Students are still frustrated with the Lang academic advising office. Some students are either bouncing between advisors or unaware of who’s there to guide them at all, they said.
“I don’t even know who my advisor is. The one time I emailed someone who I thought could be my advisor, they told me that I had to come in, which doesn’t help [or] fit with my schedule,” said Ellie Plass, 20, a Journalism + Design major.
Complaints have long plagued the advising office and though some changes have been made, problems persist. There are six Lang advisors, who each are assigned to an average of 270 students, according to university spokeswoman Amy Malsin.
Student frustration with advising “has been a problem for far too long, it just should be transparent,” Lang Dean Stephanie Browner said. “Advising is often a frustration at other universities, but we’re doing worse than we should.”
“The faculty side — in that you get reassigned because people go on leave — is frustrating,” Browner also noted.
Advisors assist with selecting courses, tracking graduation progress and informing students of the university’s academic policies.
Students at Lang have a faculty advisor, in addition to an academic advisor. The professor of a student’s first year seminar is their faculty advisor until they declare their major. After a student declares, a professor within their program becomes their faculty advisor.
Students should keep the same faculty advisor after they declare their major, Browner said. “Within the industry it’s pretty standard. Your staff advisor should not change.”
Admins have acknowledged some of the problems and have taken steps to fix it. In the fall 2017 semester, Lang moved to a four-year academic advising model “to deepen the relationships between students and their advisors,” a university spokesperson said in a statement to the New School Free Press. Under the new model, students are assigned to a counselor based on their last initial.
Prior to the fall 2017 semester, students were advised by one person their first year then a separate advisor for the rest of their enrollment.
“You try different things, because in some schools a separate first year works well. For Lang, it’s best to have one point person, so that’s what we’ve gone back to,” said Leah Weich, the director of advising at Lang.
But these changes haven’t stopped students from ping-ponging between advisors, they said. Bernie Devito, a Lang junior, said she has had at least six advisors during her three years at Lang. “Students should have one advisor throughout their time at TNS in order to get the most out of their academic experience. To have to reintroduce myself each time I need assistance is annoying and inefficient,” Devito wrote to the Free Press.
Weich was disheartened to hear about experiences like Devito’s. “Every single day all of us are doing massive outreach — and that’s just the emails. And then there’s the automated. I guess I’d want to ask them a bit more about that. Are they getting the emails? I would want to know where is the confusion coming [from],” Weich said.
“We’re always looking to use the technology that students are using. Is the Facebook and email getting outmoded?” Weich said. “Should we do more announcements on MyNewSchool? I have to figure out where they’re looking.”
Advisors carve out at least five hours a day for student appointments, with each appointment ranging from 10 minutes to an hour. An advisor can see up to 20 students per day during high-volume periods, but will often see 10 or fewer depending on how much time a student needs.
According to Noemi Morales-Horsford, an academic advisor at Lang, earlier first encounters with students has been beneficial. Advisors reach out as soon as admitted students confirm their enrollment.
“We meet with them virtually and students really get a sense of who we are. They see our face and they know ‘That’s my person, that’s the person I can ask anything,’” Morales-Horsford said.
According to Malsin, Lang’s advisors got “high marks” in a university survey sent to 1,072 Lang and BA/BFA students in spring 2017. The 285 students who responded, roughly twenty six percent of those who got the survey, said they were confident in the advising they got, and that they were treated respectfully. Eighty percent of the respondents said their advising experience met their expectations.
Still, those who work in advising, including student employees, felt that students should be more active in regards to advising.
“Students need to take responsibility for their stuff too especially when there are not enough advisors here for the students,” said Brianna Azin, an executive office assistant in the advising office.
Sarah Little, a junior studying global studies who works in the advising office, said she’s interacted with students who didn’t know they had to register for classes, despite numerous emails sent by the office. “All students should just be paying [more] attention to the emails sent out,” Little said.
Illustration by Ashlie Juarbe