Archived Spring 2020 Advisement Notes

Spring 2020 Advisement Notes

1. (July 7, 2020) The information above has been added and updated to reflect Fall 2020 expectations for faculty Advisors. We will provide more guidance about Fall 2020 office hours and their delivery modalities in August, when we have a clearer picture of the course delivery modalities and return to campus procedures for the fall.

2. (June 11, 2020) Summer Office Hours for Faculty: During the summer, twelve month faculty will be involved in advisement and instructional support activities, which are traditionally accomplished through office hours during the fall and spring semesters. Therefore, all 12 month faculty are asked to post their office hours in KeanWISE and Blackboard for the summer sessions. These office hours would include time for advisement, recruitment, and instructional office hours. Please make sure these faculty account for this on their SARS.

It is the expectation that ALL full time faculty (Lecturers, Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty) who are teaching Summer I and/or Summer II courses should hold instructional office hours to support the students in their courses. We recommend 2-3 hours per week per course taught. Faculty should post those office hours in both KeanWISE and Blackboard.

3. (April 28, 2020) Updates regarding CRM-Advise, including its automated messaging functions. Here are some additional items to note regarding CRM-Advise.

4. (April 27, 2020) Update on office hour expectations for full-time faculty: As per the Full Time Faculty Requirements for Spring 2020 announcement:

Full-Time Faculty Office Hours:
In an effort to better serve our students, all full-time faculty are required to post and hold 12 office hours over a minimum of four days. The last three weeks of the semester, office hours are required as follows: 8 office hours two weeks prior to Exam Week and 6 office hours during Exam Week. Note: This does not apply to adjunct faculty.

Since two weeks prior to Exam Week was Thursday, April 23, 2020, the reduction to 8 office hours per week began then. The reduction to 6 office hours for exam week applies to the week from Thursday, May 7, 2020 to Wednesday, May 13, 2020.

We recommend that following distribution during this time:

For the 8 hour weeks: 4.5 hours of advisement hours for continuing students, 2.25 - 3 hours for instructional hours and 1.5-2.25 hours for new student advisement.

For Exam Week: 3 hours of advisement hours for continuing students, 1.5-2 hours for instructional hours and 1-1.5 hours for new student advisement.

Please contact Steve Kubow (skubow@kean.edu) with any questions.

5. (April 17, 2020) Unless prior approval has been given through the appropriate Dean’s office, the current policy for Summer Session registration is that students are only allowed to register for a maximum of seven credits or two courses, whichever is greater, in each summer session (for a total of 4 courses or 14 credits over the two sessions). In light of the current situation, while the limit of 4 courses (14 credits) for the two sessions together remains in place, students with Dean’s permission can be allowed to do 3 courses in Summer I and 1 course in Summer II or 1 course in Summer I and 3 in Summer II. For these exceptions, or any other exceptions regarding summer course loads, your advisees should be referred to the the Dean of the College that houses that student’s major.

6. (April 17, 2020) Office hours expectations for full-time faculty: Although we have shifted to remote delivery of educational content, the expectation remains that faculty will maintain 12 hours hours per week. We recommend the following distribution of office hours to best serve our students needs: 6 hours to advise continuing students regarding registration, pass fail decisions, degree requirements, etc (it is recommended these hours are posted in the Kean Advisor Experience), between 3-4 hours for instructional office hours and between the remaining time (2-3 hours) devoted to new transfer student and other new student advisement as appropriate. The total of these three divisions must still add up to 12 hours. Please contact Steve Kubow (skubow@kean.edu) with any questions.

7. (April 8, 2020) Reminder, the last day for students to withdraw from a class with a grade of W is Thursday, April 9, 2020. Should any students have extenuating circumstances that require them to request a late withdraw, the students would be referred as follows:

a. Students requesting to withdraw from a single course should be referred to the Dean of the College that offers/houses the course, to submit their request for review and approval.

b. Students requesting to withdraw from all of their courses should be referred to the Dean of the College that houses their major program, to submit their request for review and approval.

8. Advisement process for newly admitted transfer students. This is the process as per John VanBrunt in the Office of Admission. It was sent to the Deans and ED’s last week. Feel free to reach out to your Dean, or Steve Kubow (skubow@kean.edu) with any questions, problems or concerns:

We have always provided instructions to new transfer students on how to schedule an in-person meeting with their advisor. At the Council of Deans meeting last week, the team created a framework for a remote advisement model for new transfer students. Below is the process that we have created around that framework to ensure the academic departments can manage the workload while meeting the needs of our new students.

1) Every Friday, I will send a list of students with advisement holds to the academic departments. (Attached) I have sorted it by college and program. Moving forward, instead of expanding this email distribution list, I will email this to the deans, deans office, MADs of each school and/or the general email for each school so it can be distributed to the correct people managing this for each program.

2) Academic departments can delegate the advisement workload as needed among their faculty advisors. The faculty advisors will send the attached email (template) to the students. This is the email that Dr. Kubow and I worked on last year with a few edits to fit our current needs. Once the email is sent, the advisor will lift the advisement hold.

3) Transfer Advisement Days: Wednesdays 3:00 pm-5:00 pm.

a) Students can request additional remote advisement by registering for the event through this link, which is included in the pre-advisement email.

b) Registration ends each week on Monday night at 11:59 pm.

c) I will send the registration list to the academic departments on Tuesday morning.

d) Academic departments will determine the modality of the appointment (call, video chat, etc.) and contact the student to confirm.

Please note that most of our students currently have coursework in progress at their prior institutions. This means that those credits have not yet transferred. Additionally, if this coursework completes their AA or AS at a NJ community college, their GE courses at Kean are satisfied.

9. Want additional support with Advise? Participate in one of the Advise, Just In Time drop-in sessions below via Google Hangout and learn how to email your students and advising notes to the student record. To join, click on the date below for the session you want to attend.

10. (March 31, 2020) When you access the CRM-Advise Faculty Support Page website (http://bit.ly/KeanAdviseSite) referenced in the blast to faculty and staff about the start of advisement, please note: you must be logged into your Kean email/SSO login on the web browser you are using. If you are not able to access this site, you are most likely not logged in properly.

11. (March 31, 2020) The New Jersey National Guard is activating units to support the State's response to COVID-19. This includes some Kean University students from our different locations (Union, Ocean, Skylands and Online). If a Guard member is activated, they will be sent orders from their respective units. These orders will need to be presented to each professor to help support the continuation of remote education to every extent possible. Faculty are encouraged to work with each Guard member on an individual basis, as some Guard members will require additional support. Depending on the length of time a Guard member is on active duty, an incomplete or other accommodation available through the Office of the Registrar may become necessary. The Office of Veteran Student Services is also encouraging all veterans. active military and their dependents at Kean to register for both Summer and Fall 2020, as appropriate and possible depending on their military and life obligations. Please feel free to contact the Office of Veteran Student Services by email to veteran@kean.edu with any questions or requests for additional information, support, and resources.

12. (March 30, 2020) A special Pass/Fail policy for Spring 2020 has been implemented. Your advisees will be asking you about this. They can select up to two(2) classes to be changed to P/U grades AFTER the final grades have been posted. This allows them to make the most informed choice for their selections, while maintaining their motivation to earn the highest grades possible. The deadline for the designation of their choices is June 1, 2020. Please note: P/U grades are not able to be recalculated at a future date according to the Kean University catalog. Also note: neither P nor U grades are included in the GPA calculations, and therefore will not affect a students GPA.

a. The Office of the Registrar is creating a form for this process. It will require the Faculty Academic Advisor’s approval for processing. This will ensure students do not choose classes that can impact their graduation, certification or impact other accreditation issues regarding their degrees.

b. Additional information is available HERE.

c. We will update you as more information becomes available.

13. (March 30, 2020) Click HERE for information on registration system availability and information on when students can register for Summer and Fall 2020. Please note: at this time the only Summer I courses scheduled to be offered are those that have gone through the full approval process to be offered as part of the Kean Online offerings, along with select independent study online classes/special offerings approved by the Office of Academic Affairs. Similar changes may be made to the Summer II offerings, depending on the progress of the pandemic. Please consult your Executive Director/Chairperson or Dean for more information.

14. (March 30, 2020) We encourage all Schools/Department to submit (through their Executive Director/Chairperson) and major or minor program specific advisement information for posting on this website. Please send the information to Solman Ahmed (soahmed@kean.edu) and cc Steve Kubow (skubow@kean.edu)

15. (March 24, 2020) A resource page has been added for current and prospective students.

16. (March 24, 2020) Student Health Services has temporarily removed all immunization holds to enable students to register now. They will be sending an email to those students explaining that they still have immunization requirements, but due to disruptions in the health care system, the requirement will be waived until a later date. They will encourage them to upload documents if they do have them. Please refer student to Health Services if they have questions about this. The contact information is in the information for current and prospective students.