UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Division of Undergraduate Studies has released a new website for faculty and staff advisers, which summarizes the skills, knowledge and attributes for effective advising, helps advisers find essential tools, and provides quick links to authoritative sources for policies and procedures regularly encountered by advisers.
Advising at Penn State, released in late December, takes the place of the Advising Portal and Undergraduate Advising Handbook. Previously, the Advising Portal and Undergraduate Advising Handbook served as the central location for advising resources at Penn State, and the new Advising at Penn State site evolved from them.
Advising at Penn State provides more information about how to engage in good advising, in addition to providing information and links about policy and procedure.
David R. Smith, associate dean for advising and executive director of the Division of Undergraduate Studies, said advising is a learning partnership between students and advisers, where students synthesize and make sense of their education. The new website will help advisers at Penn State to flourish in the role of partner to their advisees.
“Academic advisers directly contribute to the educational mission of the University through intentional conversations with students,” Smith said. “This website provides advisers the foundational information needed to deliver on this mission.”
Advising at Penn State is broken up into the sections -- How to Advise, Policies and Procedures, Essential Resources and Professional Development.
How to Advise provides fundamental information about advising practice for all advisers. Here, faculty and staff advisers can find information on the three main components of advising: conceptual, informational and relational. Specific colleges and units will still need to provide relevant information to their advisers, but this serves as a starting point. Each section includes suggested foundational readings from the growing body of advising literature.
The Policies and Procedures section provides clear, alphabetically listed links to authoritative sources for the policies and procedures most commonly encountered by advisers at Penn State. The majority of these are drawn from the Academic and Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual, the Undergraduate Bulletin and the University Registrar.
Advisers at Penn State also make use of several tools to access information and record their recommendations. The Essential Resources Page provides helpful information to advisers on how to use the LionPATH and Starfish systems, as well as other important resources such as information for key contacts and student resources.
Finally, the Professional Development page connects advisers with local professional development opportunities such as the Noon Advising Seminars, as well as advising conferences, associations and journals.
The Division of Undergraduate Studies is part of Penn State Undergraduate Education, the academic administrative unit that provides leadership and coordination for University-wide programs and initiatives in support of undergraduate teaching and learning at Penn State. Learn more about Undergraduate Education at undergrad.psu.edu. Sign up for the Undergraduate Education Headlines for the latest news.