Academic advisement should not be a painful process for students, and Undergraduate Student Government is looking into some ideas that could help ensure that it is not.

There are too many horror stories from students about advisement experiences, said USG Vice President Megan Moore. There shouldn’t be this many. There should only be one or two at the most.

Moore and Kris Bein, USG Academic Affairs commissioner, are exploring measures to improve the quality of student advisement at SIUC by encouraging colleges to advise students at the departmental level. They have been attempting to conduct focus group meetings to collect student input on how to improve the advisement process.

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Moore and Bein have met with several people, including Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost John Jackson and Admissions and Records Director Walker Allen

Moore said they presented some ideas to them such as a survival guide explaining the advisement process more clearly and suggested more departmental advisers.

Everyone has been really supportive of the ideas, Moore said. The advisers were a little wary at first. I think they were a little confused about what we wanted to do.

Once we made our intentions a little more clear, they seemed very supportive.

Jackson said he is very pleased with the ideas presented by Moore and Bein and looks forward to their report.

I think this is a very excellent enterprise on behalf of USG, Jackson said. Their ideas have been an excellent contribution to the dialogue, and I want to see what they report.

I want to take seriously their ideas and recommendations and see what we can do with those ideas.

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USG has encountered some trouble with generating student interest and attendance for the focus group meetings. At the last scheduled meeting Jan. 29, only USG President Dave Vingren and Moore showed up. Moore said there needs to be a better turnout from the senators as well as the students.

In an attempt to improve student interest, Moore said USG will send letters to the Registered Student Organizations encouraging them to attend the focus groups. USG also plans to post fliers around campus advertising the meetings.

We need to get input from the students. We don’t want to make any decisions about any ideas without the students’ input, Moore said. There will be a whole new group of freshmen coming in next fall, and we would like the advisement process to be as painless as possible for them.

Every problem we have seen has been a result of a lack of communication, she said. We would like to see the lines of communication open up so that students will feel comfortable to approach faculty with questions they might have.

Factoid:The next meeting of the USG focus group will be 8 p.m. Feb. 19 in Neely Hall.