Elevating advising at Butler University

Robbie Lopez-Shue

Executive Director, Student Success, Butler University

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of EAB.

Quality advising in the arena of higher education is critical to student success. One of the main ways to ensure quality advising takes place is for an institution of higher education to create, foster, and nurture an environment for it. Here at Butler University located in Indianapolis, Indiana, we pride ourselves on our faculty advising model. It is a model that has been effective and will continue to be effective. However, according to the Foundations of Excellence Comprehensive Report, a partnership between Butler University and the Gardner Institute, Butler University has room to grow in this area.

The question Butler University is looking to answer is: How can we elevate advising to serve our students more effectively? This question came about from a self-study that was a part of the previously mentioned partnership between Butler University and the Gardner Institute. The self-study communicated to us that we need to focus on redesigning the student advising experience; providing consistency with the student advising experience and its outcomes; preparing faculty and staff to be effective advisors by offering them ongoing development; and creating and implementing advising resources and trainings for faculty, staff, and students.

The challenges Butler University is facing with this work are implementing a change to our campus culture; working with the current perceptions of advising; the overall workload of our faculty, which includes advising students; the current state of advisor resources and training; how faculty are evaluated when it comes to advising; and the time it takes to provide quality advising.

Butler University has produced three initial solutions to elevate advising:

1. The creation and implementation of an advising philosophy and student success definition
2. A consistent advising framework
3. Advising professional development, resources, and trainings

Butler University has already accomplished quite a bit with this work. We have conducted a campus listening tour with faculty, staff, and students; evaluated current advising resources, trainings, etc.; held collaborative innovation discussions with faculty and staff; surveyed the leadership of the individual colleges; compiled an executive summary on rebooting advising; built an advising resource microsite; drafted a new advising framework; implemented a monthly advising training series; published a monthly advising newsletter; and contracted a consultant to work on next steps.

Through the previously mentioned interactions with faculty, staff, and students, Butler University has heard the following:

• “I would like to meet with my advisor for more than just picking classes.”
• “I enjoy talking with my advisor when they are able to meet.”
• “I wish my advisor understood me more as a person.”
• “My advisor genuinely cares for his students, but I wish he knew more about other things that could help me.”
• “I need help being a better advisor, more resources and training, better resources and training.”
• “If push comes to shove with my workload, advising does not rise to the top.”
• “I need more time to meet with my students.”
• “If I am asked to do more work with advising, what will be removed from my plate?”

These quotes are just a sample of the comments we gathered from our faculty, staff, and students. They represent consistent trends.

Butler University will be taking the following next steps with our work to elevate advising to serve our students more effectively when it comes to advising:

• In January 2024, we will be holding the first of two working sessions with a consultant to gather final feedback from faculty and staff on the work we have accomplished to date.
• In January 2024, we will be finalizing our foundational work of creating an advising philosophy and student success definition, a consistent advising framework, and advising professional development, resources, and trainings.
• In February 2024, we will be holding the second of two working sessions with a consultant to determine our specific action items regarding faculty and staff advising resources.
• In March 2024, we will be finalizing our future faculty and staff advising resources.
• In April and May 2024, we will be preparing our campus for the overall roll-out of our future approaches to advising.