What is UC Davis doing to improve advising for students? 

We are always improving our training programs for academic advisors. UC Davis has a wonderful program where experienced advisors—and student affairs experts—teach other advisors important skills so they can best support our students. They learn about our technology systems, best practices in working with students, and how to work with students from many cultural backgrounds. And all advisors complete it—so that’s a real sign of how much our advisors care about doing their best to serve our Aggies. We’re also looking for ways to increase the number of advisors on campus—we know there are departments that just don’t have enough people to meet student needs. The biggest priority for my team is helping our advisors work efficiently and effectively with students: sometimes this means looking for ways that multiple advisors across departments can work together to help during periods of high demand, other times it means helping advisors develop stronger supervisory relationships to other professionals in their fields—some of our advisors are rather isolated in departments and would benefit from more time working together on behalf of our students.