University Advising encourages students and faculty to complete a 10 – 15 minute survey to gather feedback on the state of academic advising. It is part of the Graduation Initiative 2025, which aims to ensure all students regardless of their background have an equal opportunity to earn a college degree.
The survey, which has been available since Jan. 22, can be accessed until Friday. It can be found in one’s Cal Poly email from University Advising at Cal Poly: noreply@qualtrics-survey.com.
“We are hoping to learn from students what is working well, and what are areas of improvement,” Assistant Vice Provost for University Advising Beth Miller said.
According to Cal Poly’s Academic Advising website, “Findings will have implications for professional development, goal-setting, and further inquiry into the advisor/student relationship at Cal Poly.” Results and data from respondents to the survey will be anonymously collected.
Shannon Stephens, Director of the Mustang Success Center, said that this survey is part of a yearlong review of academic advising at Cal Poly. The feedback from the survey could help shed some light on inconsistent experiences from students across advising departments on campus. Stephens also said that students can sometimes misunderstand what advising is and that he wants to clear up any confusion on what academic advisors do.
“It gives us the opportunity to look at our services and find out what we are doing well and what we need to improve on with that feedback,” Stephens said.
According to Stephens, the survey is the second part of a program overseen by The Global Community for Academic Advising (NACADA), which looks to enhance the educational development of students through promoting and supporting quality academic advising in higher education.
“Most of the other CSUs are participating in a three-day program review by Excellence in Academic Advising NACADA consultants. Cal Poly had participated in that review in 2022,” Miller said. “This was the next step in the review, with the opportunity for the campus-wide advising survey. The review, along with the other CSU campuses, will provide a more comprehensive view of academic advising in the CSU system.”
Students may need to check their Outlook Clutter folder or junk email as Stephens said it was an unintentional technological mistake on their behalf. However, he said that including as many people in the survey and getting as many responses as possible is important.
“Anytime you send a survey out, you try to get a good response rate to capture a diverse population,” Stephens said.