Multi-tasking:· Professors educate and advise

rhe average professor has 18.78 advisees. Some professors advise over 50 stu:ients while others advise two. Professors who teach College Success Seminars :i.dviseat least 15 first-year students as a group.

by Amy Gassen news editor

The average adviser manages : 8.78 advisees each school year. The majority of these advisers are full-time professors. Due to the fact that there are more advisees ih.an the full-time professors can handle, other employees of the :ollege also advise.

"We have full-time, part-time, a Jumber of people in student life md someone from admissions who also advise," Dr. Catharine )'Connell, dean of academic affairs, said.

,dviser Evaluations ity, the survey was given to a number of students at a set date and then again a month later to check for consistency. "It was [found to be] reliable for sophomore, juniors and seniors," Sicoli said. ments of all majors.

Evaluations are banded out at he end of each semester by proessors. According to Dr. M. L. ,icoli, psychology professor, rround six years ago the adrninisration wanted some kind of sense ,f how advising was going. Dr. olyon Girard, history and politi'.al science professor, routinely ;ave his advisees a questionnaire o evaluate his performance as an ldviser.

Sicoli de-eidedto give the survey annually to juniors, due to the fact that they bad more experience with their advisers.

"We ran it for the first time, two years ago in March," Sicoli said. The survey is now given every year to juniors in March.

"I.bought a scoring program for it," Sicoli said. "Then it goes back to the advisers' mailboxes and they can get an idea about what the students think."

Although the adviser evaluations have only been given to juniors for the past few years, Sicoli has noticed similar results.

"There are two areas where [students] felt their advisers could use more help," Sicoli said. Questions five and seven ranked relatively low on the questionnaire.

Questions number seven states, "My advisor was helpful in postgraduate considerations."

"It could be that when you 're a junior, you aren't thinking about graduate school," Sicoli ex-• plained.

Spectrum of Advisees

Some advisers direct up to 54 students, while one only advises one student. According to O'Connell, this is due to a few factors.

One of the reasons that the numbers of advisers to advisees are not even is because some advisers teach college success seminars. The maximum number of students that can enroll in a college success seminar is 15, according to O'Connell. However, some advisers sign in a surplus of students.

Due to the fact that advisers meet with their first-year students as a whole, the number of their one-on-one advisees is not as large as it appears.

"Technically, there is an official list, but sometimes students go to other advisers," Sicoli said. On the list of the registrar, it appeiifSthat she has 15 advisees, however, she said that she actually advises 21 students.

Another reason that some advisers have more advisees is because some majors are bigger than other majors.

Education and English/communications are two of the biggest majors at Cabrini College. According to Sicoli, it makes sense that the professors for those majors advise more students than professors in majors that have less students.

Dr. James Hedtke, history and political science chair, advises 54 students. First-year student Joseph Woods is one of his advisees.

"I am greatly satisfied with the performance of my adviser who at this time allows me to oversee the flow of courses I'm able to receive in my academic portfolio," Woods said.

Sophomore Liz Malgieri, social work major, said, "I didn't go [to my adviser for scheduling]." Malgieri complained that scheduling conflicts leave h~r unsatisfied with-lteradviser. 'Toe dean signed my form," Malgieri said.

"My greatest frustration is the students who don't really want to be advised," Sicoli said.

"We're in this to help [the students] with their futures, not just to sign something."

'Toe chairs of each department actually assign the advisers," O'Connell said. O'Connell divides up the first-year students into college success seminars.

Sicoli ran a test with students to ;ee if Girard's form served as a reiable method to evaluate all ad1isers. In order to test for reliabil-

Question number five states, "My advisor helped me to obtain information concerning other department's courses." Since the results from that question were circulated, the office of academic affairs put out a guide for requirenformation

Spectrumof Advisors & Advisees

'Toe focus of the college success seminars is in the whole first year experience," O'Connell said, "whereas advising for upperclassman is very much focused on the major."

First-year students meet with their advisers once a week in a group setting. According to O'Connell, upperclassmen should meet with their adviseni at least twice a semester.