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Tykeson Hall will not just be new offices for admins

There will of course be fancy new offices for the CAS deans and the VPEI, but it appears the plan for using the building to bring some sense to UO’s advising efforts is finally taking shape:

Director for College and Career Advising

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Job no: 522707
Work type: Officer of Administration
Location: Eugene, OR
Categories: Academic Advising/Support, Executive/Management/Director, Student Life/Services

Department: Undergraduate Studies Admin
Appointment Type and Duration: Regular, Ongoing
Salary: Salary commensurate with experience
Compensation Band: OS-OA09-Fiscal Year 2018-2019
FTE: 1.0

Application Review Begins
September 14, 2018; position open until filled

Special Instructions to Applicants
Complete applications must include the following:

  • Cover letter demonstrating how you meet the qualifications and addressing your interest in the position
  • Resume/CV
  • Name, email and phone number for at least three professional references. Candidate will be notified prior to references being contacted.

Department Summary
The Division of Undergraduate Studies (UGS) promotes academic excellence, universal access, engagement and achievement for the student scholar. UGS programs focus on the educational trajectory of the student by providing opportunities and services essential for progress toward scholastic objectives and intellectual development. UGS departments and programs serve the entire population of UO undergraduate students and partner closely with other campus units to support student success and engagement.

The College of Arts and Sciences has nearly 50 departments and programs, spanning the Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, and comprises about two-thirds of all faculty, graduate students and undergraduate majors on campus.

Position Summary
The Director for College and Career Advising (DCCA) will help the University of Oregon lead the nation in ensuring students’ success as scholars and as people pursuing meaningful post-graduate careers. To achieve this goal, the DCCA will lead and manage a staff of approximately 30 professional advisors (six direct reports) in Tykeson Hall. These advisors will: a) counsel students on academic pathways suited to students’ passions (whether those lie in the arts, sciences, or professional schools and, b) provide guidance on careers to which those academic pathways may lead. This innovative advising center is central to the University of Oregon’s commitment to student success, a commitment that is so crucial that a 56,000 SF building is being constructed to support it. Tykeson Hall will open in fall, 2019 and the President has funded an additional 23 advising positions to help staff it.

About half of the advising staff in the building will serve all students at the University, including wrap-around advising to first-year and exploring students, while the other half will serve as the main staff of professional advisors for majors and minors in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). The entire team will be cross-trained in each others’ duties, and in pre-career advising. The DCCA will work in conjunction with Undergraduate Studies (UGS) and College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) leadership to hire, train and manage an advising staff that will provide students with integrated, wrap-around academic and career advising.

The DCCA reports directly to the UGS Assistant Vice Provost for Advising and is a member of the UGS’s leadership group where they will participate in student success working groups led by the Associate Vice Provost for Student Success (e.g. First Year Experience, Degree Progress, Wrap-around Advising). The DCCA will work collaboratively with advising leaders on campus, including the CAS Dean and senior leadership team, to implement and assess new framework for integrated academic and career advising in Tykeson Hall. The CAS Dean will have input in the DCCA performance evaluations.

The DCCA and the advising staff will also work closely with the UO Career Center, which will also be housed in Tykeson, ensuring that the advising team’s pre-career advising systems mesh well with the Career Center’s career development and employer relations services to the campus.

The DCCA will work collaboratively and creatively with directors of various advising units across administrative and academic departments, including the other colleges and schools on campus, and is a key person in promoting UGS’s goals for student success. The DCCA must exhibit a high level of cross-cultural competency and will develop a team that can support a variety of students with diverse academic interests, abilities, and cultural, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds.

Minimum Requirements
• Master’s degree from an accredited institution (preferably an undergraduate degree or graduate level coursework in an Arts and Science discipline).
• Three years of experience in higher education academic, career advising, or counseling, working with a range of undergraduate students from first-year students, exploring students, and students with declared majors.
• Leadership experience in an advising or academic support unit (or comparable setting) including hiring, supervising and training.

Professional Competencies
• Demonstrated experience with and/or commitment to working effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds, in support of an inclusive and welcoming environment.
• Exceptional interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills.
• Experience working collaboratively with faculty, including consideration of curricular design and academic policies and procedures.

Preferred Qualifications
• Significant experience with models of integrated academic and career advising.
• Significant experience in advising liberal arts students.
• Ability to work collaboratively and creatively to solve problems.
• Facility with independent work and priority-setting in a fast-paced office environment.
• Strong teaching, coaching, and presentation skills.
• Familiarity with the use of current technology in advising.

FLSA Exempt: Yes

7 Comments

  1. skeptic 08/04/2018

    Two questions

    1. Is there any evidence advising works in helping students?

    2. How much will be spent on advising?

    3. Given they share offices with admins will that make them a more effective lobby to get more resources while the actual instructors continue to be overwhelmed with classes that are too big with students who are underprepared.

  2. dogbert 08/06/2018

    I think “arena” advising is fine for undeclared students. But when they declare a major they are seeking a predictable, on-going relationship with an academic advisor within a department. Departmental advisors (especially faculty or long term professional advisors) know the students well, know and interact with departmental faculty on curricular or classroom issues and are generally not looked upon by faculty as an “outsider” trying to get into the department’s business if some type of intervention or advocacy for a student is deemed necessary. Very little of this will happen in a centralized setting.

    This is a solution looking for a problem. Hire departmental advisors and let them work IN the department.

    • Hart 08/07/2018

      I disagree. My job includes employing a lot of students, and they regularly get surprisingly terrible advice from their faculty advisors (within their departments) regarding anything outside the scope of the department; for example, their advisors will be transparently unaware of changes within gen-ed requirements even from a few years ago, or will state requirements in opposition to those that are clearly described in documentation, and will direct students to take classes that fail to meet requirements they want to meet. This is true in a range of departments including ones that have faculty members who hold primary responsibility for advising.

      Frustratingly, students currently must go see a department advisor for major stuff (that is, stuff to do with completion of the major), and then ALSO go see a general advisor for various other kinds of requirements such as the gen-ed items which in fact most students do not complete until well after declaring a major, or rules about how major and gen-ed requirements play together, or rules about financial aid eligibility and so on. I think if you put centrally-administered advisors in the departments (leaving out the issue that we have departments that graduate about three people a year, and I assume we are not going to pay for advisors for those?), either they will be integrated in the department and the same scenario will reassert, or they will remain outsiders and the problem of unwelcome outsiders nosing in you describe will still be a problem; also, that seems to be a social problem that is mostly about egos, and my inclination is to tell the folks with the egos to go take a nap and try again when ready to engage with society.

      Additionally, advisors should be somewhat neutral about the people involved, and if anything should be on the “side” of the student. Departmental advisors are not always so good at hearing that their colleagues are terrible teachers, or terrible people, and at finding ways to help students avoid no-win scenarios with instructors. I can’t go into detail here because I’m not interested in outing student privacy issues on this public blog, but for real, there exist departments and instructors where the instructor behavior is not provably illegal (but probably is actually illegal and certainly is not a scenario in which the student should be forced to put themself), but the departmental advisor insists the instructor is a great guy and this is the only way to graduate (it’s not. I have sometimes read the rules with students to find them other completely appropriate options in these cases). Is this an everyday occurrence? Well, not to my knowledge, but it’s a real thing, and one to protect against because it’s pretty harmful where it does occur.

  3. honest Uncle Bernie 08/09/2018

    I have no doubt the advising is more useful than not having it. The departmental/central advising tension can be worked out, if there is enough goodwill. The mixing of academic and career advising is much to be hoped for.

    I hope Tykeson fulfills its promise.

    By the way, I’m told that very few research faculty participated in the Tykeson plannng, when they had a chance. A little late to complain about the results.

    • Dog 08/09/2018

      If there was a chance, I doubt that most of our research faculty even know about that chance …

      • honest Uncle Bernie 08/10/2018

        Could well be. A good point. An omission on the part of CAS? Or deliberate? Maybe the advising types didn’t wan’t them? I dunno.

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