This policy discusses Southern Polytechnic's advising program, its goals, and its standards. It describes who is responsible for ensuring the effectiveness of the overall program to include its continual improvement. It also describes the role and responsibilities of students, advisors, the VPAA and the deans, departments, and department heads.

Purpose
The primary purpose of an academic advising program is to assist students in the development and implementation of an educational plan. To fulfill that mission, it is essential that the institution have a clear statement pertaining to academic advising that includes the goals of the program and sets forth expectations for both advisors and advisees.

Academic advising must be a continuous process of clarification and evaluation. However, students need to understand that the ultimate responsibility for making educational decisions rests with the individual student. Faculty advisors assist students by helping them identify and assess alternatives and the consequences of their decisions, and by making them aware of System and institutional policies and procedures regarding graduation requirements and institutional procedures.

Advising Goals
Southern Polytechnic's goals for academic advising are to help students:

• Interpret System and institutional requirements;
• Clarify the student's career goals;
• Develop suitable educational plans;
• Select appropriate courses and other educational experiences such as Co-Op;
• Increase their awareness of the educational support services that are  available such as the  Learning Resources Center;
• Seek assistance from other institutional and community support services such as the  Placement  Center and the Counseling Center when appropriate;
• Find one's way out of  academic difficulty or probation aided by individualized advising;
• Monitor progress toward achieving established goals; and
• In the case of graduate programs, be assigned or select thesis and project advisors.

Program Standards
Southern Polytechnic's advising program requires that individual advising conferences be available to all students during each academic term. The academic advisor is expected to review and utilize any available data about the student's academic and educational needs, performance, aspirations, and problems in helping students design an effective strategy of course selection. To ensure this, advisees will be assigned to individual faculty advisors or advising coordinators who are full-time faculty and professional employees of the university in a manner that ensures that the number of advisees assigned to an advisor is reasonable. A reasonable number will be determined by each school/college and will take into consideration the teaching load, committee work, and scholarly activity of the faculty.

Individual conferences with an academic advisor are intended to provide assistance to students in refining their goals and objectives, understanding what choices are available, and assessing the consequences of alternative courses of action.  Advisors are expected to be able to advise their advisees relative to course selection, and to help their advisees understand and meet institutional requirements, procedures, resources, and programs. This information may also be conveyed to advisees in small groups, or via e-mail, faxes, or in telephone conversations. Supplemental advising information such as on-line computer programs may also be utilized.

Faculty advisors should refer students to other institutional or community support services as appropriate.  Advisors will also maintain the confidentiality of individual student records.

Organization and Administration
Ensuring that a systematic and effective program of academic advising is available and effectively communicated to the campus is the responsibility of the vice president for academic affairs and the deans. To ensure effective implementation of the program, the vice president and the deans will see to it that  the necessary training and policy updates needed by faculty and staff are provided. Additionally, it is the responsibility of the vice president of academic affairs, in cooperation with the director of institutional research, planning and assessment, to ensure on-going assessment and improvement of the campus's overall advising program.

Developing a departmental advising strategy that implements the university's goals and standards on a day-to-day basis is delegated to the academic department heads. The academic dean and department heads of a college or school are responsible for designing and implementing a plan to effect the advising goals and standards of the institution and their colleges or schools as well as for developing and conducting an assessment strategy to monitor the effectiveness of their plan. In the case of departments that have graduate programs, their advising plan must include a section that describes how students are assigned their graduate committees and/or advisors. It is also the responsibility of the academic dean and the department heads of a college to gain approval for their college's plan from the vice president for academic affairs.

In order to meet the special needs of the student populations listed below, Southern Polytechnic has assigned professional staff to provide the added advising assistance the groups listed below may need in order to be successful at the university:

• Athletes;
• Students with Disabilities;
• International Students; and
• Minority Students.

Advisor Training
There will be training for all faculty/professional staff involved in the advising of students. This training will occur at two levels: a more global/system & institutional level; and at the department/program level.

Responsibility for conducting all global training sessions, along with annual updates, resides with the vice president for academic affairs. However, responsibility for conducting departmental/programmatic training sessions resides with the department head and dean.

The global training of all academic advisors will at a minimum include:

• A discussion of System policy and the institutional policy;
• Training in computer skills needed to access pertinent student data, track student progress, and do graduation evaluations;
• Knowledge of the need to identify the catalog under which the student will graduate;
• An understanding of the University System Core Curriculum in the case of undergraduate advisees;
• Knowledge of how to change majors, petition various faculty committees, etc;
• Discussion of how to advise students who are on probation or recently reinstated;
• An understanding of College Preparatory Curriculum and Regents' Test requirements in the case of undergraduate advisees;
• Information needed to make referrals;
• Institutional requirements for graduation;
• Policies concerning students with disabilities; and
• Knowledge of the rules pertaining to Co-Op, the Learning Resources Center and the Freshmen Experience program.