College Advisors Meeting

The overall goal of this gathering emerged from our fundamental questions of "What particular liberal arts education conditions produce these outcomes?" and "How does liberal arts education affect student development?" When we think of students within the college environment, in what ways might academic advisors assist students to construct a liberal arts education? This group was brought together to help us - the Center - understand how the answers to these questions might affect the work of academic advising and how advising might assist students to construct a liberal arts education. To accomplish this goal, we engaged participants in brainstorming sessions about how this information might affect the advising process and listened to their descriptions of work and purview of responsibility. Since this was a new concept for these folks to talk about, there was a notable movement from discussing the concrete, curriculum based notion of liberal arts education to a more thoughtful discussion of the outcomes and practices of liberal arts education. This group took their responsibility seriously and offered their best thinking about issues of advising and constructing liberal arts education. Academic advisors are a group of folks truly committed to guiding students to create a coherent college experience. They feel strongly that the advising function may be the only function on campus mandated to this task.