Major Changes in Counseling Urged at CSUN

Seeking to boost poor student graduation and retention rates, Cal State Northridge President Blenda J. Wilson on Monday proposed overhauling the university’s much criticized system for student academic counseling.

In presentations to faculty members, Wilson proposed a reorganization that would create a new “one-stop” advising resource center on campus, develop a new computer system to better track students’ academic progress and encourage students to declare their majors earlier to better guide their course work.

An outside accreditation team, in a 1991 report, called the university’s academic advising “uneven at best,” citing it as one of the campus’ major faults. And students have long complained of being directed to take the wrong courses and sometimes having their graduation delayed because of the miscues.

“We’re talking about enhancing these services in a way that’s more student-centered,” Wilson told faculty members. Afterward, she said the reorganization may result in the need to hire more advisers and recruiters, but she could not provide any estimate of the potential costs involved.

A Cal State study that tracked the 1983 freshmen class through 1988 found CSUN ranked 12th among 19 campuses at the time in student retention, with only 46.4% of those students either still enrolled or having graduated after five years. The same study ranked CSUN 17th in graduation rates, showing that only 16% had graduated after five years, officials said.

At present, CSUN’s academic advising program is divided into at least three major segments. The counseling center handles students who have not declared majors, while faculty members in academic departments handle their own majors and specially designated counselors in individual schools handle disadvantaged students.

Under Wilson’s plan, the counseling center’s role in academic advising would be shifted to the new advising resource center that would be created within the university’s academic affairs sector. And in a new wrinkle, Wilson said all new students would be required to visit the center for counseling.

Wilson said she hopes to have the new resource center open by next spring, perhaps in the south library building. University officials said they expect to have the new computer system running by next fall that would allow advisers, at least for future students, immediate access to course records and requirements.

Known as the Degree Audit Records System (DARS), the technology is now being developed. “It would make an incredible difference in having accurate information,” Wilson said. A 1990 report prepared by the university found that advisers wanting to review student records had to wait five to seven days for the paperwork.

Wilson said she is also proposing that students henceforth must declare their academic majors by the time they complete 60 credit hours of course work, the equivalent of the end of the sophomore year. That would force students to focus their studies earlier in their college years. At present, Wilson said, students can wait until they have 90 units or more.

Less clear was how Wilson’s plan will respond to other problems voiced in the 1990 CSUN report that evaluated academic advising as part of the accreditation process. For instance, the report said few faculty advisers are available in the evenings and during the summer for students who are on campus only during those periods.