Leslie Meyers from New Student Programs and Family Outreach (NSPFO) came in to talk with the Advisor Coffee Talk group about START, Welcome Week and U-Engage.

She shared that START is the orientation program for new students. There are 9 First Year STARTs that happen throughout the summer, mostly on the Corvallis Campus with programs in California and Hawaii. FY On- Campus START consists of a 2 day program introducing them to OSU and to their intended College as well as registration for Fall term classes. There are also 4 Transfer STARTs that consist of much of the same programing but over just a single day.

Welcome Week is the first week of school including the first few days of classes. It usually consists of opportunities at the University, College and School/program level to get to know other classmates, faculty and staff and resources on campus.

U-Engage is a set of First Year Experience courses taught by OSU faculty and staff. While there is a specific topic and typically an interesting question that is being asked, students also learn about opportunities and resources for their first year of college. U-Engage courses are selected from a pool of submitted proposals. There is no preference given to instructors or faculty with experience and it is completed for a letter grade.

Amas Aduviri along with his staff form CAMP and TRiO/SSS treated the advisors to a lunchtime talk about the programs that he oversees. Amas provided some history about CAMP and TRiO/SSS, an overview of the programs/objectives and some updates on new initiatives.

CAMP:
Federally Funded program
2 programs in OR (OSU and Chemeketa)
Focus on migrant farm workers
First year program
Provides: tutors, mentors, social activities, connection to the OSU Community, provides some financial services
35 student in program
Objectives:
– 86% of students in CAMP finish their first year in Good Standing
– 85% of those that complete their first year enroll in second year

It is the only support program for migrant workers and is aimed at breaking the achievement gap.

TRiO/SSS:
Provides services to low income and first generation families
175-190 students in program
Preferred that students start at beginning of year, but anytime is ok
Students are part of TRiO throughout their OSU career
Access to Academic Counselors, summer bridge programs, first year success courses, tutoring, student success workshops, study rooms and electronic rentals, grant aid.
Must be First Gen or Low income or have a documented disability and have academic need
Objectives:
– 74 % persist year to year
– 76% in Good Standing
– 56% graduation rate in 5 years

Updates:
Bringing online SSS STEM Program. Currently recruiting for about 120 students in the STEM fields-including social sciences.

TRiO Brochure

LeAnn Adams, Advisor for Prestigious Scholarships at OSU filled in the Advisor Coffee Talk attendees with the types of scholarships she oversees, how to help student find more scholarships and what LeAnn’s role is as the Advisor for Prestigious Scholarships.

LeAnn works with undergraduate students and alumni to help them find scholarship opportunities. She is not part of Financial Aid and is not a Financial Aid Officer. She advises students on competitive national and international scholarships and fellowships. She can also present to groups of students or faculty, work with students that are referred to her and is a faculty representative for many different awards. She asks that as Advisors, we send her any scholarships that we may know of or hear about.

Her presentation also went into detail about criteria for some scholarships and more resources to find outside scholarships. Presentation: Prestigious Scholarships Advisor Coffee Talk.

Melanie Jones, the former chair of the Academic Standing Committee (ASC) joined us to talk about what the ASC does and how advisors can help the ASC.

ACS enforces regulations on academic standing and have the authority to grant exceptions to the regulations, mainly requests for reinstatement. ASC is made up of individuals from academic partners across campus.

In this talk, Melanie covered reinstatement options including exceptions, the petition process, some definitions and some tips for Advisors.

During the question and answer portion, the question: “if a reinstatement would be granted for a student that had already applied for graduation” was asked. At the time Melanie didn’t know that answered but was able to follow up with the following response;

The Registrar’s Office confirmed that there could be some flexibility on whether the student had a graduation application on file. The firm part of that portion of the guideline is that the student is a senior by credit: 135 earned credits, and can finish their degree within 3 terms. This would need to be clearly documented by the advisor. Again, advisors can call the Registrar’s Office on this if questions arise around a suspended student that fits the guideline:

8. Policy Guideline – Students with Senior Standing who meet all four of the following
criteria may be granted an exception to the Reinstatement Rules:
a) they are candidates for graduation, with an application on file in the Registrar’s office;
b) they expect to graduate within the next 3 terms;
c) they have strong support from their Head Advisor;
d) they have 1.95 – 1.99 GPA with one term to graduate; OR
1.90 – 1.99 GPA with two terms to graduate; OR
they have been absent from the University for one year.

ASC Presentation: ACT – Academic Standing Committee

We had Regan Kaplan from Financial Aid talk with us about SAP and PACE. She started off with saying that they are “excellent at being confusing”. Most of what Regan talked about is included in the attached PowerPoint but there were some updates that are important.
– Link to SAP for Advisors to come
– Financial Aid is frozen at 100% refund deadline

PowerPoint: SAP and PACE for Academic Advisors 2015