Plans for advisor evaluations in the works

Utah State University is working towards a system to allow students to evaluate their academic advisors. How soon this will implemented is still unclear.

The USUSA Academic Senate is putting together a resolution, which will state their position on it by the end of the semester.

“That’ll be something that we push through the senate and Executive Council as long as everyone is in agreeance,” said Matthew Ditto, USUSA vice president and chair of the Academic Senate. “I haven’t really felt any pushback from students. I think they see the need of it.”

Ditto said he hopes there can be something implemented by the end of the semester.

However USU Vice Provost Janet Anderson said it will take more time than that. Though the university is working towards a system, they are still researching software to gather the data and how to use the data once it is collected.

Ditto stressed that the reviews would be geared toward helping the relationship between students and their advisors rather than criticizing it.

“This is not something that should be looked at as the point of view of attacking advisors, but really trying to bridge this gap,” he said, “because I know that students don’t get the communication.”

College of Humanities and Social Science Senator Nickoles Clason said he feels that students support the reviews.

“I know that students really want this,” he said. “Besides that, I know that there are some people who aren’t really for the initiative.”

Clason said some of advisors and associate deans have concerns with the idea.

“They are kind of hesitant about it, and a few of their concerns are going to be where is the data going and how is it going to be used as well,” Clason said.

Ditto has also seen some hesitation.

“Nobody loves to be evaluated,” he said. “It’s kind of hard sometimes because you can say a million great things about a person, but they will always get stuck on the one poor thing that you’ve said.”

Clason said the reviews would implement a sense of accountability.

“I know a lot of students have problems with their advisors, and I think it’d be great to see some accountability for the advisors,” he said.

Ideally the reviews would hold both advisors and students accountable for lack of communication, Ditto said.

“There is a lot of accountability that the students need to be doing,” Ditto said. “Some students don’t even go to their academic advisor. That’s a problem.”

A few colleges, like the College of Agriculture and Applied Science, have already had some form of evaluations in place. There is also the exit survey that graduating students do that has some questions about advising.

Anderson said it is probable in the future, but there is still a lot of exploration to be done.

— dahdahjm@gmail.com