Dear Editor,

Undergraduate Advising and Research (UAR), part of the VPUE, applauds your interest in strengthening academic advising at Stanford. Responsible for virtually all undergraduate advising except that which takes place within the major, UAR is in the midst of a concerted effort to improve undergraduate advising by educating students about the values and benefits of the advising resources available to them. We do this within a national context<\p>–<\p>our peer institutions around the nation find that advising is the thing that students are least satisfied with, as the provost recently stated to the Faculty Senate. We look forward to doing so with support of faculty, staff and students as well as the upcoming SUES recommendations and report. We also do so with the knowledge that in this, the third year in which all freshmen and sophomores have had an Academic Director, it is clear the program has been a success and made quite a difference in advising at Stanford.

Here is a viewpoint about advising at Stanford that differs from that which you presented in your editorial.  Today’s juniors are the first class of students for whom all had both an academic director and a pre-major advisor assigned at the outset of their Stanford undergraduate experience.  Last spring, 71 percent of today’s sophomores told us that the guidance provided by academic directors was “good” or “excellent.” Today’s freshmen are required to meet with their pre-major advisor quarterly, a requirement not seen on this campus since 2001.  ASSU Senator Deepa Kannappan commented to the Faculty Senate last month on the benefit of this change, stating, “[UAR] required that freshmen had to meet with their pre-major advisors before they could even enroll for classes every quarter…By mandating going to UAR’s resources, freshmen saw that those resources were useful.”  The number of undeclared juniors is going down dramatically, not up, as you assert.  (Class of 2011 had over 500 undeclared juniors; Class of 2012 had over 300).  In direct correlation to our enhanced advising efforts, we expect Class of 2013 undeclared junior numbers to be even smaller.  The recent partnership between ASSU and UAR has been quite productive and led to a very successful “iDeclare Week” for sophomores, which will help contribute to that desired outcome.  UAR is also developing a Faculty Advisory Board that will help us strengthen all that we do in the name of advising.  It will meet for the first time next quarter. This Faculty Advisory Board first agenda item will be to consider how to strengthen pre-major advising and to bring more faculty into the process.

Pre-major advisors, academic directors, AARC advisors and the rest of us here in UAR in Sweet Hall are in fact well-equipped to help undeclared students navigate tough, big-picture decisions.  It is the reason we advise.  Students will always talk to peers, but if, in fact, students are “[terrified by the knowledge] that their choice of classes and major will determine the course of the rest of their lives,” then it is better to talk with a faculty or staff advisor who has had more course to the rest of their lives (and often more than one career) to contextualize why that “knowledge” is, in fact, a myth.  Our resources are substantial despite the budget cuts, and our visibility on campus is increasing.  But our effectiveness is limited as long as Stanford students believe they don’t need advising or cannot benefit from the great wisdom and experience that lies within our faculty and staff advisors.  As marvelous as the “iDeclare” offerings were, and though they were well-promoted by the leaders of the sophomore class, a small percentage of sophomores attended.

We are doing our part to make advising one of the things that is best about Stanford and which sets us apart from our peers.  We look forward to working with undergraduates on this process.

Julie Lythcott-Haims ‘89

Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising

Undergraduate Advising and Research