Syracuse University plans to implement a new career advising model partially funded by a $100 million academic initiative and hire new career advisers in the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Visual and Performing Arts, among other schools.

This new program, which Chancellor Kent Syverud announced in a speech last month, will include the hiring of additional career advisers and life coaches in certain SU schools and colleges, matching them to students in respective majors, said Amanda Nicholson, SU’s assistant provost and dean of student success.

Nicholson said she expects the program to reach full capacity by 2019.

Her first priority is to hire new career advisers for the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Nicholson said.

Arts and Sciences only has two career advising staff members for more than 5,000 students, while VPA does not have any dedicated career advising staff.

The Daily Orange data analysis of SU’s Career Services Outcome Report last spring highlighted the inconsistent career services offered at the university’s schools and colleges.

Under the new program, incoming freshmen will receive general guidance until they settle on a major. At that point, they will be assigned specific academic and career advisers who will work with them throughout their time at SU, Nicholson said.

“The idea is to help students … find their passion and get them set on a path for success with teams of people in the colleges that work on both career and academic advising,” Nicholson said.

One of the benefits of the new program is that advisers will now work with one set of majors within a school or college, said Kristen DeWolf, associate director of corporate relations in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management’s career center.

Each career adviser will be paired with an academic adviser, so students will get information about career possibilities and course options from both advisers.

DeWolf said a version of the new college-wide method has already been used in Whitman for the past two or three years. DeWolf, who’s a career adviser in the business school, works with her academic advising counterpart, Rachel DuBois, to guide students majoring in retail management or entrepreneurship.

“We work together to really get to know the whole student, from when they first come in until they’re going out and getting their first job,” DeWolf said. “It’s helpful for the students because they know they have a team of people.”

Career services and advising would remain mostly decentralized under the new model, with a separate dean of advising for each college and school at SU, DeWolf said. The new model is intended to ensure each student has a similar advising experience.

“We’re trying to really make it a more even distribution of talent to help our students across all the schools and colleges,” Nicholson said.

The costs of the new program will be funded in part by Invest Syracuse, a five-year $100 million fundraising plan that includes a $3,300 per year tuition hike for incoming students in fall 2018, she said. Money for the program will also partially come out of student fees and tuition, she added.

Nicholson declined to give a total budget estimate for the project but called it a, “significant investment.”

Last spring, based off The D.O.’s analysis of its 2014-15 budget, SU’s Career Services operated at that time with about $174,000. That money came from fees, employer sponsorships, co-curricular funds and the Graduate Student Organization, according to the university’s Class of 2016 Career Services Outcome Report.

The average Carnegie Institution’s annual operational budget ranges close to $240,000, according to the report. SU is a Carnegie Institution.

DeWolf said that, for the two advising branches to work together cohesively, each side must learn about what the other does.

That can be a challenge for some people, DeWolf said, because the academic advisers have to learn about the industries students hope to find jobs in.

When Whitman first implemented the new plan, the career center invited academic advisers on field trips to learn about the various industries so they could better advise students about which classes were most relevant to their career aspirations.

“It can be hard for people who have maybe been with the university for a while to … change their way of thinking,” DeWolf added.

DeWolf said that in her experience, the version of the new model Whitman uses has been beneficial for students.

“I think it’s helped students feel more comfort in the school, and more of a home base,” DeWolf said.

Published on February 7, 2018 at 8:37 pm

Contact Madeleine: mdavison@syr.edu