| Module 1: College Advising
Role of Faculty Advisor Enter the Faculty Advisor
Define your advising relationship early. The student should understand that the focus of your meetings will be academic concerns and application of their studies to enhance career development. Mutual responsibility of the relationship should be clarified—you can give suggestions and point out possible directions to explore, but the student is expected to follow through on your recommendations, gather the necessary information for decision making, and must accept responsibility for his or her decisions. Ask the student what they expect from the advising relationship and discuss your respective roles. If it is your policy to set a duration for your advising appointments, you can inform the student and stand by the time limit so that your time constraints are respected. Your first meeting with the advisee is a good time to check his or her academic foundation. Make sure there are no gaps in their general education requirements. If possible, have the student complete a checklist of general education requirements to indicate those which they have satisfied. You may wish to verify their self-report and assess their academic strengths by using Degree Audit on Pipeline (details on use of Pipeline are covered in another area of this training). If there are any areas left to complete, urge the student to complete those requirements as soon as possible. After that, a discussion of the courses required by the academic major will inform the student of what’s in store for them in your program. A checklist of general education and required courses in the major can be helpful at this stage, and most departments have these available. Students can feel overwhelmed by not only the number of areas they might major in, but also by the number of options they have for concentrations within their major. They will look to you for help making sense of the distinctions between emphases in the field. You might help by giving them some highlights of the distinctions, by referring them to their “intro” class notes/text, to colleagues who are specialists in the emphasis the student is wondering about, using the Occupational Outlook Handbook (www.bls.gov/oco) or referral to career resources on campus. | 
