An Assessment of Centralized Versus Faculty Advising in a College of Engineering

The authors studied use of and satisfaction with advising provided at a centralized advising location compared to faculty advising in individual departments. They hoped to determine whether students' advising needs were being met by these two systems. Although they found no significant differences between departmental and centralized services on advisor availability and concern, they did find that more students used faculty advisors. Further, they discovered many of the advising services offered to be vastly underused. The authors examine this underuse and propose coordination between departmental and central advising systems to better serve students.