How One University Lowered Barriers to Student Success with a New Advising Model

The partner university needed to reorganize their advising model to make it easier for both staff and students to navigate.

The institution’s advising model left a lack of clarity between the roles of the academic advisor and student success coach, which were each housed in different parts of the university. This created internal conflict between people in those positions, leading to churn. It also caused confusion for students on navigating their academic and institutional experience.

EAB provided end-to-end support, from diagnosing the problem through implementation of a new, holistic advising model.

An EAB Senior Research Advisor (SRA) conducted a listening tour to identify the root causes of the problem the institution was facing, and developed and helped execute a plan to create a best-in-class advising model that met their needs. He designed communications for stakeholder groups, served as an advisor for their committee, provided example job descriptions, and recommended and helped implement org structure changes for academic and student affairs related to the new advising model.

The partner university overcame a longstanding hurdle by implementing an enhanced advising model that meets student and staff needs, all in a single academic year with no staff attrition.

The institution leveraged EAB’s analysis, and subject matter and change management expertise to implement a new centralized advising model with a single point of contact, lowering student barriers to accessing services. EAB’s process and communication support managed internal conflict, helping the university retain 100% of staff, and saved them an estimated 1-4 academic years of work.