Improving Campus Life (page 2)

Upon entering their first semester, freshman students are assigned an advisor per the major they indicated on their application to Vanderbilt. For those students who declare "undecided" the committee randomly assigns a professor from various departments to serve as their advisor. For the latter group, this can be problematic in that the academic background of the applicant is overlooked, thus minimizing the optimal benefits of the program. For example, senior Becky Rogers applied as an undeclared major and was placed with geology professor William Sascer when clearly her high school background indicated more strength in history and English and more weakness in math and science. "It was hard for us to communicate because our interests were so different I know very little about geology and science and he couldn't direct me toward possible major interests."

According to Arts and Science Dean Francille Bergquist and director of the current Arts and Science advising program, an extensive training workshop prepares all volunteering professors on the rules, regulations, and nature of advising. This training program is designed to ameliorate any of the potential problems that can result from the assignment of some students such as the situation of Becky Rogers and Professor Sascer. However, according to a survey of 140 Vanderbilt Arts and Science students, --% claimed that their freshman advisors were not proficient enough in their knowledge of the system themselves, let alone enough to adequately navigate students through their academic process.

As an incentive for students to meet with their advisors regularly, students are required to obtain an access code that allows them to access the OASIS computer registration, according to Arts and Science dean Francille Bergquist. However, this "incentive" as it currently operates has not encouraged students to meet with their advisors beyond the purpose of obtaining the code. This incentive has undermined the importance of meeting with advisors for guidance. For instance, many students were contacted by their advisors their first semester by telephone only to receive their access code in lieu of meeting with their advisors, the very reason why the code system was initiated. This establishes and continues the sentiment amongst both students and faculty that advising is more a formality than a necessity. Senior Rebecca Nesbitt relied solely on the Vanderbilt "black book" of courses and course requirements for direction.

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