates, 1984).
Given the similarity of desirable qualities cited for mentors and advisors, in conjunction with the
research suggesting that mentoring may be effectively delivered by networking multiple mentees
with one mentor, it appears as if the retention-promoting potential of mentoring programs may be
achieved as effectively (and more efficiently) through advisement programs, particularly if advisors
are well prepared and adequately rewarded for this role. Since advisement focuses on an issue so
central to the personal lives of students—the connection between their present collegiate experience
with their future life plans—and is delivered by an experienced person who has already navigated a
similar course, it appears that mentoring is an integral and inescapable element of academic
advisement. As such, advising programs should be viewed and pursued with the same enthusiasm
for promoting student retention as mentoring programs.
.
14
Defining and Describing “Quality” Academic Advising
Findings reviewed in the previous section point to the conclusion that enhancing the quality of
academic advising should improve the rate of student retention. However, any potentially
effective attempt to increase student retention through improvement in academic advisement
must be guided by a clear vision of what “good” or “quality” advising actually is—because if we
cannot define it, we cannot recognize it when we see it, nor can we can assess it or improve it.
Among the factors that contribute to poor advising, lack of consensus about the role or function
of the advisor (Wyckoff, 1999). The following statements, selectively culled from the scholarly
literature on academic advising, have the potential to serve as starting points for defining what
“quality” academic advisement is, and may serve as focal points for guiding the development of
effective advising practices and procedures.
(a) “Developmental academic advising is a systematic process based on a close student-advisor
relationship intended to aid students in achieving educational, career, and personal goals through
the utilization of the full range of institutional and community resources. It both stimulates and
supports students in their quest for an enriched quality of life” (Winston, Miller, Ender, & Grites,
& Associates, 1984, p. 538).
(b) “The formation of relationships that assure that at least one educator has close enough contact
with each student to assess and influence the quality of that student’s educational experience is
realistic only through a systematic process, such as an academic advising program. It is
unrealistic to expect each instructor, even with small classes, to form personal relationships of
sufficient duration and depth with each student in his or her class to accomplish this” (Winston,
Miller, Ender, & Grites, & Associates, 1984, p. 538).
(c) “Developmental academic advising is not primarily an administrative function, not obtaining
a signature to schedule classes, not a conference held once a term, not a paper relationship, not
supplementary to the educational process, [and] not synonymous with faculty member” (Ender,
1983, p. 10).
(d) “Academic advising can be understood best and more easily reconceptualized if the process
of academic advising and the scheduling of classes and registration are separated. Class
scheduling should not be confused with educational planning. Developmental academic advising
becomes a more realistic goal when separated from class scheduling because advising can then
go on all during the academic year, not just during the few weeks prior to registration each new
term. Advising programs, however, that emphasize registration and record keeping, while
neglecting attention to students’ educational and personal experiences in the institution, are
missing an excellent opportunity to influence directly and immediately the quality of students’
education and are also highly inefficient, since they are most likely employing highly educated
(expensive) personnel who are performing essentially clerical tasks” (Winston, Miller, Ender, &
Grites, & Associates, 1984, p. 542).
(e) “Students may enter the advising process with a set of perceptions and expectations quite
unrelated to those of the advisor. The importance of the interpersonal relationship for students
should not be underestimated (Wyckoff, 1999, p. 3).”
From the students’ perspective, previously cited research points to the conclusion that
undergraduates value most highly academic advisors who function as mentors or counselors, and
who are: (a) available/accessible, (b) knowledgeable/helpful, and (c) personable/approachable.
Integrating the perspectives of both student advisees and advising scholars, high-quality
academic advisement may be distilled into, and defined in terms of, three key (“core”) advisor
15
roles or functions.
1. Advisor as humanizing agent:
An advisor is someone who interacts with students outside the classroom on a less formal,
more frequent, and more continuous basis than course instructors. Students’ instructors will vary
from term to term, but an academic advisor may be the one institutional representative with
whom each student can have continuous contact and a stable, ongoing relationship that may
endure throughout the college experience. Thus, an advisor is uniquely positioned to develop a
personal relationship with students and to serve as a humanizing agent—someone whom
students feel comfortable seeking out, who knows them by name, who knows their individual
interests, aptitudes, and values, and who takes special interest in their personal experiences,
progress, and development.
2. Advisor as counseling/mentoring agent:
An advisor is an experienced guide who helps students navigate the bureaucratic maze of
institutional policies and administrative protocol, and a referral agent who directs and connects
students to campus support services that best serve their needs. An advisor is also a confidante to
whom students can turn for advice, counsel, guidance, or encouragement; who listens to them
actively, empathically, and non-judgmentally; who allows them to freely explore their personal
values and belief systems; and who serves as a student advocate—treating them as clients to be
served and developed—rather than as subordinates to be evaluated and graded.
3. Advisor as educational/instructional agent:
An advisor is someone who can equip students with specific strategies for success, and who
can bring integration and coherence to the students’ college experience—by promoting their
appreciation of the college mission, the college curriculum (e.g., the purpose of general
education), and the co-curriculum (e.g., the educational value of experiential learning outside the
classroom).
An advisor is also someone who, through effective questioning and dialogic techniques
conducted in a personalized context, helps students become more self-aware of their distinctive
interests, talents, values, and priorities; who enables students to see the “connection” between
their present academic experience and their future life plans; who helps students discover their
potential, purpose, and passion; who broadens students’ perspectives with respect to their
personal life choices, and sharpens their cognitive skills for making these choices, such as
effective problem-solving, critical thinking, and reflective decision-making.
Systemic Strategies for Enhancing the Quality of Academic Advising
The above-cited qualities paint a picture of the ideal advisor in an ideal advising scenario. In
order for the present reality of academic advisement in higher education to begin to approach this
ideal state, several systemic changes need to take place in the way most advising programs are
presently designed and delivered. Aforementioned findings from national surveys and national
reports strongly suggest that academic advisement programs in higher education are not
presently well positioned to deliver high-quality developmental advising. Thus, it appears as if
academic advising at many institutions needs systematic and systemic overhaul before it can be
expected to approach a level of program quality that exerts dramatic impact on student retention.
16
To this end, the following systemic strategies are offered as major fulcrums for levering positive
change in the quality and retention-promoting impact of academic advisement.
1. Provide strong incentives and rewards for advisors to engage in high-quality advising.
Advising runs the risk of being perceived as a supplemental, low-status, and low-priority
activity by college faculty because it typically does not carry the same professorial status and
resume-building value as conducting research, acquiring grants, presenting papers at a
professional conference, or engaging in off-campus consulting. Even at postsecondary
institutions that do not place a high priority on research and publication, classroom teaching is
typically valued more highly than academic advising. Without any incentives to pursue
excellence, it seems unlikely that advisors will be motivated to invest the time and energy needed
to improve the quality of their work.
Faculty have only a finite amount of time available to them to perform their three primary
professional responsibilities: teaching, research, and service. Given increasing expectations for
faculty to publish at many colleges and universities (Kuh, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 1991),
while maintaining their traditional teaching loads, it is reasonable to expect that the degree of
faculty commitment to academic advisement will be severely compromised by institutional
reward systems that place greater value on competing professional priorities.
Before we can expect to see substantive improvement in the quality of advising received by
undergraduate students, and concomitant improvement in their retention rates, higher education
administrators must begin to intentionally and creatively redesign traditional reward systems to
place higher value on academic advisement as a professional responsibility. For example,
professional workloads could be intentionally reconfigured and funds reallocated to allow faculty
sufficient time to engage in true developmental advising—as opposed to perfunctory course
scheduling. Academic advising could be redefined as a bona fide instructional activity and, as
such, might be counted as equivalent to the teaching of one course in a faculty member’s
workload. If advising were redefined and elevated to the status of college teaching, it may even
be possible to allow faculty with historically poor records of advising performance the option of
substituting an additional course in their teaching load, in lieu of advising. This policy might
serve to increase the likelihood that faculty who do advise are those who possess a genuine
interest in and commitment to delivering high-quality advising.
Faculty research and scholarship could be more broadly defined to include research on the
advising process, and such scholarship could be counted in decisions about promotion and tenure
in a fashion similar to discipline-driven research. Such an expanded view of scholarship would
be consistent with the late Ernest Boyer’s call for a “new scholarship” that would include the
scholarship of “teaching” and the scholarship of “application” (Boyer, 1991). Also, professional
(non-faculty) advisors might be given the opportunity to advance in rank from assistant to
associate to full (tenured) status—based on the quality of their advising and advising scholarship
—just as faculty have been traditionally promoted on the basis of their teaching and research.
Research on factors that promote faculty change toward student-centered professional
activities indicates that two of the most common barriers to the change process are the influence
of educational tradition and limited incentives for faculty to change (Bonwell & Eison, 1991).
For high-quality advising to become a reality, advisors need (a) to know that the institution
considers advising to be a high-priority professional activity that is equivalent in value to
classroom instruction or research publication, (b) be given the time to do it, and (c) to know that
17
the time they do devote to it is actually counted and seriously weighed in decisions about their
professional rank, promotion, and tenure.
2. Strengthen advisor orientation, training, and development, and deliver them as
essential components of the institution’s faculty/staff development program.
National reports calling for improvement in the quality of undergraduate education have
repeatedly emphasized the need for instructional development of faculty, because graduate
school typically does no prepare them for college teaching (National Institute of Education,
1984; Association of American Colleges, 1985; Wingspread Group, 1993). The very same case
could be made for college advising, because faculty are the most prevalent advisors at all types
of colleges and universities (Lareau, 1996), yet the importance of professional development for
academic advisors has been given short shrift by national reports calling for higher educational
reform. In fact, it is probably safe to say that advising is the professional role for which faculty
are least prepared to perform. Undoubtedly, faculty receive even less preparation for academic
advising during their graduate school experience than they do for undergraduate teaching. (For
instance, there are no “advising assistantships” in graduate school, as there are teaching
assistantships.) Lack of advisor preparation before entering the professoriate is subsequently
compounded by the lack of substantive professional development programs for faculty advisors
after they enter the professoriate. Recent national survey results obtained from a sample of
approximately 1000 postsecondary institutions indicate that only 55% of American colleges and
universities provide any type of preparation or training for advisors of first-year students (Policy
Center on the First Year of College, 2003). The dire need for better advisor training to realize the
goal of developmental academic advising is well articulated by Ender (1994):
Faculty are, for the most part, powerless to implement developmental advising without
adequate training. To be an effective developmental advisor requires sills,
competencies, and knowledge beyond any given academic discipline. Improving
communication, building relationships, setting goals, and enhancing knowledge of
campus and community resources are but a few examples of training areas to which
faculty and other advisor need exposure (p. 106).
Redressing the underpreparedness of faculty advisors requires systematic design and delivery of
intensive and extensive professional development programs. This should be more substantive
than the common practice of reducing advisor development to an advising “training” program
that begins and ends with a one-shot, immersion orientation session for new advisors.
Orientation needs to be augmented by professional development seminars and workshops
delivered in person, and supplemented by advisor support delivered in print—in the form of a
carefully constructed and regularly updated “advising handbook.” A comprehensive advisor
handbook should include: (a) current curricular information (e.g., up-to-date information on
course requirements, sequences, and prerequisites; (b) current information relating to academic
policies and procedures (e.g., procedures for adding/dropping classes and petitioning for an
incomplete or changed grade); (c) student self-help and self-management strategies (e.g.,
strategies for learning and time management); (d) names, phone numbers, and office hours of
key campus- and community-support services (e.g., learning assistance center, career
development center, personal counseling center, local service-learning opportunities); and (e)
strategies for engaging effectively in the process of developmental advising (e.g., student-referral
18
strategies, and concrete advisor behaviors or practices that effectively implement developmental
advising).
Research reviewed by Wyckoff (1999) indicates that advisor preparation and training has a
demonstrable impact on student retention, as evidenced by lower attrition rates for students
whose advisors received training in advising techniques—relative to students whose advisors
were untrained.
3. Assess and evaluate the quality of academic advisement.
Regular assessment of academic advisement sends a clear message to advisors that student
advising is an important professional responsibility and increases the likelihood that weaknesses
in the advising program are identified and corrected. Conversely, failure to monitor and evaluate
the quality of advising tacitly communicates the message that it is a student service which is not
valued by the institution. As Linda Darling-Hammond, higher education research specialist for
the Rand Corporation, points out: “If there’s one thing social science research has found
consistently and unambiguously . . . it’s that people will do more of whatever they are evaluated
on doing. What is measured will increase, and what is not measured will decrease. That’s why
assessment is such a powerful activity. It cannot only measure, but change reality” (quoted in
Hutchings &
Marchese, 1990). Thus, the mere fact that advisors are aware that their advising is being assessed
may, in itself, lead to improvement in the quality of academic advisement they deliver.
Assessment should reflect the perspectives of advisors, as well as students. Advisors should be
given the opportunity to assess the quality of administrative support they receive for advising—
for example, the effectiveness of orientation, training, and development they received, the
usefulness of support materials or technological tools provided for them, the viability of their
advisee case load, and the effectiveness of advising administrative policies and procedures.
National survey research of first-year student advising practices indicates that only 11% of
postsecondary institutions involve advisors as evaluators in the assessment process (Policy
Center on the First Year of College, 2003). This is a disappointing finding, because involving
advisors in the assessment process can serve two very valuable purposes: (a) provides front-line
feedback to the advising program director that can be used for program improvement, and (b)
enables advisors to become active agents (rather than passive recipients) of evaluation, which
serves to increase their personal investment in, and “ownership” of, the advisement program.
Advisors can also become more active agents in the assessment process if they engage in self-
assessment. This could be done in narrative form, perhaps as part of an advising portfolio, which
would include (a) a personal statement of advising philosophy, (b) advising strategies employed,
(c) advisor development activities, (d) self-constructed advising materials (e.g., an advising
syllabus), and (e) responses to student evaluations. This type of advisor self-assessment could
also be used as evidence of advising quality and counted in decisions about promotion and
advancement in rank, comparable to how the “teaching portfolio” is used in faculty evaluation of
instructional effectiveness.
4. Maintain advisee-to-advisor ratios that are small enough to enable delivery of personalized
advising.
Existing advisee/advisor ratios at many colleges and universities are from being conducive
to the formation of a personal relationship between student and advisor, which is the foundation
for effective developmental advising. As Winston (1994) notes:
19
“Unfortunately, on many campuses today (especially at public four-year institutions) advising
centers have student-advisor ratios in the hundreds and these ratios are growing. With such
workloads, developmental advising is impossible, no matter what the philosophy or skills of the
advisors” (p. 113).
The same can be said for many public community colleges. In the California community
colleges, for example, the average student/advisor ratio is about 600:1 (Pam Schachter, personal
communication, December 12, 2002). Advising sessions are not typically scheduled by personal
appointment, and they are not conducted in a private office setting; instead, they take place in a
large, impersonal center on a drop-by basis, which often results in the same student seeing a
different advisor each time she “drops by.”
One way to begin the process of reducing student/advisor ratios to a level that allows for
personalized advising is to increase the number of advisors deployed. This could be
accomplished in a cost-effective manner that would not require hiring of additional personnel, if
academic advisement were to be conceptualized as a shared responsibility assumed by multiple
members of the college community, namely: faculty, professional staff, administrators, student
paraprofessionals (trained peers), graduate students, and possibly retired faculty or staff. If such a
team or community approach to advising were adopted, then student/advisor ratios might be
reduced to more manageable levels—ideally, to a level at which each and every student has a
personally assigned advisor, and all advisors have case loads small enough to allow them to
provide individualized attention and personalized advising to each one of their advisees.
5. Provide strong incentives for students to meet regularly with their advisors.
At some 4-year colleges, and most community colleges, students can register for classes
without ever seeing an academic advisor (e.g., via electronic or telephonic registration). Leaving
students on their own to design an educational plan and to select courses relevant to that plan,
means that students completely bypass the advising process, along with its retention-promoting
potential. This is an especially risky procedure to employ at any college or university, but
especially at community colleges, which (a) offer a complex array of multi-purpose courses
designed to fulfill multiple missions (e.g., transfer-track courses, technical-vocational track
courses, personal enrichment courses), and (b) are open-admission institutions that attract higher
proportions of first-generation college students, students with diverse educational goals and
intentions, and students with diverse levels of academic preparedness. While the practice of
registration without advisement may be consistent with the community colleges’ historic goal of
promoting college access, it may be simultaneously inconsistent with the goal of promoting
college success—because receipt of absolutely no advising (or even informal advice) militates
against their prospects for retention to program or degree completion. (Such a shortsighted focus
on promoting student recruitment without attention to subsequent retention is reinforced by state
funding practices that annually reward postsecondary institutions for the total number of students
enrolled [FTEs], but which provide no fiscal incentive or reward for retaining and advancing
those students who do enroll.)
Requiring an advisor’s signature as a pre-requisite or pre-condition for course registration, as
well as for dropping or adding classes once the academic term has begun, provides a strong
incentive for students to connect with their advisors, and should serve to promote their retention
by (a) enhancing the quality of students’ educational planning and decision making, and by (b)
increasing student contact with faculty and staff outside the classroom.
20
Strong incentives should also be provided for students to meet with advisors at times other than
the hurried and harried period of course registration, i.e., at times when advisors have time to
interact with students as persons—rather than “process” them as registrants, and when advisors
have the opportunity to explore or clarify students’ broader, long-term educational plans—rather
than focusing narrowly, myopically, and episodically on the imminent, deadline-driven task of
class scheduling.
One promising curricular vehicle through which advisors may be given the opportunity to
engage their advisees in meaningful long-range educational planning is the first-year seminar.
Presently, 20% of institutions offering first-year seminars have arranged for students to be placed
into sections of the course that are taught by their academic advisors (National Resource Center
for the First-Year Experience, 2003), thus ensuring regular advisor-advisee contact during the
critical first term of college. Other institutions have built assignments into the first-year seminar
that require students to meet with their academic advisors to engage in long-term educational
planning and decision-making (Cuseo, in press).
6. Identify highly effective advisors and “front load” them—i.e., position them at the front (start)
of the college experience to work with first-year students, particularly first-year students who
may be “at risk” for attrition.
Research indicates that at least one-half of all students who drop out of college will do so
during their freshman year (Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange, 1999). According
to Lee Noel (1985), “The critical time in establishing the kind of one-to-one contacts between
students and their teachers and advisers that contribute to student success and satisfaction occur
during the first few weeks of the freshman year” (p. 20). Support for this observation is provided
by the National Institute of Education’s (1984) landmark report on the quality of undergraduate
education in America. Its panel of distinguished scholars’ first recommendation for improving
undergraduate education was “front loading”, which they define as the reallocation of faculty and
other institutional resources to better serve entering students.
John Gardner suggests that front-loaded support for first-year students during their early weeks
on campus works like the marketing concept of “second sale,” whereby the college helps
students overcome “buyers’ remorse” and make a long-term commitment to remain at the
institution (Gardner, 1986, p. 267). High-quality advising during the first-semester of college
may be one way to promote long-term student commitment and retention. The importance of
quality first-year advisement for the retention of African-American students, in particular, is
empirically supported by research indicating that the frequency of personal contacts between
black freshmen and their academic advisors is the variable that is most strongly associated with
retention through the critical freshman year; furthermore, frequency of student-advisor contact is
significantly higher if the first contact occurs early in the freshman year (Trippi & Cheatham,
1989).
7. Include advising effectiveness as one criterion for recruiting and selecting new faculty.
Beal and Noel (1980) surveyed 947 colleges and universities, asking administrative officials
involved with student retention the following question: “What makes students stay?” Ranking
first in response to this question was “a caring faculty and staff.” As Tinto (1987) expresses it,
“Students are more likely to become committed to the institution and, therefore stay, when they
come to understand that the institution is committed to them. There is no ready programmatic
21
substitute for this sort of commitment. Programs cannot replace the absence of high quality,
caring and concerned faculty and staff” (p. 176).
It may not be easy to “train” people to develop these altruistic characteristics; more
realistically, individuals with these qualities need to be found. The harvesting of caring,
concerned, and committed faculty and staff begins with careful attention to these qualities during
the recruitment and selection process. College position announcements should publicly and
explicitly state that academic advising is an important component of the position, and candidates’
written applications and personal interviews should be scrutinized for signs of a “caring”
disposition, and for a demonstrated interest in and commitment to student advising.
Summary and Conclusion
Research reviewed in this manuscript strongly suggests that there is much need for, and room
for, improvement in the quality of academic advisement and the rate of student retention in
higher education. The research also suggests that improvement in the former is associated with
improvement in the latter. However, to promote extensive and enduring gains in student
retention, academic advisement programs need to undergo systemic change at four foundational
levels: (a) recruitment and selection of advisors, (b) preparation and development of advisors, (c)
recognition and reward for advisors, and (d) advisor assessment and program evaluation. As
Habley and Crockett conclude from national surveys of academic advising practices: “Training,
accountability, evaluation, and recognition/reward are the cornerstones of performance in every
field or job. Yet those continue to be stumbling blocks in most advising programs” (1988, p. 68).
These four elements are also the cornerstones and building blocks that undergird construction of
any high-quality advising program. Only when sufficient institutional attention and resources are
devoted to securing each of these foundational features of program development will the quest
for quality academic advisement be successful, and its potential for promoting student retention
be fulfilled. Moreover, if state-funding policies are reexamined and revamped to reward public
institutions with fiscal resources that are based on student retention or persistence to graduation
(The Education Trust, 2003), rather than simply on total enrollment or headcount, then greater
institutional attention to and support for academic advisement will likely follow.
22
References
Abrams, H., & Jernigan, L. (1984). Academic support services and the success of high-
risk students. American Educational Research Journal, 21, 261-274.
ACT (2001, February). “National college dropout and graduation rates, 1999.”
[http:www.act.org/news].
“Alpha Gives Undecided Students a Sense of Identity” (1996). In M. L. Santovec,
Making more changes: Editor’s choice (pp. 88-90). Madison, WI: Magna
Publications.
American Association of State Colleges & Universities (AASC&U) (2005). Greater
expectations: A new vision for learning as a nation goes to college. (National panel
report). Washington, DC: Author.
Anderson, K. L. (1988). The impact of colleges and the involvement of male and female
students. Sociology of Education, 61, 160-177.
Association of American Colleges (1985). Integrity in the curriculum: A report to the
academic community: Project on redefining the meaning and purpose of
baccalaureate degrees. Washington, DC: Author.
Astin, A. W. (1975). Preventing students from dropping out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Astin, A. W. (1977). Four critical years: Effect of college on beliefs, attitudes, and
knowledge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Astin, A. W. (1991). Assessment for excellence: The philosophy and practice of
assessment and evaluation in higher education. New York: Macmillan.
Astin, A. W. (1993). What matters in college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bahr, P. (2008). Cooling out in the community college: What is the effect of academic advising
on students’ chance of success? Research in Higher Education, 49(8), 704-732.
Beal, P. E., & Noel, L. (1980). What works in student retention. Iowa City, Iowa:
American College Testing Program.
Bean, J. (1980). Dropouts and turnover: The synthesis and a test of a causal model of
student attrition. Research in Higher Education, 12, 155-187.
Bean, J. (1981). The synthesis of a theoretical model of student attrition. Paper
presented at the 1981 meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Los
Angeles, California.
23
Bean, J. (1983). The application of a model of turnover in work organizations to the
student attrition process. The Review of Higher Education, 6, 129-148.
Bean, J., & Hossler, D. (1990). The strategic management of college enrollments. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Berger, J. B., & Milem, J. F. (1999). The role of student involvement and perceptions of
integration in a causal model of student persistence. Research in Higher Education,
40(6), 641-664.
Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the
classroom. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No 1. Washington, DC: The
George Washington University School of Education and Human Development.
Boyer, E. L. (1987). College: The undergraduate experience in America. New York:
Harper & Row.
Boyer, E. L. (1991). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton,
NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Campbell, T. A., & Campbell, D. E. (1997, December). Faculty/student mentor program:
Effects on academic performance and retention. Research in Higher Education, 38,
727-742.
Cartensen, D. J., & Silberhorn, C. A. (1979). A national survey of academic advising,
final report. Iowa City, Iowa: American College Testing.
Churchill, W. D., & Iwai, S. I. (1981). College attrition, student use of campus facilities,
and a consideration of self-reported personal problems. Research in Higher Education
14(4), 353-365.
Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange (1999). Executive summary 1998-1999
CSRDE report: The retention and graduation rates in 269 colleges and universities.
Norman, OK: Center for Institutional Data Exchange and Analysis, University of
Oklahoma.
Creamer, E. C., & Scott, D. W. (2000). Assessing individual advisor effectiveness. In V.
N. Gordon, W. R. Habley, & Associates, Academic advising: A comprehensive
handbook (pp. 339-348). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Crockett, D. S. (1978). Academic advising: A cornerstone of student retention. In L. Noel
(Ed.), Reducing the dropout rate. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Crockett, D. S., Habley, W. R., & Cowart S.C. (1987). The ACT national survey of
academic advising: Preliminary report. Iowa City: IA: American College Testing
Program.
24
Cuseo, J. (in press). Comprehensive academic support for students during the first-year
year of college. In G. L. Kramer (Ed.), Student academic services: A comprehensive
handbook for the 21st century. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Education Commission of the States (1995). Making quality count in undergraduate
education. Denver, CO: ECS Distribution Center.
Elliot, K., & Healy, M. (2001). Key factors influencing student satisfaction related to recruitment
and retention. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 10, 1-11.
Ender, S. C. (1983). Assisting high academic-risk athletes: Recommendations for the
academic advisor. NACADA Journal (October), 1-10.
Ender, S. C. (1994). Impediments to developmental advising. NACADA Journal, 14(2),
105-107.
Ender, S. C., Winston, R. B., Jr., & Miller, T. K. (1984). Academic advising
reconsidered. In R. B. Winston, Jr., T. K. Miller, S. C. Ender, T. G. Grites, &
Associates, Developmental academic advising (pp. 3-34). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Erickson, B. L. & Sommers, D. W. (1991). Teaching college freshmen. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Foote, B. (1980). Determined- and undetermined-major students: How different are they?
Journal of College Student Personnel, 21(1), 29-34.
Friedlander, J. (1980). Are college support programs and services reaching high-risk
students? Journal of College Student Personnel, 21(1), 23-28.
Frost, S. H. (1991). Academic advising for student success: A system of shared
responsibility. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 3. The George Washington
School of Education and Human Development, Washington DC.
Gaffner, D., & Hazler, R. (2002). Factors related to indecisiveness and career indecision in
undecided college students. Journal of College Student Development, 43(3), 317-326.
Gardner, J. (1981). Developing faculty as facilitators and mentors. In V. A. Harren, M. N.
Daniels, & J. N. Buck (Eds.), Facilitating students’ career development (pp. 67-80)
New Directions for Student Services, No. 14. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gardner, J. N. (1986). The freshman year experience. College and University, 61(4), 261-
274.
Gordon, V. N. (2007). The undecided college student: An academic and career advising
challenge (3rd ed.). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
25
Gordon, V. N. (1984). The undecided college student: An academic and career advising
challenge. Springfield, Illinois: Thomas.
Gordon, V. N., Habley, W. R., & Associates (2000). Academic advising: A
comprehensive handbook. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Grayson, J. P., & Grayson, K. (2003). Research on retention and attrition. Montreal,
Canada: The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation.
Habley, W. R., (1988). The third ACT national survey of academic advising. In W. H.
Habley (Ed.), The status and future of academic advising: Problems and promise.
ACT National Center for the Advancement of Educational Priorities.
Habley, W. R. (2000). Current practices in academic advising. In V. N. Gordon, W. R.
Habley, & Associates, Academic advising: A comprehensive handbook (pp. 35-43).
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Habley, W. R., & Crockett, D. S. (1988). The third ACT national survey of academic
advising. In W. H. Habley (Ed.), The status and future of academic advising:
Problems and promise. ACT National Center for the Advancement of Educational
Priorities.
Haring, M. J. (1997). Networking mentoring as a preferred model for guiding programs
for underrepresented students. In H. T. Frierson, Jr. (Ed.), Diversity in higher
education (pp. 63-76). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Hutchings, P., & Marchese, T. (1990). Watching assessment—questions, stories,
prospects. Change, 22(5), pp. 12-43.
Johnson, C. S. (1989). Mentoring programs. In M. L. Upcraft & J. N. Gardner (Eds.), The
freshman year experience (pp. 118-128). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Karp, R., & Logue, R. (2002/2003). Retention initiative for unscheduled sophomores and
unscheduled readmits. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, &
Practice, 4(2), 147-172.
Klepfler, K., & Hull, J. (2012). High school rigor and good advice: Setting up students to
succeed. Alexandria, VA: Center for Public Education, National School Boards Association.
Retrieved fromhttp://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffing/High-school-
rigor-and-good-advice-Setting-up-students-to-succeed.
Knapp, J. R., & Karabenick, S. A. (1988). Incidence of formal and informal academic
help-seeking in higher education. Journal of College Student Development, 29(3),
223-227.
26
Kramer, M. (1982). Meeting student aid needs in a period of retrenchment. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kramer, M. (1993). Lengthening of time to degree. Change, 25(3), pp. 5-7.
Kuh, G. (2002, February). Student engagement in the first year of college. Plenary
address delivered at the Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience, Orlando,
FL.
Kuh, G., Schuh, J., Whitt, E., & Associates (1991). Involving colleges. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., Whitt, E. J., & Associates (2005). Student success in
college: Creating conditions that matter. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kulik, C., Kulik, J., & Shwalb, B. (1983). College programs for high-risk and
disadvantaged students: A meta-analysis of findings. Review of Educational Research,
53, 397-414.
Lareau, G. (1996). Critical issues in academic advising survey: Training and
development practices. <http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/newsleter/jan98.htm>
“Learning Slope.” (1991). Policy Perspectives, 4(1), pp. 1A-8A. Pew Higher Education
Research Program.
Lenning, O. T., Beal, P. E. & Sauer, K. (1980). Retention and attrition: Evidence for
actions and research. Boulder, CO: National Center for Higher Education
Management Systems.
Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Larkin, K. C. (1987). Comparison of three theoretically
derived variables in predicting career and academic behavior: Self-efficacy, interest
congruence, and consequence thinking. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 34, 293-
298.
Levin, M., & Levin, J. (1991). A critical examination of academic retention programs for
at-risk minority college students. Journal of College Student Development, 32, 323-
334.
Levinson, D. J. (1978). The seasons of a man’s life. New York: Knopf.
Levitz, R. (1990). Sizing up retention programs. Recruitment and Retention in Higher
Education, 4(9), pp. 4-5.
Levitz, R. (1993). Retention is dollar-wise. Recruitment and Retention Newsletter, 7(1),
p. 4.
27
Levitz, R. & Noel, L. (1989). Connecting students to institutions: Keys to retention and
success. In M. L. Upcraft, J. N. Gardner, & Associates, The freshman year experience
(pp. 65-81). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Light, R. J. (2001). Making the most of college: Students speak their minds. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Lutz, B., He, S., & Cataldi, E. F. (2003). Descriptive summary of 1995-66 Beginning
postsecondary students: Six years later. Education Statistics Quarterly, 5(1).
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.
Mann, J. R., Hunt, M. D., & Alford, J. G. (2003/2004). Monitored probation: A program
that works. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, & Practice, 5(3),
245-254.
Marchese, T. (1992). Assessing learning at Harvard: An interview with Richard J. Light.
AAHE Bulletin, 44(6), pp. 3-7.
Metzner, B. S. (1989). Perceived quality of academic advising: The effect on freshman
attrition. American Educational Research Journal, 26(3), 422-442.
Miller, T. E., Neuner, J. L., & Glynn, J. (1988). Reducing attrition: A college at work in
research and practice. NASPA Journal, 25(4), 236-243.
National Institute of Education (1984). Involvement in learning. Study Group on the
Conditions of Excellence in Higher Education. Washington, D.C.: Author.
National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience. (2002). 2000 survey of first-year
seminar programming: Continuing innovations in the collegiate curriculum
(Monograph No. 35). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, National Resource
Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.
National Survey of Student Engagement (2001). Improving the college experience:
National benchmarks of effective educational practice. Bloomington: Indiana
University Center for Postsecondary Research.
Noel, L. (1978). First steps in starting a campus retention program. In L. Noel (Ed.),
Reducing the dropout rate (pp. 87-98). New Directions for Student Services, No. 3.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Noel, L. (1985). Increasing student retention: New challenges and potential. In L. Noel,
R. Levitz, & D. Saluri (Eds.), Increasing student retention (pp. 1-27). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Noel, L. & Levitz, R. (1995). New strategies for difficult times. Recruitment & Retention
in Higher Education, 9(7), pp. 4-7.
28
Noel, L., & Levitz, R., & Saluri, D. (Eds.) (1985). Increasing student retention: New
challenges and potential. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Pascarella, E. T. (1980). Student-faculty informal contact and college outcomes. Review
of Educational Research, 50, 545- 595.
Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. (1977). Patterns of student-faculty informal interaction
beyond the classroom and voluntary freshman attrition. Journal of Higher Education,
48, 540-552.
Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. (1979). Interaction effects in Spady’s and Tinto’s
conceptual models of college drop out. Sociology of Education, 52, 197-210.
Pascarella, E. T, & Terenzini, P. T. (1991). How college affects students: Findings and
insights from twenty years of research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Peterson, M., Wagner, J., & Lamb, C. (2001). The role of advising in non-returning students’
perceptions of their university. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 10, 45-59.
Policy Center on the First Year of College (2003). Second National Survey of First-Year
Academic Practices, 2002. Retrieved January 18, 2003 from
http://www.brevard.edu/fyc/survey2002/findings.htm
Postsecondary Education Opportunity (2002). Institutional graduation rates by control,
academic selectivity and degree level, 1983-2002. The Environmental Scanning
Research Letter of Opportunity for Postsecondary Education, (March), pp. 1-16.
Redmond, S. P. (1990). Mentoring and cultural diversity in academic settings. American
Behavioral Scientist, 34, 188-200.
Rendon, L. I. (1994). Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of
learning and student development. Innovative Higher Education, 19(1), 23-32.
Roberts, J., & Styron, R., Jr. (2010). Student satisfaction and persistence: Factors vital to student
retention. Research in Higher Education Journal, 6, 1-18
Rosenberg, L. J., & Czepiel, J. Z. (1983). A marketing approach for customer retention.
The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 1, 45-51.
Schlossberg, N. K., Lynch, A. Q., & Chickering, A. W. (1989). Improving higher
education environments for adults: Responsive programs and services from entry to
departure. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Seidman, A. (1991). The evaluation of a pre/post admission/counseling process at a suburban
community college: Impact on student satisfaction with the faculty and the institution,
29
retention, and academic performance. College and University, 66(4). 223-232.
Smith, B. (1993). The effect of quality of effort on persistence among traditional-aged
community college students. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 17, 103-
122.
Smith, J. B., Walter, T. L., & Hoey G. (1992). Support programs and student self-
efficacy: Do first-year students know when they need help? Journal of The Freshman
Year Experience, 4(2), 41-67.
Solberg, V. S., O’Brien P., Villareal R., & Davis, B. (1993). Self-efficacy and Hispanic
college students: Validation of the college self-efficacy instrument. Hispanic Journal
of Behavioral Sciences, 15(1), 80-95.
Steele, G., Kennedy, G., & Gordon, V. (1993). The retention of major changers: A longitudinal
study. Journal of College Student Development, 34, 58-62.
Teague, G. V., & Grites, T. J. (1980). Faculty contracts and academic advising. Journal
of College Student Personnel, 21, 40-44.
Terenzini. P. T. (1986). Retention research: Academic and social fit. Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the Southern Regional Office of the College Entrance
Examination Board, New Orleans, LA.
Terenzini, P. T., & Pascarella, E. T. (1977). Voluntary freshman attrition and patterns of
social and academic integration in a university: A test of a conceptual model.
Research in Higher Education, 6, 25-44.
Terenzini, P. T., & Pascarella, E. T. (1978). The relation of students’ precollege
characteristics and freshman year experience to voluntary attrition. Research in
Higher Education, 9, 347-366.
The Education Trust (2003). A matter of degrees: Improving graduation rates in four-
year colleges and universities. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of
Education.
The Pell Institute (2004). Indicators of opportunity in higher education. Washington, DC:
The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education.
Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent
research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89-125.
Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures for student attrition.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures for student attrition
30
(2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tinto, V. (2005). Epilogue: moving from theory to action. In A. Seidman (Ed.), College
student retention: Formula for student success (pp. 317-333). Westport, CT:
American Council on Education & Praeger.
Tinto, V. (2012). College completion: Rethinking institutional action. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press.
Titley, R., & Titley, B. (1980). Initial choice of college major: Are only the “undecided”
undecided? Journal of College Student personnel, 21(4), 293-298.
Trippi, J., & Cheatham, N. E. (1989). Effects of special counseling for black freshmen on
a predominantly white campus. Journal of College Student Development, 30(1), 35-
40.
Upcraft, M. L., Finney, J. E., & Garland, P. (1984). Orientation: A context. In M. L.
Upcraft (Ed.), Orienting students to college (pp. 5-25). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1994). Statistical abstract of the United States: 1994 (114th
ed.). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Walker, S. C., & Taub, D. J. (2001). Variables correlated with satisfaction with a
mentoring relationship in first-year college students and their mentors. Journal of The
First Year Experience and Students in Transition, 13(1), 47-67.
Wallace, D., & Abel, R. (1997). Clearing a path for success: Deconstructing borders in
higher education through undergraduate mentoring. Paper presented at the Annual
Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Albuquerque, NM
(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 415 812.)
Walter, T. L., & Smith, J. (1990, April). Self-assessment and academic support: Do
students know they need help? Paper presented at the annual Freshman Year
Experience Conference, Austin, Texas.
“What Do I Want To Be. . .?” (1997). LAS News. (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Newsletter, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Winter, p. 12.
“What We Know About First-Year Students” (1996). In J. N. Gardner, & A. J. Jewler,
Your college experience: Instructor’s resource manual (p. G-90).
Willingham, W. W. (1985). Success in college: The role of personal qualities and
academic ability. New York: College Entrance Examination Board.
Wilson, R. C. (1975). College professors and their impact on students. New York: Wiley
and Sons.
31
Wingspread Group (1993). An American imperative: Higher expectations for higher
education. Racine, WI: The Johnson Foundation.
Winston, R. B., Jr. (1994). Developmental academic advising reconsidered: Chimera or
unrealized potentiality? NACADA Journal, 14(2), 112-116.
Winston, R. B., Ender, S. C., & Miller, T. K. (Eds.)(1982). Developmental approaches to
academic advising. New Directions for Student Services, No. 17. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Winston, R. B., Miller, T. K., Ender, S. C., Grites, T. J., & Associates (1984).
Developmental academic advising. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Wyckoff, S. C. (1999). The academic advising process in higher education: History,
research, and improvement. Recruitment & Retention in Higher Education, 13(1), pp.
1-3.
Young, R., Backer, R., & Rogers, G. (1989). The impact of early advising and scheduling on
freshman success. Journal of College Student Development, 30, 309-312.
