August 25, 2011 UAAC Meeting Minutes - University Academic Advising Committee - University Academic Advising Committee

Admissions - Janet Muncey

Nancy Trevino is now Senior Admissions Counselor; Maren Lythgoe is Associate Director.
No further applications are being accepted for Fall Semester; the deadline for Spring 2012 application is November 1.
Transfer courses: some have a lab included as part of a (single) course, and students sometimes inquire about having it posted at the University as two courses - this is not possible; advisors may want to ask the student if a lab was associated with four- or five-credit-hour course that's transferring in.
State articulation guides and Getting Ready guides were delivered to college coordinators this week. Note that College of Eastern Utah is now officially USU - Eastern.

Registrar's Office - Michael Bard, Emily Johnson

Enrollment Fall 2011 = 31,934 (up 2.9% from last year)
August 29: permission numbers are required; August 31: last day to drop (delete) semester-length and first-half courses; September 6: last day to elect Credit / No-Credit (CR / NC) or audit.
A number of student petitions to reverse CR / NC for Summer 2011 have been received; it appears that some students may have inadvertently elected the option due to a misunderstanding while using the new registration system. These petitions are being viewed with leniency; it may be a learning curve issue, but Registrar's Office is also looking into how this might be avoided in future. One idea: query how many CR / NC elections there are this fall compared to last fall.
Thanks go to all advisors for helping with summer graduation clearance; over 500 undergraduate and 400 graduate degrees have been awarded.

Financial Aid - Jency Brown for Amy Capps

First disbursement of aid was over $64 million - 11,600 students (> 40% dollar increase over last year's first disbursement). The number of students receiving federal aid has more than doubled over the past five years.

Curriculum Administration - Lyndi Duff and Ed Barbanell

Deadline for spring curriculum changes is September 1; the catalog / class schedule for spring will be posted on September 19.
New e-mail address: curriculum@utah.edu .
University-wide unified calendar (as previously discussed at UAAC meetings): Administrative Computing Services will be building it (but will first explore whether there might be an existing product that will satisfy the University's needs).

DARS/GPS - Richelle Warr and Sharon Aiken-Wisniewski

September 7: "DARS and GPS for Advisors" training (information distributed) - this training will be offered regularly.
As of August 23, there were 3.774 plans in the system (an increase of about 350 plans in the past three months); these represent 3,022 unique students.
Over the next few weeks, Richelle will be working on entering the new articulation guides into DARS.
DARS changes will start to move forward in September; it's hoped that these can have an impact on prerequisite checking and articulation. It's also hoped that the u.Select tool can be brought up in the foreseeable future (this will help transfer students to see how they can efficiently move to the University).

Advisor Education and Development - Vickie Morgan

Advising Conference (September 20) - over 60 RSVP's so far. An excellent program is planned. This year's conference will incorporate the annual Mandatory Advising Program kickoff. If interested in volunteering, please e-mail vmorgan@uc.utah.edu .
Next PeopleSoft training, September 14; next Advising Basics, October.

Orientation - Trisha Jensen

On-campus orientations have now wrapped up; thanks to everyone for their work with students over the summer. On-campus saw 1,803 transfer and 2,691 first-year students. Final numbers will be presented at next month's meeting (some students are still requesting the online orientation).
Plazafest, August 31; tables are still available (e-mail tjensen@sa.utah.edu ).
The director position is open and posted.

International Center - Jacqueline Fogel

The first International Welcome Week (expanded orientation) took place last week. Advisors who met with students will probably receive a follow assessment request. Numbers appear to be up about 180 students over last year.

Transfer Student Issues - Terese Pratt

The newsletter (sent to advisors at two-year institutions) is now in preparation; notify Terese of any changes, new programs, etc. ( tpratt@uc.utah.edu ).
General education substitutions: when referring students to Academic Advising Center, it's helpful to remind them to bring a course syllabus with them (these substitutions can sometimes be handled at the Academic Advising Center Quick Answer desk).

Housing and Residential Education - no report

Mandatory Advising Program - Martina Stewart

The Program kickoff will be subsumed into the Advising Conference this year. Sessions will cover both freshman and second-year advising, as well as some program changes including a new page for freshmen. Becki Broadbent is testing some usages of PeopleSoft for the advising program. Freshman advising begins September 26.

Major Expo - Steve Hadley

Please begin reminding students about the September 28 Expo; it is worthwhile even for students who have already chosen a major (information on minors, certificates, Career Services, etc.). (Information distributed, including a sampling of feedback from last year, which was discussed.)
Ideas for publicity are welcomed; some students have reported that they only knew about it when they happened to walk by.
Departmental representatives are urged to think about how best to present / "sell" the major to students in an interesting way.
Please be careful about packing up booths before the stated closing time (some students are making sacrifices to their work schedules in order to attend).
Thanks to everyone for promptly submitting RSVP's this year; departments / programs in attendance are being listed on the flyers and website.

New and Continuing Business

ArtsBridge Program: Kerri Hopkins presented information on this program, housed in the College of Fine Arts (and which is part of a national program in which numerous universities participate). Its aim is to bring the arts back into the public schools (primarily Title I, lower-performing schools) by integrating them into other areas of the curriculum. Highlights:

University faculty act as mentors for students in the program (juniors, seniors, and graduate students in good standing) who spend about 30 hours in the classroom over a semester (and come from six different departments)
The program provides professional development for the classroom teacher
K-12 students receive new, "hands-on" experiences
New initiative this year: establishing interdisciplinary relationships on campus which are then taken out to the schools (e.g., film / history, theatre / urban planning).
A good service-learning opportunity, as well as one for students interested in teaching (but who aren't teaching majors)
Website: www.artsbridge.utah.edu

Math Updates / Accuplacer Review: Kelly MacArthur distributed updated information on advising students on appropriate mathematics courses, as well as course prerequisite enforcement. Noted in particular:

Accuplacer scores are visible in DARS. Reported percentiles on the Accuplacer don't matter; only raw scores. All scores expire after two years.
There are no exceptions made to course prerequisites. Advisors should not refer students to the mathematics advisor for such.
For permission codes, there is no need for the student to e-mail Kelly; they should be referred to the online form.
The contingency report (to drop students from courses) will be submitted today. Students who registered for the second-semester calculus course this semester - but who got a "C-" or lower in the first-semester course - will be dropped at the end of the first week of classes.
Students may not be able to add math courses next week (will be at the instructor's discretion).
In certain circumstances, within the 1030 / 1050 / 1090 course group, one course may be used to repeat another one; students should speak with Kelly about this.
Math placement breakfast and information session, September 27 (information distributed).

"Data Moment": Sharon Aiken-Wisniewski distributed and highlighted from the University's latest Enrollment Statistics, including comparison between Fall 2010 and Fall 2011.

Advisor Awards Committee: Bobbi Davis has volunteered to serve (along with Jency Brown and Jason Barkemeyer) on a committee to create new advisor awards; more are needed for this endeavor. Please contact Jency or Jason if interested.

Karsten Scholarship: Bobbi Davis noted this scholarship (and mentoring), offered by the University, for students who have been in foster care. Bobbi would like to form an ad hoc committee to explore these students' needs, and what supports may already be in place. If interested, contact her at bobbi.davis@fcs.utah.edu .

Present: Janet Muncey (Admissions); Nevon Bruschke (Art and Art History); Jason Barkemeyer (Business); Pat Reilly (Career Services); Amanda May (Civil and Environmental Engineering); Roberta Lopez, Merilee Anderson, Janet Goff (Continuing Education); Arlene Arenaz (Electrical and Computer Engineering); Dianne Leonard (Engineering); Jenny Stout, Bobbi Davis (Family and Consumer Studies); Mary Ann Golightly (Geography); Judy Martinez (Geology and Geophysics); Shari Lindsey (Health); Chelsea Ruesch (Health Promotion and Education); Taunya Dressler (Humanities); Jacqueline Fogel (International Center); Kacey Campbell (Linguistics); Ashley Quimby (Materials Science and Engineering); Kelly MacArthur (Mathematics); Carol MacNicholl (Disability Services); Kelsey Nicholson, Sharon Beck (Student Recruitment); Tricia Sugiyama (Ethnic Student Affairs); Eleanor Shields (Exercise and Sport Science); Debra Mascaro, Mark Mun (Mechanical Engineering); Mary Ann Dresher (Music); Cindy Weatbrook (Nursing); Trisha Jensen (Orientation); Betsy Cook (Parks, Recreation, and Tourism); Samantha Brady (Political Science); Paige Zuckerman (Psychology); Michael Bard, Emily Johnson (Registrar's Office); Gina Seastrand (Social and Behavioral Sciences); Maria Martinez (Student Equity and Diversity); Maria Baldwin (Student Support Services); Jill Hinckley, Becky Owen (Teacher Education); Lyndi Duff, Ed Barbanell, Cristina Caputo (Undergraduate Studies); Jency Brown, David Eisen, Terese Pratt, Steve Hadley, Sharon Aiken-Wisniewski, Richelle Warr, Vickie Morgan, Martina Stewart, Becki Broadbent (Academic Advising Center);. Total: 53

NEXT MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15,
2:00PM, IN THE CHRISTENSEN CENTER (CRCC) ROOM 110