1. Finish in Four
The Advisor’s Role in
Moving Students from
Retention to Degree
Completion
NACADA Region 8 Conference
March 19, 2012

2. Advising within the National Higher
Education Context: An Historical
Overview
 Access to higher education
 Increased enrollment in higher
education
 Retention of students
 (Timely) Degree completion

3. The Current National Higher Education
Policy Agenda: Problems &
Stakeholders
 Student indebtedness in 2010:
$25,000+
 Graduation Rates: 60.6% of full-
time students earn a Bachelor’s
degree within 8 years
 Stakeholders: Students, states, the
nation

4. High Student Indebtedness and Low
Graduation Rates: The Perfect Storm
 High cost of dropping out to
students – large debt loads and
forfeiting of the higher income that
accompanies a degree
 Lost income equals less money in
the market, less state and federal
tax receipts
 Taxpayer money funding grants
for students who ultimately don’t

5. The Good News: Advisors Know How
to Solve these Problems
We Know What Works in Retention
 Advising is central to any retention effort
 Advising that seeks out students,
maintains contact with them, and brings
them into the process is most likely to
increase retention
 Advising efforts that increase retention
are comprehensive and coordinated
 Centralizing decentralized learning
environments

6. PathwayOregon: A Retention and
Degree Completion Program at the UO
• Currently serving approximately 1,400
actively enrolled students
• We have three full-time professionals, a
part-time administrative support
professional, and two Peer Advisors
• We serve lower-income, Pell Grant eligible
Oregonians: 44% are first-generation, 30%
students of color
• We will graduate our first cohort, at a
record-setting percentage, before fall 2012

7. The Promise: Affordability and
Access
• First-time freshmen Oregonians who meet
lower-income criteria established by the
UO’s Financial Aid Office are guaranteed
that their tuition and fees will be covered
without loans for 12 terms
• Students have 5 years to complete those
12 terms
• Students must remain in academic good
standing, remain Pell Grant eligible, and
complete atStudentscredits per termwith
Objective: least 12 will graduate
(wheneverthan that of previous like
less debt possible, students are advised to
take 15 credits per term)

8. The Program: Retention to Degree Completion
Degree Completion = Retention + Progress
• IntroDUCKtion (summer orientation) fee waiver
• Advanced tracking system
• Collaboration with other departments to provide
services
• Social events
• Workshops: Advising and subject specific
(study abroad)
• Free term of tutoring
• Housed in a largergraduate at center exceed
Objective: Students will learning rates that
• Proactive Advising – outreach, outreach, &
historical resident Pell Grant eligible groups and their non-
Pell Grant eligible resident peers
more outreach

9. The Partnership: Student & Advisor Roles
Student Role
To take responsibility for their learning process, as
well as their academic and personal decisions
Advisor Role
To assist the student in identifying next appropriate
academic and personal steps, and to help the
student access the resources necessary to take
those steps.
* To acknowledge this partnership, students sign a
Partnership Agreement outlining academic benchmarks and
providing PathwayOregon Advisors with contact
information, including cell phone numbers.

10. Advisor Strategies: Centralize
 Each advisor is empowered to solve problems as they
appear
 Advisors address financial aid issues each time a
student is in the office
 Recommend summer term in place of returning for a 5th
year
 Advisor’s review students’ graduation plans at each
appointment
 Each advisor has the authority to review student billing
account information and explain this information to
students
 Each advisor is prepared to help students sort through
majors through a “Majors Card Sort Activity.”
 Each advisor has a general understanding of student
billing, financial aid, academic policies/procedures,
academic requirements, study abroad, and career center

11. Administration Strategies: Coordinate
 Established liaisons with each of the following offices:
Financial Aid, Study Abroad, Career Center, Student
Billing Office, Office of the Registrar, numerous academic
departments with professional advisors
 Collect cell phone numbers at summer orientation
(IntroDUCKtion)
 Track all advising appointments, as well as progress
toward objectives term-by-term and year-by-year
 Survey students in order to evaluate and make
programmatic improvements
 Create outreach lists and CALL all students who need
phone calls on a variety of issues (FAFSA
completion, UNDL status, probation status)
 Mandatory freshman advising each term w/ability to hold
registration

12. Campus Strategies: Identify
Obstacles
 Coordinated summer orientation so that
PathwayOregon students are assigned to
PathwayOregon Advisors (collaboration with Office of
Academic Advising)
 Institutional research support in order to analyze
student demographics and progress toward objectives
 Discover institutional policies/practices that do not
support decreasing indebtedness and increasing 4-
year graduation rates and work to change them
 Advocate for additional advisors and student positions
 Continue to raise awareness about the importance of
increasing timely graduation and decreasing student
indebtedness

13. Conclusion
IF…
 “Substantive advising services are a prerequisite for
the successful transition of students into the
postsecondary system as well as for their persistence
to completion” (Habley, 2004).
 “Academic advising is like commuter airlines in that it
is viewed as necessary, but not central, to the mission
of colleges and universities. I further offer that if
existing trends continue and existing attitudes prevail,
THEN…advising will become fixed as a function on
the role of
the periphery of higher education (Habley, 2004).
The advising profession needs to demonstrate centrality
to the mission of higher education by showing that we
can increase timely graduation rates and decrease
student indebtedness.

14. Contact Information
Carla J. Bowers, Ph.D.
PathwayOregon
Coordinator, UO
cjbowers@uoregon.edu
(541) 346-2009