Advisers should be experts, avoid dead ends for students

Editor,

I recently spoke with an adviser in the Anderson School of Management. Though the advisers in University College have bad reputations for being unhelpful, this adviser showed no improvement.

As an adviser for the 3-2 Program with Anderson, she works with both undergrad and grad students. However, when I had questions pertaining to undergrad credits, this program-specific adviser looked me straight in the face and told me several times, "That's not my department." When I tried to offer my e-Progress report as an aid for planning a class schedule, I was literally interrupted with, "I don't read progress reports." Instead of receiving help, I was given dead ends and quickly had to restructure my questions to fit around her speech that seemed memorized, like receiving computer tech support from overseas.

Here are some suggestions to remedy this dead-end syndrome. A comprehensive knowledge about not only the adviser's specific program, but also about all other programs touched by it should be a requirement for advisers. As a student hearing, "That's not my department," I felt like I was thrown back in grade school, except it was my teacher who refused to teach.

Creating a dead end for a student is not an adviser's job; it is an adviser's job to help students. Is there not a network between these University advisers? Do they not have e-mail? A better answer for me should have been, "Let me e-mail someone who could answer that for you, and I will get back to you."

Another problem seems to be that there are more students needing advisement than advisers can handle. UNM, hire more advisors instead of building a new recreation center. There is dire need for an academic restructuring here.

Ben Chinisci

UNM student