A recent rumor surfaced on campus stating that the First Year Advising Center is overbooked and that students are being forced to attend group-advising sessions.

Sara Webb, director of the First Year Advising Center said the Center is actually not overbooked.

“The First Year Advising Center is not at all overbooked,” Webb said.

The First Year Advising Center is still seeing students and expects first-year students to make their advising appointments once a semester.

Webb said the center has a commitment to meet with students individually and most of the advisers are accessible within a week or less.

Making some changes

There has been a slight change-up as far as walk-in advising goes.

“Last week, we changed how we schedule blocks of time for advisers,” Webb said. “Up until Nov. 1, our advisers had a two-hour walk-in window once a week, where students could walk in and see them.”

The average number of students advisers have seen in the two-hour walk-in time block is eight, according to Webb.

“It was not a good use of our time and what it was doing was making it an extra day longer to actually get an appointment,” Webb said.

Walk-in advising has been changed to group advising time, for students who may want to meet in a group to satisfy the requirements of their advising appointment.

“Students are not forced to do group appointments, we just offer the opportunity,” she said.

Testing success

The First Year Advising Center began testing this system Nov. 1 and will monitor until Dec. 4 to determine whether it is more successful than walk-in advising.

The decision was made because students were not utilizing walk-in advising and advisers were just sitting there waiting, according to Webb.

“We decided to utilize time in more of a group advising model offering that as an option to see what students are comfortable with,” Webb said.

Student response

Katy Hayward, a freshman studying biology, attended her first year advising appointment last week and said group advising was offered.

“They (the First Year Advising Center) did offer me the option of group advising, but I turned it down due to scheduling conflicts,” Hayward said.

Webb said group advising is a month-long experiment and by no means indicates that the First Year Advising Center is overbooked or can only take students in groups.

Kristin Carney, a freshman nursing major, said she went to the First Year Advising Center three weeks ago and tookpart in an individual meeting.

“They did not offer me the option to attend a group meeting, because I set up my appointment before group meetings were an option,” Carney said. “I heard about the advising center allegedly being ‘overbooked.’ I have no idea why people thought that.”

Contact Multimedia Reporter Misha Mayhand via email at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @MishaMayhand