Ideas and suggestions from advisors to help Glendale Community College (GCC) move in the direction of Guided Pathways.
Maricopa Community Colleges Guided Pathways
Problem #1: How to best structure advising at GCC for Guided Pathways?
- To help students choose, clarify and complete college and career goals efficiently and effectively, advisors must deepen their base of knowledge in a particular area or academic community.
- Advisors need resources and guidelines to develop tools and targeted information regarding the barriers, milestones, transfer and career requirements in our specializations.
- Spending time advising within academic departments solves a problem of not enough physical space or privacy in the Enrollment Center and builds community between students, advisors and faculty.
Suggestions for Academic Communities
Each advisor who now does general advising, should be assigned a primary and secondary Academic Community based on student headcount.
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Problem #2: How to assign students to the appropriate Academic Advisor?
- Use common sense and keep it simple. Assign students to a group that they identify with and then assign to an advisor. Randomly assigning students isn’t working.
- Develop a simple app that will be used as part of Gaucho 101 and at the Welcome Desk on a kiosk: My Academic Advisors
- Have advisors post photos and bios that are welcoming.
Problem #3: Data Fatigue: If it takes longer to collect data and make notes than to see a student, there is a problem.
- Identify what data is needed from advisors and how it will be used.
- Let advisors help find the easiest way to collect and share data.
- Share the data and the story that it tells.
Problem #4: Advisement staff deserve more credit. Some of us have been working on “Guided Pathways” for years.
- Collaborative Advising Model from April 2015
- Maricopa Engineering Advising Guides since 2014
- Strong departmental liaisons and advising for over ten years
Academic Advisement Resources 