Advising

The Advising Center established as a pilot on the Waycross Campus requires faculty to schedule a minimum of one hour per work to provide academic advising to students on an ongoing basis. Student Support staff are assigned case loads of students for whom they provide referrals, conduct skills workshops, and address non-academic needs.

This initiative centers on training advisors to help students create fuller schedules (15 or more hours) and complete essential skills mathematics and writing requirements within 30 hours, aided by the use of scheduling tools and success markers in Navigate.

Improve graduation rates of transfer students through improved course articulation, addressing performance gaps in challenging gateway courses, and directed academic advising.

Based on NISS recommendations, the institution is standardizing advising systems, protocols, training, and practices for professional and faculty advisors to ensure students receive a consistent standard of advising care across all advising units, academic departments, colleges, and campuses. 

KSU’s “Starting Blocks” project launched in Fall 2024.  Block scheduling serves multiple purposes, all designed to enhance the academic experience and support student success. It streamlines the registration process for easier enrollment, ensuring students make appropriate selections of courses, including introductory English and math, during their first semester. It helps minimize potential credit loss if students change majors, and it provides students with the optimal opportunity to register for a full-time (15 credit hour) schedule.

The Advising Redesign and Integration Initiative at Gordon State College (GSC) is an ongoing, multi-year effort to transform the college’s academic advising system into a proactive, structured, and program-embedded model. The project seeks to enhance student success and retention by ensuring that all students receive personalized, discipline-specific guidance from the moment they enroll until they reach 60 earned credit hours.

In freshman orientation classes each 1st-year student will be required to complete an assignment designed to encourage the use of stepping blocks data.  Based on an academic major of interest, students will research common jobs associated with the major as well as the job market and the salaries associated with these positions.

All incoming first-year students were connected post-NSO with online information and communication from their top 5 engagement choices via the Panther Involvement Network - PIN. During their in-person NSO event, each student attended a 'Panther Connect' session to dive deeper in their top desired involvement opportunity, where they were able to connect and share contact information with students that possess similar interests as them.

Increase the number of freshmen completing fifteen credit hours in their first semester at GSW. Freshmen students are enrolled in classes for their first semester by FYE advisors that include 14-16 credits. They are advised by FYE advisors at early registration for spring classes to register for enough hours to accumulate 30 credit hours during their first year.

Every incoming freshman is being trained on the use of the Student Educational Planner (SEP) in Degree Works in their UNIV 1000 the GSW Experience, first-years seminar course. Creating and submitting a registration plan is an assignment in all sections of UNIV 1000.