KATHY FORDE My name's Kathy Forde.
Welcome.
I'm the director of the College Academic Advising Office.
Hear me OK in the back now?
Great.
Thank you.
I am here with my friend and colleague Devon Moore.
Devon is the director of the College
Center for Student Success.
We have some pre-planned slides that we wanted to show you,
but we hope that we'll go through the slides a little bit
quickly and then allow time for the questions
that you might have.
We want this to be more of a conversation.
So let's get started.
Like I said, we'll do a little bit on each of our offices
the Office of the Dean of Students in the College,
College Academic Advising Office,
the Center for College Student Success,
and then we will have time for questions and answers.
So what you've been experiencing this weekend with orientation
we hope is a really great time.
And that's something that our office focuses on.
We work within the Dean of Students Office in the College
and we're dedicated to helping students
navigate their academic path through college and beyond.
And we do that in a variety of ways
through the five different offices
that are represented within the Dean of Students
in the College.
We connect with students throughout their time here,
we aim to foster meaningful advising relationships
as they move through and navigate the curriculum,
we have as you can see from this slide
five different offices under the Dean of Students
Office in the College.
I'll go a little bit out of order.
The first office is our College Programming Office that
puts on this wonderful weekend.
So they work with students on class based programming from,
we used to say orientation and beyond,
but it's really pre orientation, and on through graduation.
They are responsible for lots of different and important
and exciting programs all the way on up to the college
diploma ceremony that y'all be coming back for to celebrate
with us in four years.
The largest office within the Dean of Students Office
is the College Academic Advising Office.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later.
We work with the College Center for Student Success,
like I said, the College Programming
Office, the Office College Center for Research
and Fellowships.
That is our office that helps connect students with research
opportunities, especially in the beginning of their time
here, and works with them throughout their time
and beyond as they are applying for national scholarships
and fellowships.
They hold lots of workshops and lots of different ways
to meet with scholarship and fellowship and research
advisors to get your students connected
to these opportunities.
And then our newest office, which we had just
added to our slide deck is the Office of Community Standards.
We've had people working on these issues within our office
forever, but we have decided that this
is an important enough topic that we need to devote
additional resources to this.
So our Office of Community Standards
is the office that works with students
if they are doing something like taking a leave of absence
or returning from a leave of absence.
They will work with students who are experiencing
physical or mental health issues and help them get the resources
that they need.
They will also work with students
who have been accused of discipline and work
with them throughout the discipline process.
As you can see all our offices are
located in the lovely Harper Memorial Library
building, which I'm hoping you've
had a chance to stroll through at some point
since you've been here.
And we have the picture of the outside of the office
and then the beautiful iconic Harper Library,
which is just gorgeous.
And this is a study space that students use.
And I hope that you can sort of spend some time there.
Hopefully you've been to reception there,
or if you haven't yet you will be in the future
because it's just a really wonderful space.
And I'm going to sort of turn to focusing on the College
Academic Advising Office.
There we go.
Each student who enters the college
is assigned a college academic advisor.
So you've heard a lot about advising.
We have lots of different type of advising here
in the college, but the office that I work with
is a college academic advising office.
The students work one on one with their academic advisor,
each student has an academic advisor,
they stay with that advisor through four years
in the college, the advisors get to know students very well.
We work in confidential one on one relationships.
Advisors are assigned to students
based on which residence hall they live in.
So that gives us an opportunity for some really nice synergy
working with our housing office so that with a college
advisor can be in touch with the resident head
of that particular house and say,
I have a concern about X student.
Can you tell me a little bit about how
things are going in housing?
Are you seeing that person or are they
participating in house meals and meetings?
And it allows us a nice way to have just some more layers
of safety net for the students.
Students will meet regularly with their academic advisor
over the course of their time here.
We're working with them to come up with an individual plan
to get them to graduation.
We are also great at working with all of the other offices
not only in the college, but also across the university
so that we are able to make good recommendations,
good targeted specific recommendations to your student
for things that might be useful to them.
So I always say our office might not know the exact answer
to a question, but students should always
reach out to their academic advisor
because even if we don't know the answer,
we know who knows the answer and how
to get that student hooked up with that person
or that office.
So the academic advisor becomes kind of a primary resource
for the student.
And we're really proud of that.
And so ultimately we're helping your student define and achieve
success.
We take our relationships very seriously.
We have a professional relationship, like I said.
We have the expectation that if a student contacts us
we're going to get back to them within 24 business hours,
so that even if a student isn't meeting with an advisor
during a regular scheduled appointment,
that student can reach out to their advisor
with a quick question and get an answer back
in a quick amount of time.
And then we also work very closely
with the academic departments so that when a student declares
a major, we stay with them.
The student stays with their academic advisor
in the college, but we can make recommendations
to different faculty in the divisions who
can be helpful to them.
So for example, each academic major
has a faculty member who's a director of Undergraduate
Studies.
And that person is tasked with working
with the undergraduate majors.
And so we work again as liaisons with those directors
of undergraduate studies so we're
able to make sort of good connections,
good help for the students.
And our students are going to be meeting
with their academic advisor a couple
of times during orientation and then at least
once a quarter in their first year.
So during orientation tomorrow the students
are going to be meeting with their academic advisor
in a big group meeting.
That big group meeting is going to be made up
of the other students who are other first year students who
are also assigned to that advisor.
And I always tell students and parents
that that meeting is very important, but in a lot of ways
it's not emblematic of the relationships
that we're going to be forming with the students
as we move on.
We're not going to have other big group meetings like that.
We're typically meeting with a student one on one.
But we want everybody to be on the same page
and we find that this is the best
way to disseminate all that information quickly
in that big group meeting.
On top of that, that your student
has worked over the summer with our office
to get their schedule ready to get ready to preregistered
through preregistration.
We've been checking all those registrations as they
were released to the students.
And so we have decided it's very important to meet one
on one with our students, even if it's not
going to be a long meeting.
Just a quick 15 minute check in during a week
to make sure that their schedule is working for them, that they
have the courses that they need, just a chance to kind of say hi
one on one.
But then after that we move into establishing
sort of the more substantial relationships
with our students.
Each student in their first year is
required to meet with their advisor
at least once a quarter.
And we have a really nice sort of hook
for getting the students in.
Most students want to meet with their advisors.
That's not an issue.
But students here need to meet with their academic advisor
once a quarter, like I said, in their first year.
And they need to do that by the end of seventh week
so that they can be eligible to pre-register for winter quarter
classes.
That is a big driver for our students.
Our students really want to be able to pre-register
for courses.
And so typically it is not difficult
for us to get our students in to see us by end of that deadline.
Like I said, we're meeting with them
once a quarter in their first year,
and then as they transition into their second, third,
and fourth year that requirement moves to once a year.
So in the autumn quarter, for example, we're
meeting with our first year students
but we're also meeting with all our fourth year students
to make sure that they're on track to graduate
in the winter, first year students again,
but then we're meeting with our third year students
and in the spring first year students and the second year
students.
However, we establish this really nice foundation
with the students.
So when we get to the end of their first year,
and we tell the student, we are moving now for you to,
you need to see me at least once a year
in your second, third, fourth years, often that response is,
but I've been meeting with you quarterly.
That's worked out really well for me.
Can I continue to do that?
Absolutely.
We have time to do that.
We welcome students doing that.
And we're happy to see students throughout their time
here as often as they want.
In addition to sort of those scheduled meetings that
are going to take place, advisers
are available for quick email, phone consultations,
additional meetings as needed.
And you know, once in a while, you
might be talking to your student and say,
have you talked to your adviser about this?
And they would say, well, I'd like to,
but my adviser is booked up a week in advance.
We always have an adviser on call.
That's someone within the office, an adviser, a dean,
a senior adviser who has no other scheduled meetings
that day.
And their job is just to triage quick questions from students.
So there's always, Monday through Friday, somebody
available to talk with the student,
answer a quick question.
The adviser on call is not going to be the person
that a student works through a four-year plan with,
with two majors and three minors.
But the adviser on call is definitely
someone who could answer a quick question about registration
or requirements or whatever they might have.
And part of what you're all thinking about
and is on everybody's minds right now
is your students making a successful adjustment
to college.
And your students came here being the absolute best
in their classes.
And then they're faced with an environment where everybody
else is like that as well.
So it can be kind of a confusing time.
And students who haven't previously experienced maybe
struggling in a class might end up doing that, and that's OK.
We want students to be outside of their comfort zone
and working hard.
They might have to sort of redefine
what getting good grades means.
They might have concerns about fitting in.
They are going to miss you, regardless of what they say.
They're going to miss their pets a lot.
That's something we hear about often
in the quarterly conferences.
They may have come here 100% sure
that they want to major in X, but then get here and discover
major Y. And so that might cause some concern with them.
And then this is all new for everybody.
This is probably the first time students have lived away
from home and that they have to balance their own schedules
and figure out getting up on time
and not having somebody else help them with that.
So they're balancing academics.
They're working, figuring out which
extracurricular activities they want to participate in.
They're meeting their social obligations.
And that's all this sort of the things
that they're experiencing and maybe struggling
with a little bit as they adjust to college.
That is perfectly normal.
And that's probably the best thing
that you can say to your student when they contact you
and say, oh, I think everybody else knows what they're doing.
They all know that they want to major in X.
And I came here thinking one thing, and it's the other.
Nope, everybody is in that same boat.
So you know, how do you best support your student,
besides all the stuff that you've been doing
all along to get them here.
I think a lot of the stuff that we mentioned
is really pretty intuitive.
And you're likely already doing this.
But, you know, be sympathetic.
Transitioning from high school to college is a big challenge.
Ask them about everything.
So it's important to ask about classes,
but it's also equally important to ask about things like,
are you sleeping.
Are you sleeping more than two hours a night?
Are you eating regular meals?
Are you meeting people?
Are you participating in house activities?
Have you gotten out to see other parts of the city?
Remind them that there are lots of resources, that they're not
the first person to struggle, and that everybody
goes through some period of discomfort.
And there's lots of resources available to them.
I would say sort of one of the most important questions
you can ask them is have you talked to your academic adviser
about this.
Because like I said, even if this is not
something that is directly covered in our office
or in CCSS or in any of the other offices within the Dean
of Students Office in the college,
this is something that we can point the student
in the right direction.
And the other thing is, too, that you
may have been able to sort of step in
and help smooth problems.
But really our goal is the same as your goal, which
is to make sure that they are able to resolve problems
on their own with the resources that are available to them.
So we would say, resist the urge to sort of get involved
right away.
Ask them, like I said, have you talked with your adviser?
Who have you talked with about this?
There are people there that you can discuss this with.
So really you're there helping to sort of bolster them.
And what I always say to students,
or what I say to parents, is often
you're going to hear from your student during the highs
and during the lows.
But maybe you're not going to hear
from them in the in-betweens.
So you might hear from a student after they've
gotten a math exam back, and they didn't
do as well as they had hoped.
And they think that their academic career is over
because they got a C for the first time.
And then they go talk to their faculty member,
and they realize or they understand
that a bunch of people got C's, and it's not
uncommon to get a C on your first math exam.
And you still can be super successful in the class
even with that first C, and they feel 100% better.
But they don't call you back and tell you that.
So I think you're going to be hearing sort of from the highs
and from the lows and to sort of help
you put that into perspective.
That's actually very common.
And the next slide I was going to talk about
was FERPA, which you've probably heard about.
But FERPA is the Federal Education Rights and Privacy
Act.
And that is really the law that governs
how we are able to interact with students and sort of others
outside of that.
And when I say we have a confidential one-on-one
relationship with students, we take that very seriously.
So it's very common for a concerned parent
to maybe contact an adviser or contact me.
That's absolutely fine.
But our policy is, if you contact us,
we're going to loop your student in.
So it's not a problem at all to contact our office.
We welcome that.
But we're going to say, let me contact your student
and see if we can sort of work this all out together.
We're not going to have a sort of behind the scenes
relationship with the parent.
We want the student to be in that loop.
And that's something that really governs sort of how
we interact with students.
Oftentimes, though, the next question I get
is, well, you're going to contact us if things
are going horribly wrong.
And the answer to that is yes.
FERPA does not mean that we cannot contact you
in an emergency.
If something happens, we're going
to let you know about that.
In fact, even in a sort of non-emergency situation,
where a student at the end of the quarter, their status
has changed, say, from being in good academic standing to going
on probation, we're going to contact you then as well.
We're going to send you an email and say
that your student's academic status has changed,
and that you should be in contact.
Or you can be in contact with them to sort of talk about that
and talk about resources.
So FERPA is the guideline that covers how we interact.
But that doesn't mean that we're not going
to contact you in an emergency.
So I'm happy to answer any questions,
but I wanted to let Devon sort of talk
about College Center for Student Success.
And then we'll open the floor up to questions for everybody.
DEVON MOORE: Thank you, Kathy.
Good morning, everyone.
It's so wonderful to see so many of you
here, wanting to learn more about the work that we do.
I recognize many of your faces from the Family Resource Fair
yesterday.
That was a lot of fun.
Again, my name is Devon Moore, and I'm
the director of the Center for College Student Success.
We're also called CCSS because we do a lot of acronyms
here at the University of Chicago, you may have noticed.
So UChicago is incredibly committed
to supporting students, regardless of their background
or financial means, to be successful here
during their time in the college.
With that in mind, our center was established in 2015
as a place that really supports and celebrates
students who are first in their family to attend college,
what we call a first generation college student, students
who may come from under-resourced backgrounds
or who may be undocumented or DACA recipients
or be part of a mixed-status family.
We also coordinate the Odyssey Scholarship Program,
and some of your students may be part of that.
With that said, we are part of the many layers
of support provided through the Dean of Students
Office in the college.
We work very, very closely with the college
advising office and the many amazing college advisers.
So any student in the college is welcome to use
the resources available through CCSS, through the center,
so I do want to emphasize that.
We work very closely, again, with the college advisers
so closely, in fact, two of the college advisers
are actually situated within our space to support our programs.
And we train and work with all of the college advisers
to make sure that they're comfortable and really
well-equipped to support students from all backgrounds.
I will say, so we are-- this is a picture of Rockefeller
Chapel-- but we are also located in Harper Memorial
Library, the slide that Kathy showed earlier.
We're on the fourth floor of the west tower.
We always encourage students to use the elevator
because the stairs are kind of windy and confusing.
But we have a lot of different resources
available in our space.
First of all, the space itself is just
a really comfortable place for students to come and gather,
whether it's meeting with an adviser
or coming for a program.
We have a soft seating study space.
Students will come, hang out, sometimes sleep--
sleep so important, as Kathy mentioned--
and we have our textbook lending library available.
And we have a library of over 1,200 volumes
that students can check out for free up to a quarter.
And we have most core classes available.
We also have a laptop lending program.
So some students may come in without a laptop.
Or at some point during their experience
here, their laptop may malfunction or break,
and that can be pretty devastating for a student
here, where so much of their work relies on that machine.
So students are able to come make an appointment with us
and check out a machine, again, for up to a quarter
for them to use and support their work here.
We also offer a free print station.
And that is something that any student, again,
can sign up for.
They just need to create an account on our website.
Finally, I would want to mention our emergency loan program.
Again, we recognize that sometimes
unexpected financial emergencies can come up for students.
And that can cause a lot of anxiety.
And so we developed this program to help
students ease that anxiety.
It's a very, very simple process.
Students come meet with us, and they
can borrow small amounts of money
to, say, cover things like broken glasses or other kinds
of emergencies that may come up, just to help them
further their success here.
We offer so many different workshop and programs.
I do not want to list them all here because that
would take all day, but just to mention a few of them.
One of the things Kathy mentioned earlier
was that sometimes students can get this feeling that--
it's called impostor syndrome-- where
they feel like they're the only one who doesn't have this
figured out, that maybe they don't belong here,
or they might be that admissions mistake.
That is a very, very common feeling here
at the University of Chicago.
And so we have great partners here
to help students think about that
and overcome that and boost their confidence.
We work very, very closely with the College Center for Research
and Fellowships to help students think early
on about how to engage with research opportunities
and how to do things like navigate office hours.
How to approach this situation?
How do I talk to a faculty member?
How do I develop that relationship
and maybe down the line get a very good letter
of recommendation?
We also offer a handful of financial literacy programs.
For example, we're partnering with the bursar
to have students better understand their bill
and how to prepare and budget for their next bill,
as well as partner with our colleagues in study
abroad to think about how to plan for a study
abroad opportunity and budget for that accordingly, so just
a small sampling.
I also wanted to mention just the different supports
that we provide for students in a number of different ways.
We found that mentoring opportunities
can be really beneficial.
We have a small program we call Maroon Mentors.
Actually, incoming first-year students
have already applied for this program
and been matched with upperclass mentors.
Last year, we established an organization called the F-L-I
Network or FLI Network.
F stands for first generation.
L stands for low income.
I stands for immigrant, including
undocumented immigrants.
And the FLI Network is meant to be
a place where faculty, staff, alumni, and students can
be very visible and proud and connect with each other
more broadly across campus.
So we've created also some mentoring opportunities
within that network as well.
We offer, through our partnership
with Campus and Student Life and our colleagues
over at the Center for Identity Inclusion,
the Butterfly Support Group, which is specifically
for undocumented students to offer mental health support.
And I also just want to mention how important it
is that students be engaged across campus.
Creating social networks is super important.
Whether that's in the house, whether that's
through student organizations, there are just so
many places for students to dial in and get connected and build
really strong support networks.
So we also are really intentional about building
good connections with various student organizations that
work with our student populations,
including the Socioeconomic Diversity Alliance, the Quest
Scholarship Network, and the University of Chicago
Coalition for Immigrant Rights.
So I just wanted to throw that out there.
But, obviously, that is something for you
all to think about is just how your students are engaging
more broadly with other students on campus.
And it was just one of the questions that Kathy mentioned,
you know.
What kinds of connections are you making?
What kind of relationships are you forming?
So that is just a broad overview of the many things
that we offer through the center.
But we recognize that you may have many questions for us.
So as Kathy mentioned, we're just
going to open it up now for a good amount of Q&A. We do have
a wonderful colleague here from the College Programming
Office, who is going to assist us with passing
some microphones throughout the audience,
that we can make sure that everyone in the room
can hear the questions that are being asked.
So we'll go ahead and get that started.
AUDIENCE: I'm curious about how many students
are assigned to each adviser.
And also whether we family members, if we don't find out
through our students, will we have any sense
of who the adviser is or have any information
about the exchange that's taking place with the adviser?
KATHY FORDE: So to answer your first question,
how many advisers or how many students is
each adviser assigned, at this point,
we have what we call full-load advisers.
So these are advisers in the office
who don't have other responsibilities,
such as the deans or the senior advisers.
They will have about 320, 325 students.
And that's divvied up roughly 1/4, 1/4, 1/4.
So about that number a quarter of first-years,
second-years, third-years, fourth-years.
So the advisers now are meeting with anywhere
between, say, 75 or 98 first-year students
in that big group meeting.
After that, like I said, it's a one-on-one meeting.
And then your other question was--
oh, so I guess I should say, too, that is a large number.
And the question that we are often asked
is, do you get to actually know your students
with numbers like that.
And the answer is, absolutely.
And the ways that you can be supportive of this
and encouraging of this is really encourage
your student to talk openly with their adviser.
I haven't done it--
I didn't do it in the earlier session--
but I always give this really goofy example of,
let's say, for example, there is an eccentric alum
who loves windsurfing.
And she wants to give a scholarship to another student
who is a windsurfer.
If I hear in that quarterly conference that
among my student's interest is windsurfing,
I can make that recommendation to the financial aid office.
And so the better the student knows their adviser
and the better the student gets to be open with their adviser
and the better the adviser gets to know the student, the more
helpful that we can be.
We also have time structured so that there
is enough time for advisers to meet with all of their students
so they do get to know them well.
But then your second question is, how would we, as parents,
know who the student adviser is.
Unless your student has told you,
there wouldn't be a way that you knew.
But let's say, for example, it's part way into October,
and you've got some concerns, just call our office.
And we can always hook you up with the student's adviser.
So that would be a great way to get in touch with us.
AUDIENCE: Thank you very much.
One last thing, which is you mentioned
that the one example of when you might reach out to a family,
if the academic standing had changed
at the end of the quarter.
But are there any other, uh--
is there any-- how often or it sounds like you're not
very often reaching out to family,
so we probably will not hear from you.
KATHY FORDE: Yeah, you're right.
You're probably, no news is good news, right?
So you probably won't be hearing from us.
But, clearly, if there is a serious situation,
you're going to hear from us.
A couple of years back, we had an incident
with a student who was not a-- or I think
it was a high school student.
Devon might not remember the story I'm talking about.
But there was an unfortunate incident where a student said,
I'm going to go, you know, shoot up the University of Chicago
campus.
This was not anyone associated with the university.
But clearly that was something that we were taking very, very
seriously.
We ended up closing the campus.
The first time that--
I've worked here for nearly 30 years.
We have never closed campus.
But we closed down, and that was an instance where
Dean Ellison thought, this is something
that parents need to hear about.
Why we're doing this, what precautions we are taking.
And so you have all signed up, I hope, for the parent--
you've given your email addresses
so you can sign up for the parent email list--
we notified parents and said, this is what we're doing.
These are the precautions that we're taking.
But, yeah, ultimately, no news is good news.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Thank you for this very informative session.
I have a couple of questions, as well.
One is, will we receive a transcript from the student
or from the university?
And the second question is, the student has a career adviser
as well.
So how does that work with the academic adviser?
And is it up to the student to take initiative
to see if they are interested in a particular career
field, what kind of courses will be required?
KATHY FORDE: So your first question
is, no, family members don't receive
grade reports or transcripts or anything like that.
We recommend that you establish with your student right
away sort of, this is, you know, these are when grades come out.
And this is how you're going to show me your transcript.
We make it so-- while we don't send grades out--
we actually make it very easy for students
to have a transcript sent to their parents.
That's something that they can do through their portal.
They can arrange to have either an official
or an unofficial transcript sent.
So that would be something that you would want
to work with your student on.
And then, suddenly, I forgot the second question.
DEVON MOORE: Oh, yes, each student
is assigned a career adviser.
And so, again, this is an additional layer of support.
And so the career adviser can sometimes
be a good sounding board for different career
paths, different ideas, potential courses to take.
However, ultimately, the academic adviser
is the best person to talk to, making sure
that the student is on track to complete
the core and major requirements.
But, yeah, with that in mind, some students
for certain programs are required
to meet with their career advisers.
But in the most part, it is incumbent on the student
to make those connections and reach out to those resources.
They get a lot of information, I will
say, from the Office of Career Advancement.
So pretty much every student engages
with that office, and the earlier
the better honestly to build those connections
and learn about their resources.
KATHY FORDE: Right, and they clearly
can speak to this better than we can as they're experts.
But what we hear from them is that students
are engaging with employers earlier and earlier.
When I first started, it was very common for a student
to have an internship after their third year.
And that might be the first time they have an internship,
and it might be sort of their first kind of career
exploration experience.
But really that happens earlier and earlier.
And so career advancement is just a great resource for them,
for the students.
And they, in the first year, in particular,
have a lot of low-impact ways, sort
of non-competitive ways for students to gain experience.
So they have a great job shadowing program
that students can participate in.
They also do different treks, where
they will take a group of, one career
adviser or a couple of career advisers,
will take a group of students to a particular area
to focus on a certain industry.
We have treks all over the world.
But most of them focus domestically, of course.
But these are just sort of great non-competitive opportunities
for students to gain experience.
AUDIENCE: I had one quick question,
which was, you mentioned briefly lending library for resources,
textbooks, or otherwise.
Is that open to all students just in case
they can't find a core book or something?
DEVON MOORE: Yes, absolutely.
Our textbook lending library is open to all students.
It opens up the Monday of the quarter, each quarter.
And this quarter will be open at 10:00 AM on Monday,
October 1st.
If a student is looking for a particular book,
we actually have an online listing
of every single book in our library on our website,
CCSS.uchicago.edu.
Click on Lending Library, and a student
should know what we have in stock.
It's updated in real time.
So if that gets checked out, a student
can know before they come in whether or not
it's still available.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
KATHY FORDE: Talk about going, when you drive the golf cart
at the end of the corner.
DEVON MOORE: The textbook library, I should mention,
is entirely built off of donations from other students.
It's just really been remarkable to see
how generous everyone has been to support this initiative.
And, yes, we do have thousands of books coming in.
It's wonderful.
AUDIENCE: So I wonder whether you
can be more explicit about what FERPA will and will not
allow you to do and what it gives you discretion over.
Because I noticed in your slides,
you use a word "may contact us," instead of "will contact us."
So I wonder, when is it that you will?
When is it up to your discretion?
And you're going to make a judgment call on
whether you're going to contact your parent or not?
KATHY FORDE: Sure, yeah, so absolutely.
So we are going to definitely contact you
if there's any sort of emergency.
We're also going to email parents
if the student's status changes, like I said,
if they are moving from being on good academic standing
to probation.
But for the most part, we're pretty hands-off.
So we're not going to, say, we're not
going to contact you if your student is failing a course.
That's really up to them to navigate.
We, of course, are encouraging them
to be in contact with their families
and encouraging them to be in touch with resources.
But, ultimately, like I said, the relationship
is really between the adviser and the student.
AUDIENCE: I have a question, and forgive me
if you covered this already.
But are the academic advisers all full-time employees
of the university, or do they have a dual capacity?
KATHY FORDE: No, that's a great question.
I have worked in the system so long,
I just sort of take that for granted.
You are absolutely right.
We are all full-time professional advisers.
We don't have responsibilities elsewhere.
We work with, we participate in other things with other offices
when they have a special event.
But, ultimately, our job is to work with the students,
make sure that they're navigating
the curriculum correctly and accurately,
and that is our role.
That's what we take seriously.
We are not faculty members in other departments.
A lot of us come here with deep backgrounds
in different academic fields.
We come from a lot of different areas as well.
But, ultimately, that's our sole responsibility.
I mean, I'm not a person who's going to knock a state school.
I am a product of a state school.
I got a wonderful education, but we did not
have academic advising.
We had graduate students and, in some instances, maybe a faculty
member who might be in your department,
might not be in your department, who you could talk with.
But these are professionals dedicated solely
to that so thank you for asking that.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
This isn't specifically an academic question
but more of a dean of students question.
I'm here.
When you talk about contacting parents
in case of an emergency, are you referring
to an academic emergency, being put on academic probation?
What happens, I have some questions
about what happens in case a student gets into a car
accident and ends up in the hospital.
Would parents be contacted in that situation?
And how do we sort of arrange for that?
KATHY FORDE: Yeah, so we have a Dean-on-Call system.
And deans on call are professionals
in a variety of offices across campus, who
train to become Dean-on-Call.
And they take an on-call shift every three or four or five
weeks.
And what they do is they carry a beeper.
And any time there's an incident that a university student is
involved, and whether it's a college student
or somebody from one of the graduate divisions,
the Dean-on-Call is contacted.
So if a student winds up in the emergency room or if a student
gets into a car accident or if a student got arrested
or something like that-- which, of course,
never happens with college students--
the Dean-on-Call is notified.
And they're, like I said, they're
on a 24-hour shift at that point in time.
So the Dean-on-Call is then in contact with our office.
And, then, yes, in a situation like a car accident,
we're definitely going to be looping the family in.
If it's not a serious car accident,
we're expecting that your kid is going to contact you.
But if it's a serious thing and the student is not
able to contact their families, yes, we'll be in contact.
AUDIENCE: OK.
Thank you.
And there's nothing that we have to have them sign.
KATHY FORDE: No, so there's, some of you
may have older students who've gone through the college.
And at a certain point in time, we
used to use this old form that said,
"I want my parents notified."
And you would sign off on, the student would sign off on that.
We don't use that anymore.
We're going to contact you if there's an emergency.
AUDIENCE: OK, thank you.
AUDIENCE: I may be next, I'm not sure.
What's the policy on declaring majors?
When do they have to declare their major by?
KATHY FORDE: Depends on what the major is.
So for the most part, within the first two years,
students are focusing on their college core curriculum
or their gen-ed courses.
That makes up about 1/3 of what they're doing.
Another 1/3 would be made up of their major,
and then the last 1/3 would be their electives, which
could encompass a second major or a minor
or something like that.
Students are kind of asked to declare their major by the end
of their second year.
Most students have figured that out by then,
and it makes sense for them to declare
by the end of their second year.
There are some students who might
be on the fence, thinking, well, I might do econ.
I might do public policy.
We're not going to, there aren't going
to be any ramifications if a student doesn't
declare their major until, say, the start of their third year.
I say, declaring the end of their second year,
for the most part, because there are a handful of things--
and their adviser can talk more specifically about this with
them--
but there are a handful of majors
that students need to apply to.
This is a very old-timey thing, in my opinion, where
they have an application process that
is due at the end of the first year.
So, for example, students who might be interested in the Law
Letters and Society major, that asks for an application that
is due at the beginning of the spring term.
Something like Fundamentals requires
students to apply at the end of their first year.
Maybe in their second year, students
would be applying to something like I-S Hum.
But for the most part, students sort of opt into a major
simply by taking those courses.
And then we work with these students throughout their time
here.
But since we're generalists, we also
have Directors of Undergraduate Studies in each major, who
can answer sort of more specific questions about the major
and can be available for helping students that way.
AUDIENCE: Yes, please.
Are there ever incidences where an adviser and a student
have a, well, just don't mesh in personalities.
And if so, how is that handled?
And, secondly, if an adviser should unexpectedly
leave the university for whatever reason,
how is a student reassigned?
KATHY FORDE: So the question is, you know,
are there times when students and their adviser don't mesh.
And I wouldn't say that they don't mesh.
I mean, we are all professionals.
We work really hard to develop a good relationship
with our students.
But there might be an instance where a student does prefer
to have a different adviser.
And so what the student does is they petition me.
And I will often call the student in
and sort of talk with them about what their concerns are.
And then I'm able to make a switch, based
on sort of which advisers are also advising people
in their residence hall and sort of make a good fit for them.
AUDIENCE: What if an adviser--
KATHY FORDE: Oh, oh, so second question, yeah.
This is our second time doing this
so I feel like I'm only catching the first part,
or remembering the first part of questions.
I apologize.
So, yeah, we do occasionally have
times where an adviser will need to leave
in the middle of the year because their spouse
or partner got another job, and they're going somewhere else,
or they got another job.
And so in instances like that, we
try to hire someone and get them trained
quickly enough to be a helpful adviser.
But in that interim period, we will typically
divide students up to sort of have
sort of an interim advisor in that period
until we can get a new adviser up and running for them.
So students wouldn't sort of not have an adviser.
And we will, for example, we've had someone
accept a job in another office.
And so for that adviser of students,
we've reassigned their first-year and fourth-year
students to another adviser so that they
have someone that they can work with closely.
And then sometimes we will tell the second- and third-year
students that since there's not a required conference
in the autumn quarter, if you have questions,
you can work with the adviser on call, which
we have available every day.
But occasionally I'll have students who will write to me
and say, hey, I've been told that I
need to work with the adviser on call.
And the adviser on call has been great,
but I wonder if I can come talk to you about this.
And absolutely, yeah, we're happy to work with students.
AUDIENCE: You can go.
AUDIENCE: Are there any differences
between 18-year-old students or underage students?
KATHY FORDE: Are there any differences
between sort of a 17-year-old student
and an 18-year-old student?
Is that your question?
So, you know, everybody, I don't have a great answer for that,
to tell you the truth.
So we consider everyone to be a young adult.
We're not going to treat, we're going
to treat everyone who is a first-year student ultimately
the same way.
So we don't have a different governing principle for someone
who hasn't yet turned 18.
There are certain things, like they are not
able to sign contracts.
And so if there was an issue with needing
to sign another housing contract,
that would have to be bounced back to the families.
But for the most part, our advisers
will know what the students' birthdays are.
And so they will know, the student
is not turning 18 until November.
But we're not dealing with them in any different fashion.
AUDIENCE: I have a question here about the Metcalf Fellowship.
On your right.
And I'm wondering, whose office is it looped into?
Is it your office?
Is it the career side?
How should a student navigate through all of this?
I feel that there is so much information for them
to think about.
And as you mentioned earlier, the career [INAUDIBLE]
back to the job shadowing, tracking
starts earlier and earlier.
So where should they start investigating
Metcalf Fellowship or job opportunities or interests?
Thank you.
KATHY FORDE: Sure, so, yeah, like Devon
said, every student is also assigned a career adviser.
And that would be something they could work with their career
adviser about.
In addition, career advancement has a really robust web page.
And they're sending information to students sort
of all the time.
And this is typically a question that we're
talking with students about when we're meeting with them autumn
quarter of their first year.
You know, what are you thinking about for summer?
Have you been in touch with career advancement?
Have you attended some of the workshops?
So we're working to sort of hook them
into those resources early.
But, yeah, ultimately, it's career advancement
who is dealing with the Metcalf Internships.
DEVON MOORE: And students all have
a group meeting with their career advisers this week.
So hopefully some of the questions
will get answered then.
But at the very least, they'll have the face and the name
to be able to connect with.
AUDIENCE: Hello.
What is the typical class load for the first-year students
on the first quarter?
KATHY FORDE: Sure.
So the full-time course load here--
since we're on the quarter system--
is either three classes or four classes.
And a student would need to take three 1/2
of the time they're here and four 1/2
of the time they're here in order to graduate
within 12 quarters.
So sometimes students will start with four classes
in their first quarter, and that is great.
But sometimes students will say, you know,
this is all new to me.
I'm taking a chemistry class with a long lab.
I'm kind of concerned about that.
I want to start with three.
That's great.
That's their option to do that.
A lot of times, students will start with three
and then bump themselves up into four classes winter quarter.
They can work with their adviser on that.
That's perfectly reasonable.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I have a question about contacting parents of students
in emergency situations.
And you mentioned something about a direct threat
to the university.
But what about if it's something that's
happened near the university and might
be something that needs to be talked about or, you know--
KATHY FORDE: Sure.
So I'm not an expert on this, but we
do have a safety email that goes out,
and anybody can sign up for that.
And so when there's a security alert
on campus, when you've signed up for that,
you'll get an email saying what that was.
So the University of Chicago Police Department
patrols the area.
And then when there are any incidents
that they want pushed out to the entire campus,
it goes out as a security alert.
So let's say, for example, you know, something like students
have had laptops stolen in these certain areas
at these certain times of day, they'll
push those out as emails to notify the campus about that.
And that's something that you can sign up for.
DEVON MOORE: OK, so I think we'll wrap up now.
But if there are any other individual questions,
you can feel free to come see us up here.
Thank you so much for attending this session.
Have a wonderful lunch, and we'll see later at Convocation.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]
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