A group created by the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates outlined recommendations it said would improve advising at UW-Madison Monday, including better connecting students to advisers and adding about 20 new advising positions.
The MIU set aside $1.5 million to ""transform the undergraduate advising experience."" The MIU Advising Working Group was formed to determine the best ways to make the improvements, Chair Annette McDaniel said.
""I think a new era for advising is beginning and is really taking shape and form at UW-Madison, partly because of this work and the opportunity that we have,"" McDaniel said.
From the results of the 14-month study, the committee recommended the chancellor and provost ""improve access to advisors, create a system for campus-wide advising leadership and coordination, improve advising-related technology and improve advisor training and assessment"" at UW-Madison with the money allotted through the MIU to improve advising.
McDaniel said the group asked students, officials from other campuses, advisers and administrators how they could best develop UW-Madison advising.
""We had a lot of really hard decisions to make,"" McDaniel said. ""It was a long, reflective process bringing in a lot of stakeholders and synthesizing as a group what we had learned.""
Of the $1.5 million, the committee recommended the university use just over $1 million to improve access to advisers, $340,000 to create a system for campus-wide advising leadership and $150,000 to improve advising-related technology.
To improve access to advisers, the group recommended adding 20-24 new full-time advising positions.
McDaniel said she was excited students recognized the need for a group that would help coordinate communication among advisers throughout the campus.
""Our presupposing that they wouldn't understand the importance of building a strong infrastructure for advising was not lost on them,"" McDaniel said.
