Immigration 101 Workshop

Workshop: Immigration 101 (two sessions)
Date/Time: Friday (Nov 16) 11-Noon & 2pm to 3pm.
Location:  ILLC Room
Hechart Lodge (2nd floor conference room)
Presenters: Cynthia Cox and Ismail Warsame
Description:

This session will be an introduction to the general immigration regulations, to which OSU students need to adhere.  We will begin with the students’ journeys prior to their arrival in the United States while introducing the different types of documents they gain/utilize throughout their study in the United States.  This is designed for general audience who do not necessary have a background in immigration regulations. The format will feature a combination of role playing and a visual presentation of key documents.

Put on your Mukluks and head to Alaska for the Region 8 NACADA Conference

2013 NACADA Region 8 Conference
Anchorage, Alaska
April 29 – May 1, 2013

Conference Info:
http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Regional_Divisions/region8/index.htm

SCHOLARSHIP applications due October 19th! You can receive up to $1000 toward your conference expense. Applications are due very soon but are simple to complete.
http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Regional_Divisions/region8/AwardsInstructionsRegion8.htm

Alaska Trivia: Mukluks are a soft boot traditionally made of reindeer skin or sealskin that were originally worn by Arctic aboriginal people including the Inuit and Yupik

Sharing My Conference Experiences

I recently had the opportunity to attend two professional conferences related to Academic Advising thanks to a professional development grant from OSU’s Ecampus. The first conference was the Student Success and Retention Conference which was hosted by the Oregon Council of Student Services Administrators. This annual conference was held Feb 2-3 in Portland and centered on the theme of “Uniting Oregon Education: Unifying Systems for Oregon Students’ Success”. The second conference was for the NACADA Region 8 members and was held in Portland on March 17-20 with a theme of “Student Success Across Cultures”. These were my first official conferences since taking my position advising Ecampus students in the Natural Resources program in the College of Forestry. As always I was impressed by the deep commitment to students by student services professionals. You can’t find a more caring, creative, organized group of people. I saw many familiar OSU faces and managed to make a few new connections with colleagues at other institutions.

As an advisor for online students I was hoping to see resources for working with this unique student population. While there were many workshops on using technology to advise students, very little emphasis was directed toward advising the fully online student. In the future I hope to see (or perhaps present!) more workshops and resources for advisors of online students. If you are interested in information about advising distance learners I suggest you checkout the links below.
NACADA Advising Distance Learners

OSU Ecampus Online Education Trends – Research and Trends in the field of online learning

One workshop that really impacted me was “Combat to College” presented by Christopher Petrone, LCSW. As an Ecampus advisor I work with a fairly large percentage of both veterans and active duty military students. This presentation gave me a new perspective and some great tools for working with these students. You can see the Powerpoint slides at the link below.

“Combat to College” Powerpoint Presentation by Christopher Petrone

One of the things that Mr. Petrone emphasized is that it is important to acknowledge and thank these students for their service to our country. One quote that really stuck with me was that students don’t come home from war, they come home with war. Mr. Petrone addressed the unique needs of veterans and included a powerful film which gives a glimpse of what it’s like to be a student with PTSD. The autobiographical film “Now, After” was created by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, a student at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and a former US Army Staff Sargent who served 5 years in the Army’s Airborne Infantry and as a Squad Leader/Convoy Commander in Iraq.

WARNING: Extremely Graphic Authentic Images and Footage from Iraq.
“Now, After”  a film by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes

 

I learned a great deal from my conference experiences and hope to apply this knowledge to the work I do every day. Thanks to all those at OSU who helped to bring these conferences to life!

Do you tweet?

Since there is no May Coffee talk event, here is a plug to join in the weekly Twitter Chat for academic advising!

 

Every Tuesday there is an #acadv tweetchat from 10-11am.  What is a tweetchat?

The chat, held via twitter, is a chance for advisors from all over the globe to come together and share resources, current practices, and questions around a single topic.  To participate, all you need is a twitter account!   It’s quick, easy and fine to just “lurk”  (meaning you read the tweets of others without contributing to the discussion.)

 

The easiest way to join in is through a tweetchat interface.  You can follow any hashtag (twitter-speak for a keyword or “tag”) using tweetchat at tweetchat.com.  For the Academic Advising chat, just enter #acadv into the box.   Advisors are always posting great ideas and links on twitter, not just between 10-11am on Tuesdays!   I like to keep tweetchat on in the background all the time and then scroll trough quickly each day before leaving work to see what resources are up from that day.

Here are some from last week:

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/hack-higher-education/retaining-stem-dropouts (STEM retention)

http://www.naphill.org/posts/tftd (Positive thoughts)

http://mashable.com/2012/05/06/tech-college-infographic/ (technology usage in college)

http://www.fastcompany.com/1836171/give-yourself-an-emotional-workout (on tackling “emotionally hard” tasks/conversations)

Want to join in?  Need help?  Check out the #AcAdv information page at http://acadvchat.posterous.com.  On campus, ask a tweeting co-worker or contact Theresa Waters.

 

NACADA Region 8 annual conference

Did you attend the NACADA Region 8 Annual Conference in Portland March 17-20?

Whether you made it to the conference or not, there may be presentations you missed out on. The good news is that more than half of all presenters have uploaded their presentations to the conference SlideShare site: 

http://www.slideshare.net/event/nacada-region-8-student-success-across-cultures 

There is also a Delicious site at which you can find presenters’ Prezi’s, a link to the conference tweets (#nacadar8), and links to websites mentioned at the conference: http://www.delicious.com/stacks/view/NJZRQz

 Finally, the Region 8 blog  has a post from incoming Region Chair Sally Garner with the conference highlights! http://nacada8.wordpress.com

Comments?  Feel free to post below your highlights from the conference, how you are implementing what you’ve learned or questions for other advisors.  Don’t let the conference benefits end just because we’re all back on campus –  Keep the conversation going!

Financial Aid 101

Not a coffee talk event – but a great training opportunity for advisors on campus!

On March 13 the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships presented to a packed room the basics of Financial Aid, Satisfactory Academic Progress, and scholarship requirements.

Resources:

FA 101 powerpoint

FA 101 handout

FA101 update – sent after the event to C-10 by e-mail, more information about repeated coursework and other questions posed at the presentation

NACADA Webinar: Legal Implications of Academic Advising

Date:  Tuesday March 6, 2012

Topic:  Legal Implications of Academic Advising

Presenter:  NACADA webinar – Audrey Wolfson Latourette, JD and Thomas Grites, both of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

Becca Lynch, OSU General Counsel also recapped with OSU specifics and a reminder about the US Dept of Education rules

Summary:

Audrey Latourette, Professor of Business Law, gave an information packed 60 minute presentation about the legal implications of adcademic advising. Key topcs included:

* Judicial deference to academic decision making – historically courts have deferred to decisions made at universities and colleges when presented with cases brought by students.

*Soveriegn immunity – the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution affords governmental immunity to states and by extension to state institutions (such as OSU!); however, the 14th Amendment allows sovereign immunity to be abrogated to ‘enforce guarantees of due process and equal protection’. 

      -Becca Lynch from the OSU General Counsel office added that if an individual employeer (such as an advisor) were to be named in a lawsuit, OSU has the right to remove the individual and replace them with “OSU”

*Types of Student Initiated Litigation against advisors and Universities:

    -Educational malpractice:  think  of this as ‘negligence’. An example is offering incorrect or incomplete information accidentally.  Courts have yet to decide in a student’s favor.  In general, as long as the college bulletin and other publications contain consistent accurate information, courts have ruled that advisors are not legally bound to convey accurate information, and that recommending that students speak with an advisor is an unenforcable desire.  Bottom line:  college students are adults who need to take responsibility for printed information that effects them.

    -Breach of a Fiduciary Relationship:  one party posesses expertise that another party bases decisions on.  Courts have so far declined to rcognize the advisor-student relationship as fiduciary in claims.

    -Estoppel: one party (student) relies on the information of another party (advisor) and changes position/actions based on the information, resulting in negative consequences.  An example would be an advisor telling a student there would be no long-term impact on waiting to take a course when doing so would actually delay the students graduation.    Courts have required that the student be able to show why they acted on the advsior’s information (justifiable reliance) and also show that the person giving the information (such as an advisor) must reasonably appear to have authority.

Becca added that the above three claims would all fall under Oregon Tort Law, which Oregon State University can be held liable under.  Again, if an employee is named as the defendant in the lawsuit, OSU can remove their name and become the defendant.

   -Breach of contract: so far courts have not considered oral modifications to the contract (catalog/bulletin) as binding.

These four are all likely to be unintentional.  Two other potential legal situations were covered:

   -Intentional misrepresentation:  students have been successful in cases where facilities, instructor qualifications or other aspects of the educational experience were repeatedly exaggerated or misrepresented both orally and in print.

   -Unlawful steering to/from a particular course due to race, gender, religion or other protected status.  This is not steering a student who struggles in math away from a physics major, it is when an advisor recommends coursework in a discriminatory way (example, moves all African American students toward a certain course, steers all women away from engineering, etc.)

Recommendations:

1.  Clearly set forth the student’s ultimate responsibility in all institutional publications, have advisors reinforce this.

2.  Eliminate ambiguities or inconsistencies in publications.

3.  Document!  Require all waivers or alterations to be documented and placed in student files.

4.  Formally train advising staff and faculty advsiors annually on policies, requirements, eligibility, etc.

Resources:

Avaialble until April 6:  view the presentation online!

Handout / powerpoint

2011 Initial Information about Misrepresentation legislation

Misrepresentation Rules 6-11

Academic Advisors “Best” Practices Panel

Date:  Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Presenters Brenda Sallee (COB), Kerry Kincanon (UESP), Louie Battaro (CLA), Tyler DeAdder (COE-MIME/GE), Connie Patterson (COF-NR), Melanie Jones (PHSS)

Overview:

The multi-college panel discussed their current practices when preparing for, conducting and following-up on advising appointments.  A video recording of the presentation was made and is linked below.

Join the conversation!  Share your own best practices, tips, and tools.   If you would like to share a file that is not available online, please e-mail it to theresa.waters@oregonstate.edu

Resources:

Panel member College Info – provided by some panel members prior to event

Panel Questionnaire – questions considered during discussion

Video of the 2/14/12 \’Best Practices\’ Panel   Thanks to the College of Forestry Media team!

Advising Students Out – January 27, 2012

Date: Friday January 27, 2012

Presenter: Theresa Waters, Academic Advisor, Civil and Construction Engineering

Overview:

Advising out often come when students have either not fully understood or not accepted the academic or physical requirements of a career, or when their chosen career requires admission into a selective program for which they do not meet the requirements.

It is often up to the advisor to recognize the disconnect and help students understand and work through their situation.

Two different advising styles (practical and developmental) are considered with examples of interaction at each of the 5 stages in the “DECAF” model for delivery of ‘bad news’.  The DECAF model is adapted from “Breaking Bad News”, an April 2010 NACADA webcast by Rodriguez and Kolls.

This presentation considers advising out of a major from the perspective of delivering potentially devastating news to students that may result in genuine grief.    Students who are forced out or who must leave a poor-fit major may exhibit the stages of grief:  shock/anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  The article by Monica Lauer Farrell (see references below) gives excellent examples of the behaviors you may see as an advisor.

The advising model used has more to do with where the student is in their development than the advisor’s preference.

The steps are:

1.  Decide what/how/where/when you will communicate – (preparing for the appointment)

2.  Emotional Development of student – start where they are and try to move forward

3.  Connections – what are the real/perceived connections the student has?  How may these connections be impacted by a change of major?  What alternate paths to connections are availeble?  (Think on and off campus.)

4.  Active Listening – especially for students working through the stages of grief, being an active listener who is engaged, paying attention to non-verbals cues and continuously self-monitoring is important.   Reflecting back and supportive confrontation of incongruous statements can help the student identify ‘the real problem’.  Listening and reflecting is more valuable than ‘advice’ at this point.

5.  Follow-up – will vary greatly depending on the student’s emotional development.

Advisors can decide at each step whether a more practical or developmental approach will be most effective for the student.  In general, developmental advising will move toward student self-advocacy and guiding students through reflective questions or experiences while practical advising will focus on to-do lists and action steps will be more advisor driven.   Not all students are ready for a developmental approach when faced with such a life-changing decision.

Materials available:

Helping students let go (PowerPoint, transcription in Notes section)

Advising out of a major handout

References:

Farell, Monica.  “When Students Get Bad News: How Understanding the Grieving Process Can Help Advisers Handle Difficult Situations.” The Mentor.  August 6, 2001, by Penn State’s Division of Undergraduate Studies.  http://dus.psu.edu/mentor/old/articles/010806mf.htm

Kent, Nicole.  “Reality Check: Advising Students Out of a Major” NACADA Pre-conference 2009.

Reynolds, Maura.  “Now What?”  NACADA Clearinghouse:  http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/advisingIssues/Selective_majors.htm

Rodriguez, Jose and Kolls, Susan. “Breaking Bad News: Delivery Techniques that Help Students Make Good Alternative Choices.”  NACADA Webinar Series. 8 April 2010.

Working with International Students

Date:  Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Presenters:  Alex Beck, INTO Advisor and Rachel Weber, International Programs

Overview: 

International students, whether at OSU on exchange, as a full-degree seeking student, or part of the INTO program face unique challenges in navigating the educational climate.  Behaviors that may be the norm in their home countries can be counterproductive when transitioning to a U.S. style institution.  In addition to the social, language and study transitions facing international students, they also must be aware of their Visa status and restrictions.  Actions that domestic students take for granted, such as withdrawal, taking online classes, dual-partnership with a community college and other can all place an international student into violation of their Visa if they don’t complete the appropriate paperwork first.

Students transitioning from the INTO program into OSU degree programs have to undergo a second transition.  The average INTO student who is progressing to degree-seeking status will have been at OSU for 3 terms and may be comfortable with the policies, deadlines, and communication timeframes of the INTO advisors and support staff.  OSU advisors should be firm in enforcing OSU policies, which are often different from INTO policies, and to clearly communicate both expectations of students and what (and how quickly) a student can expect information or answers to e-mail and other requests.

In advising International students:

– encourage participation in extracurricular activies and clubs 

– use e-mail and weblinks to communicate important information, many international students prefer written/online communiucation to verbal

– anytime an international student is considering a schedule change, encourage them to contact International Programs to ensure it will not affect their visa status

– be patient and understanding

– communicate with the ISAS and INTO advisors with any questions.  By compiling and sharing common questions from International students, it is hoped that a more comprehensive International Student Advising FAQ can be developed.

 

Materials:

Activities that may impact an International Student’s status

List of OSU contacts (accurate as of F2011)

Visa information

Top Ten Tips for Advising Transitioning INTO OSU Students

Academic Requirements for International Students

Admit Types_International – Chart of type of International Students and their coding in Banner

Transitioning to your degree-seeking program at OSU – shared with progressing students – to help them understand a few key changes in services and contacts between INTO OSU and OSU Programs.  This is the version given to students in Spring who will begin degree-seeking status Fall term.