Advising Coordinating Committee


October 14, 2004

Excused: Amanda Cram, Susan Haddock

In Attendance: John Mortensen (conducting), Lisa Allen, Sophie Bassett, Kathy Bayn, Heidi Beck, Karen Bindrup, Dawn Black, Becki Broadbent, Peggy Buttars, Noelle Call, Sam Curley, Krystin Deschamps, Kathryn Fitzgerald, Ann Gibbons, Katherine Godfrey, Ronnie Green, Fawn Groves, Stephanie Hamblin, Lisa Hancock, Ruth Harrison, Joslyn Heiniger, Janalee Johnson, Melanie Jones, Peter Kolesar, Marilyn Kruse, Jana Kay Lunstad, Christine Lord, Susie Maughan, Erin McDonough, Betty Murri, Cathy Myers-Roche, Wade Oliver, Susan Parkinson, Darcie Peterson, Megen Ralphs, Karalee Ransom, Deborah Reece, Mary Lou Reynolds, Marcia Roberts, Sylvia Robinson, Isobel Roskelley, Carol Sainsbury, Lynne Slade, Tami Spackman, Scott Teichert, Heather Thomas, David Wallace, Dennis Welker, Linda Woertendyke

Other Sites Participating: Brigham City, Blanding, Moab, Price, Roosevelt

1. Service Learning Scholars Program – Nellene Howard

Nellene represents the Student Involvement and Leadership Center. Students who complete the Service Learning Scholars Program will receive a certificate at graduation, similar to the Honors Program. Nellene provided a handout (handout 1, handout 2), which John will send to the advisor e-mail list. Those with questions should contact Nellene at nellene@cc.usu.edu or 797-7482.

2. Career Services – Donna Crow & Melissa Scheaffer

The Graduate School Fair was today. Donna Crow has been in the office for several years, but has recently replaced Dave Hart as the director. Career Services now includes the Testing Center and the Career Exploration Resource Center. Career Services also provides information about coop and internships and full-time employment opportunities. The also maintain an alumni mentor database, salary surveys, and other career-related information. They have an excellent website at www.usu.edu/career. Students may access the Discover program as a free career assessment tool.

There is a Tech Expo on October 26 from 5 to 8 p.m. It is focused mainly on engineering, computer science, and business information systems majors. Other majors are also welcome to participate. The Career Fair is scheduled for March 2, 2005.

3. Applying for a Second Bachelor’s Degree – Heidi Beck

Students may currently receive a second bachelor’s degree if they earn at least an additional 30 credits beyond the first bachelor’s degree. Students may not receive two bachelor’s degree in the same term. Students who are working on two degrees concurrently may receive a dual major on one diploma. However, there are circumstances where a student cannot receive a dual BS or BA degree. For example, a student majoring in Engineering may only receive a BS degree, while a student majoring in Spanish may only receive a BA degree. In a situation like this, where the degrees are mutually exclusive, a student may be able to receive two bachelor’s degrees at the same time. A change of matriculation form must be completed to accommodate this.

Heidi also provided a master form to advisors to copy for their files. The form is to be used for students who are within 30 credits of the receiving the first bachelor’s degree, who intend to begin coursework on a second bachelor’s degree.

4. Residency – Ann Gibbons

In order to obtain residency, nonresident students must either work 24 continuous months as a non-student or complete 60 credits to be eligible for Utah residency. If a student comes to Utah and works for a year, and then begins taking classes, the student must complete the 60 credits before being eligible, no matter how long that takes. Students who have begun taking classes at USU may not take classes at an out-of-state institution during the summer or at any other time or it will nullify the previous credits toward residency and the student must begin all over again. Students who take a USU class through independent study should be okay. Depending on where the student is living at the time, it is possible that the USU independent study course may not count toward the 60 credits, but it would also not count against the student either.

Some of the qualifications for residency are that students should have a Utah driver’s license and also have their vehicle registered in Utah. Religion courses taken at BYU may count toward the 60 credits needed for residency, even though the courses might not be accepted at USU for credit towards graduation.

An individual may become a Utah resident by marrying a Utah resident. However, the spouse must be a resident before the marriage occurs. For example, if a couple is already married and transfers to USU from BYU Idaho, it might happen that one of the individuals may earn 60 Utah credits before the other spouse. The first individual would earn residency, but that does not automatically make the spouse a resident also. The spouse would not obtain residency until he or she earns 60 credits because one of them was not already a Utah residency at the time they were married.

Only courses taken at a Utah institution of higher education may count toward residency. There is an exception. The credits a student earns through language exam credits while attending USU may count. There are also exceptions for native Americans. Western Undergraduate Exchange credits do not count towards residency.

Those on active duty in the military may count their time in Utah prior to their departure, as well as the time they are deployed.

More information is available at http://www.usu.edu/admissions/info/index.cfm#resident.

5. Campus Preview Day – Scott Teichert

Campus Preview Day is scheduled for Saturday, October 30, from approximately 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Taggart Student Center. We expect about 400 students to participate. The event is the same day as the Halloween Howl. The planning committee has a representative from each college, which is either an advisor or an associate dean. The associate dean should be contacting those who need to participate that day.

6. National Student Exchange – Noelle Call

There are several institutions nationwide that participate in National Student Exchange. The advantage for students is that they can attend another institution and pay in-state tuition at the host institution.

Noelle also indicated that two sections of the Connections class will be offered for Spring Semester. Times and dates are published in the spring Schedule of Classes.

7. UATS Undeclared Contract – Stephanie Hamblin

Undeclared students assigned to University Advising & Transfer Services (UATS) for advising must sign a contract if they have 45 or more credits. Those with 45 or more credits must visit the Career Services Office and participate in some career/major searching activity. They must receive a signature from a staff member to verify that this requirement has been completed.

Students with 60 or more credits must decide on a major and meet with that major’s advisor. In the meeting, they must setup a plan for either entry into the major or completion of the major. The form must be signed by the major advisor.

8. Undeclared Change of Matriculation – Stephanie Hamblin

Typically, when a student changes majors, the advisor for the old major signs the paperwork first, followed by the advisor for the new major. For undeclared majors who declare a major, it is requested, for tracking purposes, that the advisor for the new major will sign the form first so that UATS can verify that the student has a new home. UATS will sign the form and deliver it to the Registrar’s Office.

9. Degree Audit Preferences – John Mortensen

There is currently an Ad Hoc Graduation Committee that has been meeting regularly. Dr. Richard Mueller is the chair of the committee. Dr. Mueller wants to seek the input of advisors and will likely send an e-mail through the advisor e-mail distribution list and ask advisors to respond.

10. Update from the Academic Standards Subcommittee – John Mortensen

The Academic Standards Subcommittee has been reviewing the policies and procedures for handling the acceptance and application of credits earned by students who transfer to USU from an institution that is not accredited by one of the six regional accrediting agencies. There has been a lot of dialogue on this issue for several months. After consulting with the Council of Associate Deans, Rachel Lewis has put together a flowchart that outlines the process for reviewing the acceptance, evaluation, and articulation of these credits. The process, as outlined in one of the handouts for this meeting, was approved.

The following policy was also approved: “If prior to or after taking an AP, CLEP, IBO, or DSST examination, a student receives credit for any coursework equivalent to the subject matter of an AP, CLEP, IBO, or DSST examination, the number of credits earned for the course will be deducted from the credits awarded for the examination.”

11. Update from the General Education Subcommittee – John Mortensen

The General Education Subcommittee voted in favor of treating concurrent enrollment students the same as transfer students with respect to the two USU course requirement. Concurrent enrollment students who have already completed five breath areas will only be required to take one USU course. Students who have completed all six breadth areas will not be required to take a USU course.

The committee is also looking at the possibility of not requiring a breadth course in the category of a student’s major. This will be addressed next month.

12. SOAR Dates – John Mortensen

The SOAR schedule for the upcoming year is as follows:

Spring 2005

Monday, November 15, 2004

Summer 2005

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Fall 2005

Mon-Tue, March 7-8, 2005 Scholar’s Day

Friday, April 8, 2005 Priority SOAR

Friday, April 15, 2005 Priority SOAR

Friday, April 22, 2005 Priority SOAR

Friday, May 6, 2005 Priority SOAR

Friday, May 13, 2005 Priority SOAR

Friday, May 20, 2005 Priority SOAR

Tue-Fri, June 14-17, 2005 Outdoor SOAR (Advising on June 17)

Friday, June 17, 2005 One-Day SOAR (combined with Outdoor)

Monday, June 20, 2005 One-Day SOAR

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 One-Day SOAR

Thu-Fri, June 23-24, 2005 Two-Day SOAR (Advising on June 23)

Monday, June 27, 2005 One-Day SOAR

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 One-Day SOAR

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 One-Day SOAR

Thursday, July 7, 2005 One-Day SOAR

Friday, July 8, 2005 One-Day SOAR

The Provost’s Office has requested that we add the Priority SOAR dates. We intend to cap these SOAR dates at 50 students. The General Catalog, Schedule of Classes, and the Banner student information system will not be available by Scholar’s Day. We will have to work out the logistics for orienting these students.

13. Health Education Program – Donna Gordon

Donna gave a quick overview of the health education program. Click here for the Powerpoint presentation.

Other

We ran out of time and were not able to cover the other agenda items. However, a brief summary of these issues is included. Please review the information so that we may discuss these issues at our next meeting.

Repeat Policy

It has been suggested that this committee discuss the Repeat Policy. We currently count the most recent time a student took the course for GPA purposes. For admission decisions, USU uses a student’s highest ACT score, not the most recent. Do we want to propose a similar policy for repeats and recommend that the highest grade be used, instead of most recent? Or do we want to leave the policy alone?

Academic Warning and Probation

Currently, there is a centralized letter from the University to notify students who are placed on academic suspension. However, academic warning and probation letters are sent from the colleges. Would we be interested in having the University send academic warning and probation letters, and having the colleges send a follow-up letter?

Deposit/SOAR/Course Clusters

We are seeking your input for improvements to this process for 2005. Last year, students indicated that they were overwhelmed by having to choose from 232 clusters. The current plan is to send the students a very brief brochure and direct them to a website. The website would walk them through, screen-by-screen. Students would be directed to: (1) setup a USU e-mail account, (2) pay the $100 University Deposit, (3) register for SOAR, (4) enter their ACT scores, (5) enter an AP scores received or tests they are planning to take, (6) enter any courses taken through concurrent enrollment, (7) determine Honors Program eligibility, and (8) indicate their intended major.

At that point, students’ choices will be limited to clusters identified by each major, including options for Honors students. After students have selected a cluster of a few courses, they will be directed, screen-by-screen, to add (if they choose) additional courses to the cluster including: (1) a math course, based on their mathematics background, (2) a USU (or HONR) course, (3) English 1010 if they have not already satisfied the requirement, (4) USU 1010, and (5) request other courses not included in the cluster.

We hope to provide more details at next month’s meeting.

Timing of the USU Advising Conference

Traditionally, we have held this workshop in August, two weeks prior to the beginning of classes. Is this the best time for this conference, or is there a time that would be more appropriate?

Majors Fair

Several institutions hold a Majors Fair for current students who are undeclared. This would be similar to the open houses we have held for prospective students. Would the USU advisors be interested in holding a majors fair for undeclared students, possibly in February?

Advising Outside of Area

UATS is increasing having declared students drop-in for advising. The students have indicated that they came to our office for various reasons such as their advisor’s schedule is full or their advisor didn’t have office hours at that time. These situations make the UATS advisors uncomfortable. The advisors have a strong desire to assist the students, but do not want to overstep their boundaries. At the same time they don’t want to turn the students away. Please be prepared to discuss this issue at our next meeting.

Calendar

Thursday, October 21 Workshop: Advisor Mentor Program

Saturday, October 30 Preview Day

Monday, November 15 SOAR for students beginning Spring 2005

Thursday, November 18 Advising Coordinating Committee

Monday, December 13 New Advisor Orientation


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