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Dear Colleagues,
Advising is one of the hallmarks of an Allegheny education and a tangible demonstration of the close interactions we celebrate as an institution. Allegheny students have an evolving advising team during their time on campus, from the “entrance advisor” who welcomes them to the community and helps them schedule their first-semester courses, to their “FS advisor” who teaches their first-year seminar and advises them until they declare a major, to their “major advisor(s)” who will help them navigate their academic programs, to their “senior project advisor”, who works with students to complete their Senior Comprehensive Project. Along the path from Matriculation to Commencement, students will benefit from great relationships with other faculty and staff who will offer advice – their instructors, coaches, and staff from the Learning Commons, Allegheny Gateway, and an array of other offices.
The role of a student advisee is to listen to the advice they are given, seek advice when needed, and make their own decisions on the basis of that advice. Those decisions belong to the student, but we hope they will take advantage of the knowledge and enthusiasm of faculty and staff.
The role of a faculty or staff advisor is to listen and learn about students, and to offer advice that is informed by knowledge of the student, knowledge of the campus and its resources, knowledge of higher education and the specific disciplines into which the students enter, and knowledge of the trajectory of a liberal arts education from Matriculation to Commencement and beyond.
This handbook is a small effort at helping advisors meet some of those goals. It brings together, in a single document, information on major and minor program requirements as well as other details of the academic program at Allegheny. It also includes a wealth of information on resources and opportunities available to your student advisees. If you have questions that are not covered in this handbook, please ask!
Special thanks are due to Erin O’Day-Frye, Carly Masiroff, and Tiffany Hrach in the Learning Commons, Rebecca Dickinson and Teresa Pratt, formerly of the Learning Commons, Terry Bensel, Associate Provost for the Allegheny Gateway and Director of the FS Program, Alexis Hart, Director of Writing in the FS Program and Director of the First Year Experience, and to several generations of department and program chairs, for their work on this handbook. We view this document as a work in progress, one that should evolve and change to best meet the needs of advisors at Allegheny. As such, we welcome your feedback and advice on how to make this a more useful resource.
Ian Binnington
Dean of Curriculum and Registrar
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