Faculty Advising
Along with teaching, research, scholarship, and service, academic advising is an important duty assigned to all full-time faculty members. Academic advisers serve as consultants to assist students with decisions regarding plans and progress toward achieving academic goals. As defined in Policy 32-30, the faculty adviser should be prepared to carry out the following functions:
- Information Giving: Advice and consultation about registration, course offerings, areas of faculty interest and expertise, educational opportunities, degree programs, policies and regulations, and administrative procedures.
- Short-Range Program Planning: Advice and consultation on semester program planning, selection of specific courses, adjustments in course loads, and advance registration.
- Long-Range Planning: Advice and consultation about educational and occupational objectives suited to the student's demonstrated abilities and interests, identification of the relationships among courses, programs, and occupations, and assistance to the student to evaluate appropriateness of educational and occupational objectives regularly.
- Conveying the Purposes of the University: Advice and consultation regarding the meaning of higher education, the aims of disciplinary and interdisciplinary study, the reasons for academic requirements, the expected standards of achievement, and the spirit and satisfaction of scholarly work.
- Student Referral: Referral to specialized campus services for advice and consultation.
- eLion: provides Penn State advisers with access to student information in support of advising related activities. Advisers can find eLion at the following web site: https://elion.oas.psu.edu.
The ultimate responsibility for completion of degree requirements belongs to the student (see the Senate Advising Policy 32-10).
