Minutes of the Committee on Advising
for October 17, 2001

The committee met at 12:00 in Moln D135. Members present: Jonathan Olsen (convener), Stuart Hansen, Mary Power, Megan Mullen, Joann Goodyear, Karen Thorne, and Larry Duetsch.

The committee first considered nominations for chair of the committee. Larry Duetsch nominated Jonathan Olsen; Megan Mullen seconded the nomination. As there were no other nominations Jonathan Olsen was elected as chair.

The committee then heard from Mary Power regarding the discussion at the last meeting of the committee concerning developments in the advising office. Since the committee last met Lisa Johnson has taken another position and left the adivising office. Currently a search is underway for two full-time advising positions, one of which is an advising position with testing oversight. Jonathan Olsen, member of the Search Committee for the two advising positions, informed the committee of the status of the search - final recommendations were to be made in the next two weeks with final decisions by the advising office made shortly thereafter.

The committee then turned to a wide-ranging discussion on undecided/undeclared students at Parkside. Currently 1924 students
are classified as undeclared, with slightly over 200 of these having Junior or Senior standing. Committee members voiced their concern about the numbers of undeclared students, but nevertheless also raised important conceptual issues regarding such students. Karen Thorne argued that while these numbers could be considered serious, it was really the numbers of undecided students of Junior and Senior status of which the committee should be concerned. Megan Mullen asked how many of these
students might be considered "interdisciplinary" students and thus not truly undecided. Stuart Hansen stated that the issue of undeclared students was also an academic issue of how well students were meeting the requirements of their major; undeclared did not necessarily mean unsure. Jonathan Olsen suggested that there should be some distinction made between undeclared students and undecided students and also asked how Parkside compared in the number of these students to other "peer" institutions. Mary Power responded that a genuine comparison would be difficult given the different criteria other institutions use, as well as the fact that such data, even if comparable, is not always willingly shared. Joann Goodyear argued that, although concerned about
Parkside's numbers, in the interests of genuine career exploration it would also be unwise to ask students to declare a major too early.

Finally, Mary Power reported on some specific steps the advising office was taking concerning undecided students, such as contacting Department Chairs regarding students in their upper-division classes (students thus demonstrating their interest, if not their intent, to select this particular major) who were as yet undeclared. The process of looking through records to see what students might fall into this category, and the subsequent contacting of Department Chairs, was likely to be a lengthy one, however. The committee agreed to study the issue further at its next meeting and to gauge the relative success of this approach.

The Committee adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Jonathan Olsen
Assistant Professor of Political Science