Faculty Advisor Handbook

Faculty advisors are coaches, mentors, and most importantly, educators. The following faculty advising resources are focused on practical and best practices in academic advising. If a faculty member finds they do not have access to one of the tools below, please contact the professional advisor for your program.

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CEHSP Advising Model

To ensure all students receive proactive and developmentally designed advising from transition into CEHSP through graduation, we use an intake model of advising. Adopted in 2011, the intake model integrates professional academic advising through the Advising & Academic Services office with faculty advising in academic departments. Each professional advisor is assigned specific majors and serves as a liaison to faculty in those areas. 

Students joining CEHSP straight from high school (NHS students) are placed with a professional advisor for their first academic year. Students transferring from outside UMD (NAS or IUT students) are placed with a professional advisor for their first academic semester. Current UMD students who change into, or add, a CEHSP major (ICT students), or students looking to re-enroll at UMD, are required to meet with the professional advisor of that major. During that meeting, the admission decision is made and the base-level curriculum of new student advising is covered. This ensures all CEHSP students have contact with the advising office and receive information about their major and academic record before being assigned a faculty advisor.

Contact Information for professional advisors

Faculty Advising

Once a student has finished their professional advising relationships (as listed above), they are then assigned to faculty advisors in their major programs. The UEA contract statement on faculty advising is: In the absence of compelling reasons to the contrary, the number of advisees in any department/program shall be assigned to Members proportionally.

For CEHSP that works out to a typical advising load of 5-30 undergraduate students with a few program outliers sitting around 50 advisees per faculty. When a faculty member joins the CEHSP community they do not take on undergraduate advising immediately (with a few exceptions). Typically, in their second semester on campus term faculty are assigned 10-15 advisees, tenure-track faculty are assigned 5 advisees. New faculty advisors meet with the professional advisor of their program for onboarding and training on our academic systems. After the initial advising semester, term faculty increase their advising load to a maximum of 30 undergraduate students and tenure-track faculty continue to increase by 5 students each semester until they reach the typical max load for their program. 

Faculty advising is important

UMD, the UEA, and CEHSP all value the unique perspectives faculty can bring to the advising relationship. Faculty can mentor undergraduate students in a way that professional advisors often are unable to do. Faculty mentor students in their fields, assist them with research experience, have challenging conversations around synthesizing concepts learned in classes, and create a space for students to explore their chosen academic fields. 

What is APLUS? How do I know who my advisees are?

APLUS is UMN’s advising software that allows advisors to have a single view of a student’s UMD experience. The system can be used as a one-stop shop for faculty advisors to get to know advisees. APLUS shows grades, academic plans, and notes about interactions between students and their advisors. It can even be set up as a way for students to schedule appointments with their advisors. Professional advisors across the system use APLUS extensively. 

Faculty can gain access to APLUS by completing the FERPA training course (SR0071 on Training Hub)  and completing the APLUS Access Request Form.

Meeting with students

Faculty have the latitude to advise students in a way that best suits their style. For some, that is drop-in advising sessions, for others it could be group advising around registration time, or specific one-on-one appointments with students. How advisors meet with students can be impacted by the purpose of the meeting. When an education student is working on their Block application it is a very different meeting than when registering for classes after they have been admitted into the Blocks. 

This Advising Meeting Talking Points document provides a guide that could be used in a typical registration-focused advising meeting. 

Faculty Advising Resources