The Undergraduate Student Government’s recent focus on improving academic advisement at SIUC has motivated colleges to schedule simultaneous town meetings Thursday evening to obtain student input on advisement.

Jackie Bailey, director of Student Services at the College of Education, said the meetings are designed to encourage students from all colleges to voice their concerns and make suggestions about academic advisement.

At the meeting, students will meet with advisers from 5 to 6 p.m. Thursday at different locations depending on the students’ academic unit. All colleges are participating in the event.

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USG vice president Megan Moore and other USG staffers have been working to make improvements to academic advisement at SIUC. She said the town meetings are a complete surprise to her.

I think this shows that the advisers are willing to look at problem areas and look at what is working, she said.

Moore pointed out advisement is a very important part of a student’s educational career.

Advisement is the first window to campus. The first thing you do is register for classes and see advisers. she said. It’s important that it be a positive experience.

Bailey said the town meeting was scheduled after a meeting of the chief academic advisers and registration personnel. At that meeting, a member of USG came to discuss advisement reforms.

We decided it was such a positive activity for students to want to be involved and want to help make productive changes that we wanted to help them, Bailey said.

The group decided to have town meetings on academic advisement simultaneously in each of the colleges so that students within each college could sit down and talk about the advisement system with advisers and faculty.

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Our intent is to listen and try to see if there are better ways we can do advising or registration, Bailey said.

Ratna Sinha, chief academic adviser at the College of Applied Sciences and Arts, said she believes it is important to build a relationship with students that will last throughout their entire academic careers.

We want to show students they are our priority and that we care, she said. We need feedback, though, to see how we are doing.

Sinha said keeping the lines of communication open is key to having a good advisement program.

We hope students will take this opportunity to come over and talk to us and let us know how we are doing, she said. Unless they tell us, how can we help them?

The more information they have about what students need and expect, the better off everyone will be.

Bailey said the College of Education intends to follow up on this meeting. Advisers will take into consideration the major issues and will then work with education students to see if and how their needs can be met.

We can’t promise that every issue that comes up will be immediately solved, she said. but at least we can begin to talk about it.