1. IVY TECH COMMUNITY COLLEGE
ACADEMIC ADVISING
supports
ACHIEVING the DREAM (ADT)
at
IVY TECH COMMUNITY COLLEGE

2. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Dr. Kelli McCormack Brown
Dr. John Buckwalter
Dr. Jürgen Heinrichs
Dr. Wanda Lee
Dr. Shirley Quarles
ITCC Project Champion: Dr. Chuck Lepper,
Assistant Vice President for Student
Services

3. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Purpose:
Assist ITCC with developing an academic
advising program to promote student
learning, enhance retention and
graduation rates, and increase
marketability (employment and
advanced education)for its graduates.

4. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Objectives:
 Review the mission and current academic
makeup (students, faculty, staff, program
offerings, campus support services, etc.) of ITCC
 Study and consider various academic advising
programs that will effectively support the current
academic makeup of ITCC and its mission
 Develop and recommend an academic advising
program that supports the mission of
ITCC, supports students’ learning needs, and
promotes retention and graduation rates

5. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Background and Concept of Academic Advising Program
Framework designed to support student success through
a process of relationship development between
advisor(s) and student
Essential element of a student’s collegiate experience
Increasingly significant in post-secondary education
given the multi-variables associated with the millennia
students

6. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Emerging factors that influence academic
advising programs:
 Changing demographics
 Growing rate of enrollment
 Rapid growth and need for technology
 Changes in curricula programming
 Family units and responsibilities of students
 Accountability

7. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Three organizational structures for academic
advising:
Centralized
Decentralized
Shared
(Habley and McCauley, 1987; Pardee, 2000; and King, 2003)

8. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Numerous Academic Advising Models:
 Faculty
 Satellite
 Self Contained
 Supplementary
 Split
 Dual
 Total Intake
(Habley, 2000; King, 1993; and Pardee, 2000)

9. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Recent academic advising model:
Pro-active—designed to assist in building
relationships with students by anticipating
their needs and connecting them to
appropriate resources and support from
the start of their academic career.

10. Academic Advisor Characteristics
 Expert listening skills  Highlevel of
 Empathy technical expertise
 Must care about  Develop
students connection
 Take questions  Be encouraging
seriously
 Ability to deliver
bad news
 Be proactive

11. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Opportunities
 Affiliations with two- and four-year colleges will
pick up students in their academic paths
 Campus activities for student participation and
information exchange may serve as platform to
develop academic advising structures
 Imminent hiring of Executive Director of Academic
Advising
 Merging college-wide academic advising council
and “Achieving the Dream Academic Advising
Expert Design Team” merged into one group

12. Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC)
Academic Advising: Team VI
Threats
 Failure to design integrated approach to
academic advising poses major threats to
students’ academic success, financial standing
and long-term career options
 Deferring integrated advising may weaken
institution at this precipitous economic, political
moment (national focus on community
colleges, President Snyder at White House event)
 Institutional size and decentralized administration
may prove too difficult to design, implement any
truly meaningful academic advising approach

13. Creating an Organizational Structure
 Establish bi-weekly communication with area
coordinators via teleconferences, including
 Face-to-face monthly meetings for advising
coordinators, initially in Indianapolis, later perhaps
held at regional campus advising centers
 Develop a master elist of all advisors (both
professional and faculty) doing advising, send out
notes from advisor coordinator meetings, advising
tips, etc. at least bi-weekly
 Invite ALL academic advisers to attend a training
meeting once per term

14. Creating an Organizational Structure
Central advising coordinator group initial tasks
 Share advising information, best practices, and
campus updates from the campuses/regions
 Review and complete the college Advising
Handbook
 Modify the Nursing Advisor’s Guide to establish a
generic Advising Guide, including sections for
 Undeclared students
 Workforce development students
 Transfer students
 Degree/certificate students
 Develop training videos for advisors that later, with
modification can become web accessible advising
modules for students

15. Recommendations
A modified shared academic advising
program model
o Structurally shared (modified supplemental
model)
o Pro-active advising model
 Creating an organizational structure and
culture
 Resources

16. “All the literature shows that
students who are connected
with a representative on a
regular basis are more likely to
be retained and more likely to
persist to graduation than those
who are not.”
Charlie Nutt, executive director for the National Academic
Advising Association. (Wojciechowska 2010)