Allowing secretaries to sign defeats the purpose of advising and conveys to students that advising is bureaucratic, that faculty members do not consider it important, and that they do not care about their advisees. Students sometimes procrastinate about meeting with their faculty advisors and seek a signature at the eleventh hour. After their first semester, students use a computer program called CoursEnroll to pre-register for the next semester's courses. Students can enter their classes in CoursEnroll before seeing their advisor but will need a PIN to lock them into the system. Each faculty advisor receives a list of his or her advisees' PINs before course enrollment.
Advisors give the PIN to individual advisees after they have discussed the next semester's courses.
Approval of Petitions Students must also consult with you and obtain your signature whenever they petition for any exceptional consideration of college policies such as dropping courses late, acceleration, and satisfying college requirements in unusual ways. This requirement is a way of bringing students and advisors together so academic decisions and plans can be discussed. If you must be out of town during regularly scheduled advising hours, be sure to arrange and publish alternative hours. Place a signup sheet on your office door for the entire period with time slots for student use. Thirty minutes is the average time needed for each student.