The Life of a First Year Adviser: Plaid vs. Stripes

1. The Life of a First Year Adviser: Plaid vs. Stripes Lindsay Dobucki

2. Presentation Overview • Brief Overview of Academic Advising at Miami • Adviser Roles and Responsibilities • Surviving and Thriving during Advising Season • Planning your Schedule • Activity • Questions

3. Overview of Advising • All first-year students receive academic advising through the Office of Residence Life and New Student Programs (you!) • FYA, AFYA, Commuter, Practicum • Very unique system

4. Positions in Detail • FYA = First Year Adviser • Full-time, live-in, Masters-level professional staff member, serves as both resident director and academic adviser for the residents in his/her hall • AFYA = Assistant First Year Adviser • Graduate student, live-in, works together with First Year Advisers in larger buildings, is supervised by the full-time FYA

5. Positions in Detail • Commuter Student Adviser • Graduate student, live-off, is responsible for the overall administration of the Commuter Center and serves as the academic adviser to first-year commuter students and the Evans Scholars • Practicum Students • Graduate students, some with ORLNSP, others are not, for-credit experience, # of advisees is based on # of credits, reports to FYA

6. Roles & Responsibilities • All Positions • Provide quality developmental academic advising to all first-year students at Miami University taking a holistic approach to help students integrate all pieces of their college experience

7. Roles & Responsibilities • Live-In Staff • Living Learning Community, Judicial, Counseling, Advising, Supervise Staff, Advise Hall Council, Build Community • Live-Off Staff • Advising, Counseling, Living Learning Community, Help with Community Building during all interactions

8. Plaid vs. Stripes • Different positions = Different roles & responsibilities • But we are all operating under the same overarching philosophy • Although we can list the different pieces of our positions (our stripes), we can’t separate them out in practice. Everything is integrated (think plaid!).

9. Surviving and Thriving during Academic Advising Season Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant. -Maya Angelou

10. What is “Advising Season?” • Returning Staff • September 12 – November 8 • 8 weeks • New Staff • September 19 – November 8 • 7 weeks • Why the difference? • New staff will be observing returning advisers the week of Sept. 12-16

11. Surviving and Thriving • Rule # 1: Be Prepared • Read through the Advising Manual • Rule # 2: Stay Organized • Use your binder! • Start creating files • Rule # 3: Share the Load • Utilize your Hall Assistant • Collaborate with other advisers • Rule # 4: Take Care of Yourself

12. Scheduling your Time • Utilize MeetingMaker • Appointment Length • Based on personal preference • To be truly developmental, no less than 45 minutes • Office Hours • Scheduling time for YOU

13. Scheduling your Time • Let’s look at some examples… • FYA (me) during Week 2 of Advising Season • AFYA (Audrey) during Week 3 of Advising Season • FYA (me) during First Year Registration in November

17. Activity Time • Let’s pretend that we just entered Week 3 of Advising Season. Take the blank MeetingMaker schedule and plan your week.

18. The End