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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

IN WHOSE INTERESTS?
NEGOTIATING ACADEMIC ADVISING

IN A COMMUNITY COLLEGE
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PROGRAM

presented by

Lisa A. Haston

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for the

PhD. degree in Educational Administration

 

 

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6/01 cJCIRC/DateDue.p65-p.15

IN WHOSE INTERESTS?
NEGOTIATING ACADEMIC ADVISING

IN A COMIVIUNITY COLLEGE
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PROGRAM

By

Lisa Ann Haston

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Educational Administration

2003

ABSTRACT
IN WHOSE INTERESTS?
NEGOTIATING ACADEMIC ADVISING IN A COMMUNITY COLLEGE
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PROGRAM
By
Lisa A. Haston

A quality academic advising program is the responsibility of many on campus and
represents an interdisciplinary process that is potentially inﬂuenced by several different
groups of stakeholders with often differing and even conﬂicting interests. Among these
are advisors, faculty and administrators. With the increase in groups of individuals
involved, there is heightened potential for the expression of different interests, beliefs,
values, and philosophies. The ways in which these differences are played out and
resolved—or negotiated—inﬂuence the overall nature and quality of academic advising
for developmental education students.

The purpose of this study was to describe the nature of academic advising within

a community college developmental education program and to understand the ways in
which the process of Academic Advising is negotiated. To achieve this purpose, an in-
depth, exploratory and descriptive case study was utilized.

Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine stakeholders of a
community college developmental education program. Other means of data collection
included document analysis and participant observation.

This case study demonstrates that academic advising for developmental education

students at Mid-State Community College is a fundamentally contested process,

characterized by several issues in which there is little agreement among the key players.

Negotiation of these issues reﬂects the power relations and interests of the participating
actors.

Strategies used to address these differing interests among the key players reﬂect
differing rationalities and alternate ways in which these groups use their power. In
contrast to the dominant conceptions of academic advising as either developmental or
prescriptive, these ﬁndings suggest that the nature of academic advising for
developmental education is best regarded as inherently political.

By examining the differing interests identiﬁed in this study, we can better
understand the fundamentally political nature through which these interests are
negotiated, and the ways in which power is used to make decisions.

Although the findings of this study relate directly to academic advising in a
community college developmental education program, they suggest an applicability to
other two and four-year institutions, and to different organizational models of advising.
Taken together, the political nature of advising and the assumptions about academic
advising reﬂected among the key players in this study suggest three issues relevant to a
wider range of contexts: authority, power, and inclusion. These issues help us better
understand what values and interests are enacted within particular institutional and
organizational conﬁgurations of academic advising, and ultimately the overall nature and

quality of such institutional processes.

Copyright by
LISA A. HASTON

2003

To my sons, Christopher Jefferson Haston and Matthew Jacob Haston, whose
unwavering faith in me sustained me on my coldest days. You did not give up hope,
so I could not, either.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In completing a work as arduous as a dissertation, I am again reminded that “no one is an
island, entire of itself” (Donne, 1624). And, as things seem to go, the longer I spent
remembering people who helped on this project, the longer the list became. Any
omission is not necessarily intentional, just the effect of a tired mind. With that caveat as
my protector, I will proceed.

First and foremost, I thank my God and my Higher Power. No more words are
necessary. Thank you.

To Dr. John Dirkx: Your gentle but directed guidance spurred me on and helped
me to see in myself what you saw in me—that I could do this!

To Dr. Gloria Kielbaso and my colleagues at the Michigan Center for Career and
Technical Education: You are the best second family a person could ever want!

To my committee: Dr. Marilyn Amey, Dr. Gloria Kielbaso, Dr. S. Joseph Levine,
and Dr. Rhonda Egidio: Your commitment and dedication to bringing out the scholar in
me is appreciated.

To the study participants at “Mid-State Community College”: Thank you for

sharing your stories. I hope I have captured them truthfully.

To my family: there are no words to say it better—Thank you and I love you!
To my sons, Christopher and Matthew: Lads, you never gave up on me. You
believed in me even when I questioned my abilities. You two are unequivocally the

center of my world!

vi

To my parents, Dr. Charles and Marlene Johnson: My love of learning and value
of education began with you. In all that I have done, my goal has been to make you
proud.

To my sister, Gina, and her family: For always loving me and making me happy!
Do I have to say it again? You rock!

To Granny, Mom and Pop: The best grandparents in the world!

To Jeff: On that ﬁrst day on the MSU Marching Band ﬁeld, did you ever think it
would come to this? Thanks for your technical expertise and your support.

To Meredith Bowen and the womyn of Sistrum: I promise I will make up the
missed rehearsals! After all, I can ’1 stop singing!

To Judy: We did it! I wish I had half the conﬁdence in my abilities as you have in

them. Thanks for your belief in me and your love.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... x

CHAPTER 1

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ................................................................................................ 1
Lynn: A Cycle of Failure ............................................................................................................. 1
Background ................................................................................................................................. 8
Rationale .................................................................................................................................... 11
Research Questions ................................................................................................................... 14
Signiﬁcance of the Study ........................................................................................................... 15
Deﬁnition of Major Terms ........................................................................................................ 16
Limitations and Delimitations ................................................................................................... 17

CHAPTER 11

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ...................................................................................... 18
Academic Advising ................................................................................................................... 18
Community Colleges ................................................................................................................. 26
Developmental Education ......................................................................................................... 31
Negotiation ................................................................................................................................ 41
Summary ................................................................................................................................... 47

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................................... 49
Research Design ........................................................................................................................ 50
Context and Setting of the Study ............................................................................................... 51
Population and Selection of Participants ................................................................................... 52
Participant Proﬁles .................................................................................................................... 53
Role of the Researcher ............................................................................................................... 54
Data Collection .......................................................................................................................... 55
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 59
Reporting the Findings .............................................................................................................. 61

CHAPTER IV

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND STRUCTURE ............................................................... 63
Organizational Context .............................................................................................................. 64
Community College’s Mission .................................................................................................. 65
Developmental Education ......................................................................................................... 66

CHAPTER V

KEY PLAYERS ............................................................................................................................. 74
Administrators ........................................................................................................................... 77
Counselors ................................................................................................................................. 80
Faculty ....................................................................................................................................... 85

CHAPTER VI

THE PROCESS OF ACADEMIC ADVISING ............................................................................. 90
Process of Academic Advising .................................................................................................. 90
Location ..................................................................................................................................... 91
Placement ................................................................................................................................ 102
Ways to Improve Academic Advising .................................................................................... 108

viii

Summary ................................................................................................................................. 117

CHAPTER VII
DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................................. 1 19
Academic Advising as Constituted by Multiple Constituents and Multiple Interests ......... 120
A Political Theory of Academic Advising for Developmental Education .............................. 122
The Theory of Academic Advising-Espoused Theory versus Theory-in-Use ........................ 131
Implications for Other Contexts .................................................................. 138
Implications for Future Research ............................................................................................ 142
Implications for Practice .......................................................................................................... 143
Recommendations ................................................................................................................... 144
Summary .......................................................................................... 147
APPENDICES
Appendix One
Interview Protocol ................................................................................ 150
Appendix Two
Letter to Study Participants ....................................................................... 152
Appendix Three
Informed Consent Form .......................................................................... 154
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................... 155

ix

LIST OF TABLES

The Political Boundedness of Nurturing
A Substantively Democratic Planning Process ................................................ 45

List of Study Participants ......................................................................... 77

It is hard to imagine any academic support system that is more important to student
success and institutional productivity than advising. Assisting students in selecting the
courses they need is essential if students and institutions of higher education are to ﬁtlﬁll
their respective obligations to one another and the society that has invested in them.

George Kuh, I 997

CHAPTER I

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Lynn: A cycle of failure1

Lynn; is a 35-year-old female who is applying to Mid-State Community College after a
seventeen-year hiatus from formal education. She is a single mother with two young
children at home. Lynn works full-time at a minimum-wage job at a local business. She
is returning to school to acquire new skills in order to make a better life for herself and
her children.

As a child, Lynn never liked school. She attended inner city schools and books
and supplies were hard to obtain. Oﬁentimes, students had to share resources. Lynn
always seemed to be the last one to ﬁnish her assignments, and never quite understood
what she was doing. In Jr. High and high school, Lynn never earned grades above a “C”

and almost did not graduate. She had no aspirations to go to college and spent much of

 

' Dr. Charles Nolen, Program Director of the Counseling Center/Counselor coined the term, A Cycle of
Failure, in the interview for this study.

2 This information has been derived from a description of the process and student characteristics by study
participants.

her time in vocational classes and skipping school. Teachers and counselors had told
Lynn that she was not college material and should take business classes (secretarial) in
high school to prepare for her future.

Lynn’s family of origin did not regard education highly. Her father ﬁnished
eighth grade and worked at a small factory nearby. Her mother graduated from high
school but worked in the home. She had four brothers and sisters, none of whom went to
college.

Lynn was the ﬁrst in her family to go to college, an honor not valued in her
family. In fact, her family could not understand why she would want to go to college at
her age when she needed to work as much as possible to support her own family. Not
only did her parents and siblings not support Lynn for her decision to attend college, they
ridiculed and criticized her.

As Lynn begins Mid-State, not only is she realizing that she is under-prepared for
college work upon graduation from high school, but in the interim, she is even further
behind. She is entering college with self-perpetuating negative thoughts that tell her “I’m
not going to do well or be successful. I don’t belong here.” However, Mid-State, like
community colleges throughout the country, has an open door policy and will not
discriminate against Lynn and other students regarding under-preparedness. Lynn will be
able to enroll at Mid-State and take classes that count toward certiﬁcation, an associates
degree, or eventual transfer to a four-year institution.

Lynn, like many under-prepared students at Mid-State and other community
colleges, is apprehensive about being in college. This is a huge step in her life and she is

looking for someone to say, “You can do this.” And, as Dr. Charles Nolen stated, “If

they don’t get that message at the front door they are not going to stick around.”

Lynn does not have a role model for “doing college”; she does not know what it
means to be a student and does not have the requisite skills for success in college, such as
organization, time management, study skills and balancing the different areas of her life.
She has never been taught how to do that.

Process of Enrollment. After applying to Mid-State Lynn receives a postcard
notifying her of the requirement to take the college’s placement test. She is instructed to
call the Counseling Ofﬁce to schedule an appointment to take the Accuplacer placement
test. Because Lynn was not planning on going to college after high school, she did not
take the ACT test. Thus, as she has no ACT score she meets the criteria for taking Mid-
State’s placement test. Since Lynn has been out of school for along time, she had
already decided that, regardless of her placement scores, she wanted to take
developmental courses, as do many returning students who have been out of school for a
while.

Lynn schedules the appointment with the Counseling Ofﬁce and arrives on the
appropriate day to take the test. Within thirty minutes aﬁer ﬁnishing the test, Lynn meets
with a counselor to receive feedback regarding her placement scores. As the counselor
calls Lynn into her ofﬁce, Lynn is struck by the counselor’s demeanor—she seems very
ﬁ‘iendly and warm. The counselor offers her hand and introduces herself to Lynn. Lynn
determines that Ms. Durfee is about ﬁfty years old; she is wearing a skirt and sweater and
has glasses perched on her head. Lynn notices that Ms. Durfee has a ﬁrm handshake.

Lynn feels a bit more relieved already.

They enter Ms Durfee’s ofﬁce and Lynn is offered a seat at the round table. Ms.
Durfee begins to talk to Lynn about her placement test results. Since Lynn needs to
improve skills in three subject areas——reading, math and English—she is required to take
Psychology 101 , a course designed to assist students with their adjustment to college.
Lynn and her counselor prepare her fall schedule of courses. At this time, Ms. Durfee
asks Lynn about her academic and vocational goals and together they map out an
academic plan for her future semesters at Mid-State. They begin with the upcoming fall
semester. Lynn’s counselor knows that typically under-prepared students need plenty of
support and direction, so she places her chair near Lynn to physically and symbolically
provide support and assistance.

Ms. Durfee hands Lynn a course catalog and asks her to look up the math course
she needs, based on her placement test. Eventually, Lynn locates the math section of the
catalog and ﬁnds the developmental course. Ms. Durfee commends her and asks her to
locate the remaining developmental courses she needs. Upon completion, Lynn is asked
to record the courses into a course matrix, which will become Lynn’s fall schedule of
classes.

Ms. Durfee explains to Lynn that she must pass all of her fall classes with a 2.0 or
better in order to take the next series of math, reading and English classes. Until she
successfully completes these courses, a hold will be placed on her course enrollment card
and she must meet with her counselor to register for courses. Once she successfully
completes her courses, the hold will be released and she can register independently of the

Counseling Center if she chooses to do so.

Ms. Durfee asks Lynn if she has any questions but expects her to say that she does
not, as many under-prepared students do not like to ask questions or want others to know
that they do not understand something. The counselor also knows that Lynn probably
will not talk much in class because ordinarily under-prepared students do not want to be
“put on the spot” or identiﬁed in class.

Ms. Durfee instructs Lynn that as a student in the Developmental Education
Program Lynn must meet with her counselor at least once during the semester to discuss
any problems she might be having. Lynn nods in understanding and replies that she will.
The advising session ends.

The First Semester. Lynn attends classes regularly the ﬁrst few weeks of the
semester. She is afraid of getting too far behind if she were to miss class. After the ﬁrst
month of classes, one of her children becomes ill and Lynn must miss two days of classes
to stay with her child. A week later, Lynn’s brother, while driving her car, rear-ends
another car, rendering Lynn transportation-less. Getting to classes is suddenly difﬁcult.
Within a three-week period, Lynn’s stellar grade record of all 4.03 drops to 3.53 and 3.03.
Lynn becomes very stressed.

Sitting in class, Lynn wonders if her instructor and cohorts realize the stress she is
experiencing. She feels totally isolated and thinks she is the only one with these
problems. In reality, the person sitting next to Lynn has similar problems, as do several
others in her classes.

About this time in the semester, the Student Victor Program begins, whereby a
counselor attends one of Lynn’s English classes one-half hour per week to mentor the

students and help them connect with each other. As part of the Student Victor Program,

the counselor works with the full class on advising issues, informs them of college
policies and generally orients them to expectations of college.

Lynn ﬁnds this program very helpful. However, she notices that the counselor
and her instructor do not talk much to each other or look at each other when the other one
is talking to the class. At times Lynn’s instructor says sarcastic things about the Student
Victor Program and it seems as though the instructor really does not think the program is
beneﬁcial to the students. Lynn believes she is getting good information and assistance
from these weekly hysts.

A few weeks later, right before mid-term examinations, Lynn’s instructor
announces that a counselor will be attending their class and will be conducting what is
referred to as “In-Class Advising.” The class learns that the goal of the program is for the
counselor to gather some information about what the students want to do for next
semester and will start registering them for classes.

On the appointed day, the counselor arrives at class with course catalogues and
schedule books, and essentially teaches the students how to create their own schedules.
At the end of that hour, the counselor announces, if the student has completed the
process, the counselor will go back to the ofﬁce and input the schedule. The student will
then be registered for next semester.

This sounds good to Lynn. “This is great,” Lynn tells the student next to her,
until it appears that a class that Lynn really wants does not ﬁt her schedule. The
counselor tells her that she will need to attend Academic Advising Day next week at the

Field House to try to ﬁt that course into her schedule. Reluctantly, Lynn agrees to attend.

Towards the end of the semester, the college holds Academic Advising Day. On
the day that Academic Advising Day occurs, the college cancels all classes. Students are
highly encouraged to attend Academic Advising Day and talk with counselors and/or
faculty members about majors, courses in the majors and classes to take next semester.
As Lynn enters the Field House, the number of students, faculty and counselors who are
there amazes her. Faculty members are sitting at tables identiﬁed with department names
printed on banners. Students are milling around, talking in groups, or queuing up to talk
to a counselor or faculty member. Most of the lines are empty, but the lines in front of
the Developmental Education Program are very long. Since Lynn needs to get a hold
removed from her registration card before she can register, she gets in the Developmental
Education Program line. She asks the student in front of her how long the wait is, to
which he replied, he had heard that some students had waited ﬁve to six hours to talk to a
counselor. He also told Lynn that the computers had been unreliable all morning and
there were only two counselors who could register all Developmental Education Program
students. He wondered why he could not go to one of the empty lines, but was told no
one else could take the hold off his registration.

Later Lynn learns that in addition to the long lines and crashing computers, all of
the telephone systems of the college had malfunctioned that morning—there was no
touch-tone registration and no on-line registration. Maybe Academic Advising Day is not
such a great idea, thought Lynn. It sure did not sound like it was working that day.

Lynn ﬁnishes the semester and is able to maintain 3.03 and one 3.5. She feels that
her ﬁrst semester in college has been successful. Luckily, there were no more crises in

her family. Her children stayed healthy all fall and her brother paid for the car repair. He

even threw in $50.00 to pay for her time without a vehicle.
Lynn decides the break between fall and spring semesters will be a great time of

relaxation and recuperation. Next semester starts in four short weeks...

Background

Academic advising plays a critical role in higher education. Traditionally, the purpose of
academic advising has been to help the student select a major area of study or an
occupation as a means to begin organizing his or her life (Crookston, 1972; O’Banion,
1972) and to assist students in becoming lifelong learners and “effective agents for

their. . .own personal development” (Chickering, 1994, p. 50). Advising duties within
four year institutions typically involve such tasks as selecting courses and negotiating
four-year plans.

While academic advising at four-year institutions is a well—developed area of
study, much less is known about this process in other sectors of higher education,
particularly the community college. Advising within a community college often presents
a different set of challenges, particularly in working with "at-risk" or "under-prepared"
learners. Advisors who work with under-prepared students in community colleges
encounter issues that advisors in more traditional, four-year institutions rarely experience.
In addition to not being fully prepared to address the demands of college-level work,
these students are often dealing with a host of psychosocial and economic issues that set
them apart ﬁom their more academically prepared colleagues (Frost, 1991; Long &
Amey, 1993; Amey & Long, 1998; Dirkx, Amey, & Haston, 1999; Grimes & David,

1999). To help them develop the skills necessary to succeed in college, they are

generally assigned to one or more “developmental courses.”

Another issue that distinguishes academic advising for developmental education
students ﬁom academic advising in settings that are more traditional is that, in
developmental education, beyond the nature of the students, more stakeholders are
involved in the process and its outcome. Among these are advisors, developmental
education faculty, departmental faculty, and administrators. With the increase in
different kinds of individuals involved, there is heightened potential for the expression of
conﬂicting interests, beliefs, values, and philosophies. The ways in which these
differences are played out and resolved—or negotiated— inﬂuence the overall nature and
quality of academic advising for developmental education students.

Scholars of developmental education underscore the critical role that academic
advising plays in helping retain under-prepared students. These students face the highest
risk of not even completing coursework intended to prepare them for college level work.
Attrition rates from developmental programs often exceed 50% (Boylan & Bonham,
1992). Only 24% of students who begin community college in developmental education
programs ﬁnish their Associates degree at that institution.

Boylan (1999) writes that “with appropriate assistance, under-prepared students
can be just as successful in higher education as their better prepared colleagues” (p. 2).
Yet, many developmental education programs continue to struggle with the issue of
academic advising. Work with local programs suggests that academic advising is not
well integrated into community college developmental education programs (Dirkx,
personal communication). Advisors complain of a lack of time for providing adequate

counsel to these students. Faculty complain of a lack of communication with advisors

who are charged with providing services to developmental students. Students complain
about being assigned to the wrong classes or not understanding why they are in
developmental courses. One gets a clear sense that advising for under-prepared students
is not working, but the reasons for this are not clear.

A quality academic advising program is the responsibility of many on campus and
it represents an interdisciplinary process that involves multiple aspects of the community
college’s organizational structure. In addition to advisors and students, advising requires
the involvement of faculty members and administrators. Faculty need to be
knowledgeable of the student’s academic standing in the course and of support services
available to help students succeed academically. Administrators must be cognizant of
best practices in student retention and success issues, and organizational policies and
structures that are most effective in this effort. They must know and understand the
characteristics of their institution’s clientele, they must ensure that the college maintains
high academic standards while adhering to an open door policy, and they must
understand and enforce institutional policies and procedures.

Thus, several different groups of stakeholders with differing and even conﬂicting
interests potentially inﬂuence the process of academic advising for developmental
students in the community college. The purpose of this study was to describe the nature
of academic advising within a community college developmental education program and
to understand the ways in which the process of academic advising is negotiated among
key players. To achieve this purpose, an in-depth, exploratory and descriptive case study

was utilized.

10

Study Rationale

Postsecondary education in the past twenty years has experienced a transformation
because of outside inﬂuences (Piedmont Virginia Community College, 1995). Severe
ﬁnancial constraints have resulted in increased accountability and competition for dollars
and students; smaller numbers of traditional-age college students have forced
postsecondary institutions to look to new audiences to ﬁll their classrooms; new
technologies are changing the way colleges and universities provide instruction and do
business; and the value and need of a college degree is being scrutinized in the era of
“high tech,” hands-on learning and jobs.

Community colleges are not exempt from this transformation. Historically known
as “open door institutions” (Roueche & Roueche, 1993) that enroll the most diverse
student body in US. colleges and universities (Cohen & Brawer, 1991), community
colleges have seen their numbers swell with new populations of students, including adult
students, women, ethnic minorities, displaced workers and students with various learning
differences and learning difﬁculties (Cross, 1981; Pulliams, 1990; Windham, 1996).

Community college students typically arrive on campus with added complex
issues, such as work, family and ﬁnancial concerns (Batzer, 1997). Furthermore,
community college students in developmental education programs have different
advising needs than do their academically prepared colleagues. These growing ranks of
new community college students have necessitated the introduction of new programs and
services designed to support their needs. However, which programs will be added?
Which existing services must be excised to make room for new ones? Who are the key

players involved in making these decisions? Moreover, how are decisions like

ll

these made?

Many students entering postsecondary institutions today do not possess the
academic skills necessary to successfully complete higher education. Most
postsecondary institutions offer some type of programming speciﬁcally designed to
enable these under-prepared students to succeed in college. These programs, when
applied consistently and deliberately, work. A sound academic advising program can
contribute to student success, retention and completion.

If, as Habley & Morales (1998) write, academic advising is one of the most
important components on most postsecondary campuses for encouraging academic
success, satisfaction and retention, then acadenrie advising is not something to be
conducted in a vacuum, but an essential partner of higher education’s mission (Gordon,
Habley, & Associates, 2000). This, then, ﬁrmly places academic advising in a role
embodying speciﬁc duties and responsibilities and demanding participation ﬁ'om various
institutional groups, with each group and individual member, by nature, possessing
differing and potentially conﬂicting interests designed for program betterment.

A deﬁnitive deﬁnition of academic advising is elusive. Academic advising
clearly exempliﬁes diversity, a fact that is evident when considering advisors’
professional preparation, roles and responsibilities additional to advising, extant
organizational models of advising, and the variety of members representing different
interests who sit on advising program boards and steering committees.

Advisors hail from every academic discipline; most have at least a Masters
degree; most are faculty members, others are counselors, clerical staff or full-time

advisors; some have experienced advisor training, most have not had training; some

12

advisors work in centralized advising centers; some are housed in academic affairs,
others are found in student affairs departments (Swensen, Bogenschutz, Kline, Seegar,
Spencer, & Gordon, 1987; Gordon, Habley, & Associates, 2000).

In addition to the diversity of preparation which characterizes those who provide
advising, academic advising also comprises many organizational models and
combinations thereof (Habley, 2000). Patterns exist, such as certain models of advising
being more predominant on certain types of campuses, but there are many instances of
pattern deviation.

Considerable information is available on academic advising in traditional, four-
year postsecondary settings. In fact, most of what we know about academic advising is
derived from studying these settings. However, developmental education programs
within the community college represent a much different context for academic advising.

Attempts to improve developmental education suggest numerous problems
associated with academic advising for under-prepared learners, how advising articulates
with the academic courses offered through the developmental programs, and how
decisions such as these are made.

With the multiple constituents who are involved in academic advising for
developmental education students, each possessing different and even conﬂicting
interests and educational and training backgrounds, the different organizational models
for advising that are prevalent on college campuses, institutional histories of politics and
political relationships, and other such variables, one might question why a study on
academic advising for adult learners in a community college developmental education

program was even considered? And where do we go from here? One way is through the

13

advisors work in centralized advising centers; some are housed in academic affairs,
others are found in student affairs departments (Swensen, Bogenschutz, Kline, Seegar,
Spencer, & Gordon, 1987; Gordon, Habley, & Associates, 2000).

In addition to the diversity of preparation which characterizes those who provide
advising, academic advising also comprises many organizational models and
combinations thereof (Habley, 2000). Patterns exist, such as certain models of advising
being more predominant on certain types of campuses, but there are many instances of
pattern deviation.

Considerable information is available on academic advising in traditional, four-
year postsecondary settings. In fact, most of what we know about academic advising is
derived from studying these settings. However, developmental education programs
within the community college represent a much different context for academic advising.

Attempts to improve developmental education suggest numerous problems
associated with academic advising for under-prepared learners, how advising articulates
with the academic courses offered through the developmental programs, and how
decisions such as these are made.

With the multiple constituents who are involved in academic advising for
developmental education students, each possessing different and even conﬂicting
interests and educational and training backgrounds, the different organizational models
for advising that are prevalent on college campuses, institutional histories of politics and
political relationships, and other such variables, one might question why a study on
academic advising for adult learners in a community college developmental education

program was even considered? And where do we go from here? One way is through the

13

process of negotiation.

Negotiation is the medium used to arrive at consensus, or agreement, regarding
which programs get funded, who the key players in program planning are, the audience
for whom the program is planned, what content and format the program will assume and
any number of other tOpics for consideration. In program planning and group decision-
making, key players bring their interests to the planning table. Sometimes these interests
are in conﬂict with other interests; sometimes there is consensus. When interests are
cacophonous, however, it becomes the responsibility of the program planner to negotiate
between the competing interests to facilitate program planning. Cervero & Wilson
(1994) state, “whenever people are acting in an organizational context, they act within
relationships of power in order to carry out their wo ” (p. xii). In this way, relationships
of power form the foundation on which programs are always planned and on which
planners must always act.

We clearly need to know more about how academic advising within community
colleges is structured and delivered for under-prepared learners, the various roles and
responsibilities that characterize such approaches to academic advising, the ways in
which these structures and processes are and are not addressing the needs of the under-
prepared learners, and ways in which advisors, faculty members and administrators
negotiate their interests and arrive at consensual agreements regarding academic advising

in developmental education programs at a community college.

Research Questions

The purpose of this study was to describe the nature of academic advising within a

14

community college developmental education program and to understand the ways in
which the process of academic advising is negotiated among key players. The study

addressed the following questions:

1. Who are the key players in the process of academic advising for community college
developmental education students?

2. What are the views of the key players regarding academic advising in a community

college developmental education program?

3. What issues can be identiﬁed ﬁom the descriptions that are manifested in the differing

views?

4. How are issues negotiated within the developmental education program?

Significance of the Stuay

The signiﬁcance of this study is to add to the body of knowledge regarding how the
function of academic advising is negotiated among the key players involved in a
community college developmental education program. This information can contribute
to a deeper and richer awareness of under-prepared student needs and how academic
advising can be designed to enable students to enhance their success in college. This
information is beneﬁcial to academic advisors, faculty members and administrators who
work with under-prepared students in community colleges. It is also beneﬁcial to anyone
involved in group work where negotiation and compromise exist. This knowledge can
prompt a fresh look at existing advising services, resulting in a strengthened role of

academic advising, speciﬁcally for under-prepared students. It can also contribute to

15

higher rates of student success by aiding community college personnel in understanding
the goals of advising, as well as the practices, policies and procedures involved in

advising under-prepared students in community colleges.

Deﬁnition of Major Terms
The major terms used in this study are deﬁned as follows:
wennc advising: “a teaching process” which occurs outside the classroom,
that addresses the students’ entire collegiate experience and is
concerned with the development of the “whole student”—intellectual,
emotional, physical and spiritual (MSU Adviser Manual, 1997)
developmental education: a general term that includes academic and social/psychological
support services for under-prepared students (Miller, in Davis, 1999)
developmental education students: those students whose knowledge, skills, motivation
and/or academic ability are below those of the “typical” student who matriculates
at the same institution (Maxwell, as cited in Ender & Wilkie, 2000)
m: attitudes, values and beliefs that compels a person to act in one way or another
negotiation: the focal form of action that planners employ in constructing programs
m: the ability to act, conferred to people by virtue of the continuing social
relationships in which they participate (Isaac, as cited in Cervero & Wilson, 1994)
professional academic advisors: individuals whose primary occupational
responsibility is in helping students clarify their goals and values,
enabling students to know themselves better, plan an educational

and vocational plan congruent with their interests, goals and values,

and gain an awareness of the institutional resources available
(Crockett, as cited in Gordon & Minnick, 1994)
under-geparedness: a comparative term describing a student’s ability to compete

academically with peers at the same college or university (Ender & Wilkie, 2000).

Limitations and Delimitations

This study will be conﬁned to interviewing advisors, faculty members and administrators
at a selected community college who work with students in a developmental education
program. No faculty advisors will participate in the interviews. This study will focus on
only one institution, located in the Midwest, which is currently scrutinizing its
developmental education program as a means of overhauling and improving services to
students.

It is important to note that the ﬁndings could be open to other interpretations than
those that will be delineated. The study will focus on understanding how the function of
academic advising is negotiated among the key players involved in a community college
developmental education program. Suggestions or predictions will not be made about

that situation (Janesick, 1994).

17

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Community colleges have played a predominant role in advising ’s latest rebirth,
because they are the portal of entry for many new students such as older adults and
minority students.

Gordon & Habley, 2000

Community colleges in the United States, due to their open door policy of admission, are
enrolling an increasingly diverse student body (Batzer, 1997; Valadez, 1994; Shaw,
Rhoads, & Valadez, 1999). New arrivals on community college campuses include larger
numbers of adult and women students, minority students, displaced workers and
academically under-prepared students. In order to retain students and provide them with
tools for academic success, community colleges have established programs and services
designed to address the challenges encumbered by these students.

Developmental education programs exemplify these programs. Over 90% of US.
community colleges provide developmental programs and services (Knopp, 1995;
Boylan, 1999), including developmental courses, learning labs, tutoring, counseling and
advising. For these programs to be truly effective, an interdisciplinary, integrated,
collaborative approach to working with students in developmental education courses
must occur, involving academic advisors working with faculty working with students

working with academic advisors (Roueche & Snow, 1977; Maxwell, 1997).

18

There are many studies detailing the effectiveness of developmental education
programs and many more studies describing the demographics of under-prepared students
(Batzer, 1997). There is, however, little in the literature describing the views of faculty
members, students, administrators, counselors and advisors regarding academic
advising’s role in developmental education programs on community college campuses.
Further research is necessary to gain a deeper understanding and awareness of the goals

of advising under-prepared students as perceived by the constituents involved.

Academic Advising

Much has been written about the positive effects of academic advising. Frost (1991)
writes that advising can serve as “a means of achieving success for students” (p. 1).
Tinto (1987) posits that students who are “involved” in their academics are more likely to
persist in college and academic advising is one aspect that contributes to student
involvement and persistence in college. He writes that “one of the most important steps
colleges and universities can take in becoming learning organizations is to reorganize
their educational activities to encourage shared, connected learning experiences” (1987,
p. 2). Tinto continues by stating that student learning is strengthened when students
engage in “shared, collaborative experiences and take an active role in their learning”
(IBID).

Astin (1994) states that students who have a college faculty member, staff, or
other personnel with whom they feel comfortable interacting have an easier time
adjusting to college life and a better chance of completing their education. This notion of

shared learning and “mattering” (Astin, 1994) is applicable in academic advising.

Academic advising can be one tool used to connect faculty with students and to offer

students an opportunity to become involved in their learning.

History of A cademic Advising
In 17'11 and 18th century colonial colleges, college presidents were responsible for
providing direction in ethical, scholarly and extracurricular pursuits to students (Cook,
1999). In the early 19th century, the earliest identiﬁed formal system of advising was
initiated at Kenyon College, Ohio, when faculty members were paired with students. In
the 18703, when the elective system was initiated to motivate apathetic students,
widespread use of faculty members as advisors was introduced. The elective system,
which signiﬁed a fundamental change ﬁ'om the traditional classic curriculum of the early
19th century, utilized faculty as advisors assisting students with their course selection
(Rudolph, 1962). By the 19303, most US. college campuses had faculty advising, but
specialization of faculty, lack of time and incentives and increasing numbers of students
contributed to a less than effective advising system (Raskin, as cited in Frost, 1991).
During the 19603, large numbers of students attending college masked the weak
advising system, but during the 19703, when numbers declined and students demanded
better academics and service from their institutions, the problem was exposed and
advising programs warranted attention (Frost, 1991). In the late 19703 and early 19803
academic advising began to look like a professional entity when the National Academic
Advising Association (N ACADA) was formed. This organization served to promote the
ﬁeld of advising and elevate the status of advisors. NACADA encouraged research and

publications, which contributed to an increased interest in academic advising (Frost,

20

1991). It was during the 19703 that academic advising was ﬁnally considered a ﬁeld.
However, despite this burgeoning interest in the ﬁeld of academic advising, new
theories deﬁning advising and the formation of a professional organization, most of the
reports and student surveys published in the 19803 described less than satisfactory
advising programs in the country (Frost, 1991). In 1984, the National Institute of
Education published its report on advising, Involvement in Learning, and called academic

advising “one of the weakest links in the education of college students” (IBII), p. 5).

Theoretical Foundations of A cademic Advising

The growth and identity development of academic advising on college and university
campuses in the 19703 was due in large part to two phenomenon: 1) larger and more
diverse numbers of students; and 2) faculty members who were increasingly more
interested in conducting research (Frost, 2000), including research on students and ways
of improving the college student experience.

In 1972, two researchers, Burns Crookston and Terry O’Banion, working
independently, joined academic advising to student development theories, creating
models of advising which were considered a form of teaching (Frost, 2000). Crookston’s
model, “developmental advising,” was constructed around two concepts:

1) Postsecondary education offers students a means of planning

for achievement of self-fulﬁlling lives
2) Teaching is deﬁned as any activity that contributes to individual
growth and development and that can be assessed. (Crookston, 1972,

p. 12).

21

In developmental advising, the relationship between the student and advisor is
integral. Although, the advisor adopts a teaching role, the student must assume shared
responsibility for learning, not behave as a “passive receptacle of knowledge”
(Crookston, 1972, p. 12). Long-terrn goals, such as life and career goals, as well as short-
terrn goals, such as choosing a major and speciﬁc classes, are considered in the advising
interaction. Students who engage in developmental advising typically spend more time
in advising, thus contributing to their level of involvement and persistence in college
(T into, 1987).

O’Banion, in his classic work published in 1972, proposed an academic advising
model consisting of the “skills, knowledge and attitudes required for good academic
advising” (p. 64). His model, also a form of developmental advising, was designed to
“help the student choose a program of study [that] will serve him in the development of
his total potential” (O’Banion, 1972, p. 62). Similar to Crookston’s model, O’Banion’s
model advocated students and advisors sharing responsibility for student advising and
decision-making. This model was highly regarded when it was ﬁrst published and is
widely used today (Grites, 1994; Ramos, 1994; Rooney, 1994).

O’Banion’s model is presented as a ﬁve-step sequential process:

1) exploration of life goals

2) exploration of vocational goals

3) program choice

4) course choice

5) scheduling courses (1972, p. 64)

According to O’Banion (1972), the order in which these steps are presented is the correct

order in which to approach advising the student; that is, ﬁrst the student and advisor

explore the student’s life goals; next they explore the student’s vocational goals, meted in

22

the context of the life goals; and ﬁnally, a program of study and the requisite courses are
selected, based on the student’s vocational and life goals.

Upon perusal of this list, it appears very comprehensive; it has the depth and
breadth that Kuh writes about (1997). Some authors, though, have found fault with this
order, writing that in actual practice it is “upside down” and that “students tend to seek
advice primarily on selecting and scheduling courses” (Grites, 1994, p. 81)—a type of
advising known as “prescriptive” advising—and pay little attention to their life goals and

its impact on their vocational choices.

Goals of A cademic Advising.
Academic advising, as George Kuh (1997) and others have advocated, has the potential
of being a powerful tool, offering the student a strong impetus toward student success and
academic achievement. Academic advising is a complex and important component of
postsecondary education. Its many features combine in ways that enable the student to
successfully navigate his or her way through college and later through life. Advising is
not, nor can it be, a haphazard approach to one’s vocational and curricular decisions.

Several national advisory boards have published benchmarks for academic
advising. According to the Mission of the Council for the Advancement of Standards
(CAS) for Student Services/Development Programs (1997), the main goal of an academic
advising program should be to help students clarify and develop an educational plan that
is congruous with their life goals.

NACADA (1994) has published the Academic Advising Standards and

Guidelines for postsecondary advising programs, which The CAS Board of Directors has

23

approved. The standards and guidelines state expected levels of performance, goals and
objectives for advising programs. The nature of many of these standards and guidelines

require that the advisor be cognizant of theories and practices related to, but not exclusive

of:

Teaching and learning

Hmnan development, including student development
Special populations’ needs

Career development

Decision-making skills

Demographic and diversity issues

Academic and personal problems and skill deﬁciencies
Interpersonal skills

Also, the Council for the Advancement of Standards (CAS) for Student
Services/Development Programs (1997) has identiﬁed the following subsets as
comprising the requisite skills, knowledge and attitudes that an advisor should possess in
order to facilitate “good academic advising.” So as to be able to assist the student with
the exploration of his or her life goals, the advisor will be:
0 cognizant of student characteristics and development
a skilled in counseling techniques and have an understanding of decision-
making processes
As a means of helping the student explore his or her vocational goals, the advisor will:
0 know various vocational ﬁelds
0 understand issues of career development, including the changing nature of
work in society
To assist the student in choosing a program of study and accompanying courses that are
congruent with his or her goals, the advisor will know and understand:
0 the various programs and courses that are available at the institution

0 institutional policies regarding the courses (special entrance requirements,
course prerequisites and graduation requirements).

24

The focus of this study is on academic advising programs and services for students in a
developmental education program at a selected community college. Academic advising,
for the purpose of this study, is deﬁned as those programs and services whose goal is to:

0 help students clarify their goals and values

0 help students come to know themselves better

0 help students plan an educational and vocational agenda that is congruent

with their interests, goals and values
0 help students gain an awareness of the institutional resources available

(Crockett, as cited in Gordon & Minnick, 1994).

Organizational Models of A cademic Advising.

There are multiple organizational models of academic advising, but patterns exist and
particular models are more evident at similar types of institutions (Habley, 2000),
although these patterns cannot be used for predictions. One distinguishing factor for
contrast and classiﬁcation is the notion of centralized versus decentralized organizational
structures. In a centralized structure, there is generally a central administrative unit, such
as an advising center, with a director and advisors. This model of advising is known as
the Self-Contained Model (Habley, 1983).

In a decentralized structure, individual academic departments provide advising for
students in their majors. Advisors in a decentralized structure are most often faculty
members and advising occurs in their individual offices (Gordon, Habley, & Associates,
2000). This model of advising is the Faculty-Only Model. Another example of

decentralized structures of advising is the Satellite Model, where advising occurs in

25

“satellite” centers, such as individual colleges within the university or individual
campuses of multi-campus institutions.

Increasingly, advising programs and services fall somewhere on the continuum
between centralized and decentralized models, and are termed shared models Habley
(1983) presents four models of advising which contain characteristics of both centralized
and decentralized structures: the Supplementary Model—students have department
advisors but there is an advising ofﬁce which provides departmental advisors with
advising resources and support; the Split Model—undeclared students (students without
majors) see advisors in the advising center, while students with majors see departmental
advisors; the Dual Model—each student has two advisors throughout college: an advisor
in their major for discipline-related issues, and an advisor in the advising center for
general issues, such as institutional policies and procedures; and the Total Intake
Model—all students initially see an advisor in the central advising unit, then switch to an
advisor in their department once certain criteria have been reached.

Academic advisors in community colleges are typically located in centralized
advising or counseling centers, and more speciﬁcally in the Self-Contained and Split
Models (Gordon, Habley, & Associates, 2000). However, rural community colleges
commonly use a F aculty-Only, Split, and Supplementary Models (Jefcoat, as cited in

Pardee, 2000).

Community Colleges
American colleges were established in the 17th century to educate the sons of white,

wealthy families (Rudolph, 1965; Veysey, 1965). These early colleges were modeled

26

after colleges in Bologna, Italy and Oxford, England, which educated only the sons of
wealthy white families in academic disciplines of ministry and law. These colleges
served the purposes of an exclusive group from a young, developing nation well enough,
however, after decades of growth and evolution, such a model no longer ﬁt the nation’s
populace. This model of higher education lasted well into the latter 19’” century when the
Morrill Act, also known as the “Land-Grant Colleges Act,” was enacted to establish
higher education institutions designed to provide an education in agriculture and
mechanical arts to a more general population (The Morrill Act, 1862; Horowitz, 1987;
Gollattscheck, as cited in Lieberman, 1988). The establishment of the Servicemen’s
Readjustrnent Act of 1944, or the “GI Bill” as it was commonly called, provided a
college education to scores of people who previously had not had access to higher
education. This act forever changed the American higher education scene in that a
college education would never again be considered exclusively the birthright of a
privileged class.

The second half of the 20th century saw new entries into the American milieu
(Horowitz, 1987). Immigrants contributed to swelling numbers of US. citizens; new
commerce and industry forced the country to transform old ways of doing business,
necessitating a change in workforce skills; citizens other than rich white males wanted a
college education; scores of students ﬁom other countries came to study at US. colleges
and universities; and the ranks of students under-prepared for college level work
increased (Newman, in Lieberman 1988; Merisotis & Phipps, 2000). A new model of

higher education was needed.

27

Characteristics of Community Colleges

The community college was established in response to these needs. It was a uniquely
American institution designed to provide postsecondary education to people who might
not get an opportunity to attend college—a philosophy known as the “open door policy”
(Horowitz, 1987; Roueche & Roueche, 1993; Cross, in O’Banion, 1997). An open door
policy meant that regardless of academic preparation, socioeconomic status, gender, race,
age, enrollment status, family background, work situation, or other demographic
characteristic, citizens who previously were unable to attend college now could
(American Association of Commimity and Junior Colleges, 1987; Gollattscheck, in
Lieberman, 1988; Cross, in O’Banion, 1997).

The original goal of the community college was to provide an academic
foundation to students planning on matriculating to a four-year institution (Stark &
Lattuca, 1997). Over time, in response to local communities and employers’ needs,
community colleges began to offer vocational training and skill development programs
(Levine, 1989). Eventually, community colleges also provided self-enrichment and
leisure-time courses for senior citizens and others.

The community college movement was instituted at the national level, by
executive action. In 1946, President Truman’s Commission on Higher Education stated:

.. .the opening of doors of higher education to members of society who,

throughout American history, had lingered on the periphery of the American

dream of equality for all; members of lower socioeconomic groups, blacks,
women, working adults and other segments of society would have educational
opportunities previously denied them if the commission’s goals were adopted.

A number of goals would be achieved through an expanded network of

two-year colleges. These colleges were to be so closely tied and committed

to serving their communities that the Commission labeled them community
colleges. (Vaughan, as cited in Lieberman, 1988)

28

American community colleges opened their doors at an astonishing rate. During
the late 19603, new community colleges were established at the rate of one per week
(Cross, in O’Banion, 1997; Underwood & Hammons, 1999). This open entry revolution,
which continued into the 19703, also saw new students entering higher education who
were not prepared to do college-level work (Cross, in O’Banion, 1997). Community
colleges, as vanguards of educational change, considered it their responsibility to provide
services for their students and began implementing developmental programs designed to
meet the needs of under-prepared students (IBID).

For the purposes of this study, the focus was on developmental education in the

community college.

The Community College ’s Role in Providing Developmental Education
Community colleges instituted developmental education programs on their campuses in
response to several issues: the community college’s open door policy; the enrollment of
large numbers of diverse students, including academically under-prepared (Shaw,
Valadez & Rhoads, 1999); and the national pattern of declining academic skills
(Newman, in Lieberman, 1988). In 1988, the Commission on the Future of Community
Colleges published their report regarding the role of the community college in
developmental education. It said:

We recommend that reading, writing and computational ability of all

ﬁrst-time community college students be carefully assessed when they

enroll. Those not well prepared should be placed in an intensive

developmental educational program. Community colleges must make

a commitment, without apology, to help students overcome academic

deﬁciencies and acquire the skills they need to become effective,
independent learners. (p. 17)

29

The National Center for Educational Statistics reported that in 1995, all public
two year colleges, 81 % of public four-year colleges and universities and 63% of private
four-year institutions offered at least one developmental education course (2000). The
report states that ﬁrst year students at public two year colleges were more likely to enroll
in a developmental course than ﬁrst year students at public four year institutions. Knopp
(1995) and others report that in the early 19903, 91% of all two-year colleges and 84% of
all four-year colleges and universities offered developmental courses (Stark, & Lattuca,
1997). Maxwell (1997) reports that in 1992-93, 13% of US. undergraduates said they
were taking at least one developmental course and a 1996 report is cited that states 29%
of entering ﬁrst year students were enrolled in developmental courses. These numbers
included recent high school graduates as well as adults returning to school after a lapse in
time between academic pursuits. Although traditional-aged students were expected to be
academically prepared for college-level work, many had not taken college-preparatory or
academically challenging courses in high school. They, therefore, were not ready for
college-level work (Parnell, 1985). Results of a study conducted by Paul and Orcutt
(1994) showed that although 90% of high school seniors in their study planned to attend
college, 50% were actually enrolled in courses that would prepare them for college-level
work.

Community colleges are the postsecondary institutions that have carried the

responsibility for educating the under-prepared students in the latter half of the twentieth

century.

30

Developmental Education
Developmental education is not a new concept. Although recently it appears that more
press coverage has been devoted to developmental education issues and their origins,
developmental education supports have been in existence since the early days of colonial
colleges (Cohen & Brawer, 1996; Merisotis & Phipps, 2000), when in 1828, Yale
University offered developmental studies for students with “defective preparation”
(Pintozzi, 1987). The ﬁrst documented program in developmental education was at the
University of Wisconsin in 1849 and consisted of courses in reading, writing and
mathematics. However, due in part to negative stigma attached to these courses, they
were eliminated in 1880. Despite their embarrassment at admitting that they enrolled
under-prepared students, other universities, including Cornell, Harvard, Wellesley and
the University of California at Berkeley soon followed suit and established
developmental courses for their under-prepared students (Brier, 1984).

By the early 19th century, 84% of US. colleges and universities offered some type
of developmental education course (Abraham, 1992). A century later, in 1907, more than
50% of the entering class at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia failed to meet the
minimum requirements in one subject or another (Brubacher & Willis, 1968; Merisotis &
Phipps, 2000).

The enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Higher Education Act of
1965 provided an opportunity for larger numbers of women, minorities and academically
under-prepared students to attend college (Batzer, 1997; Merisotis & Phipps, 2000). As
more students with diverse situations began showing up on college campuses, the need

for academic support, such as developmental education, grew.

31

Academic skills continued to decline into the 19703 (Colby & Opp, 1987; Newman,
in Lieberman, 1988; Batzer, 1997) when scores on nationally-normed tests dropped. This
reversed a 50+ year trend in which test scores had gradually increased, then jumped up
markedly between the mid 19503 and mid 19603, only to decline till the later 19703,
before stabilizing in the early 19803 through mid 19903 (Cohen & Brawer, 1996). The
authors offer inconclusive, but numerous, reasons for the decline in academic skills (p.

251). Among other inﬂuences, they believe the declined was due to several key

occurrences:
1. decreased stress on reading
2. reduction in academic requirements and expectations
3. the effect of watching television on a generation of students
4. the less centralized role of the family
5. a decline in the respect for authority and educators
6. increasing numbers of ESL (English as Second Language) students.

Eventually, when academic expectations, amount of time spent in the classroom and the
number of requirements decrease, student achievement, regardless of good intentions or
measurements, will decline (Cohen & Brawer, 1996).

In 1984, the National Commission on Excellence in Education produced A Nation
at Risk, a report which summarized the problems inherent in the country’s educational
system:

The educational foundations of our society are presently being

eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as

a nation and a people. . .We recommend that schools, colleges and

universities adopt more rigorous and measurable standards and higher

expectations for academic performance and student contact. (p. 5)

Even though the report clearly called for change in the nation’s school systems, change

did not happen.

32

Characteristics of Developmental Education Students

Grimes & David (1999) write that developmental education students are not just students
with lower academic skills, but they comprise a group with speciﬁc characteristics and
difficulties (Frost, 1991). Grimes & David (1999) conducted a study to determine if there
are differences between under-prepared and college-ready students. The researchers
identiﬁed certain attributes that personify the typical developmental education student.
They collected data provided by approximately 500 incoming ﬁrst year community
college students who completed the Student Information Form, a freshman survey
instrument designed by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) at UCLA.
Results of the study showed that there are indeed differences between the two groups of
students. Under-prepared students rate themselves differently than college-ready students
on numerous experiential and attitudinal issues, including self-perceptions, experiences,
attitudes, expectations, goals, values, academic performance and persistence (Grimes &
David, 1999, p. 80; see also Maxwell, 1997).

This position is corroborated by Dirkx, Amey & Haston (1999) who found that in
addition to the academic difﬁculties developmental students have, instructors of these
students observe that their students’ personal lives are disadvantaged as well. According
to the researchers, many areas of the students’ lives, including endless ﬁnancial
difﬁculties and unsupportive, sometimes even antagonistic, parhrers and family members,
make it exceedingly difﬁcult for developmental students to pursue their education. The
instructors in the study expressed frustration over the situation because they felt they had
little control or inﬂuence over them.

Roueche and Roueche (1993) term developmental education students “at-risk”

33

and write that they are oftentimes ﬁrst-generation college students, from low
socioeconomic and culturally disadvantaged backgrounds, have low self-esteem and
expectations of academic success and have not performed well in previous educational
endeavors (Frost, 1991; Maxwell, 1997). Shaughnessy (1996) writes that students enroll
in developmental courses for various reasons: some are adult students returning to the
classroom after a hiatus; others are new high school graduates deﬁcient in academic skills
or requiring curricular review.

McCartan (as cited in Lieberman, 1988, p. 51) describes the high-risk community

college student as:
- academically under-prepared
o undermotivated for college
0 poorly informed (and perhaps unrealistic) about career goals
0 employed off-campus
O

young

Frost (1991) posits that academically under-prepared students oftentimes are
dependent learners with a low self-concept, who need to experience academic success
and are reluctant to get academic help. Many under-prepared students lack basic skills in
reading, writing, mathematics and study habits and are unclear about career goals and
interests (Grites, 1982; Frost, 1991).

Considering Grimes and David’s study (1999) conﬁrming that there are indeed
character differences between under-prepared- and college-ready students, there are real
implications for colleges to provide specialized programs and services for their under-
prepared students. College leaders must structure learning situations that provide an
integrated perspective (Dirkx, Amey, & Haston, 1999), concurrently facilitating the

student’s cognitive and affective domains, while cognizant of the fact that under-prepared

34

students, being completely individualistic in their degrees of under-preparedness, need
programs personalized as much as possible—not mass-produced according to normed

standards (Rose, as cited in Popejoy, 1994).

Goals and Components of Developmental Education Programs

There is a widely-held belief that students entering college should be academically
prepared to successfully begin and complete their college courses and do so within an
acceptable time frame, following a traditional course curriculum (Thomas-Spiegel,
Patthey-Chavez & Dillon, 1999). However, with the swelling numbers of non-traditional
students entering colleges and universities, many students do not ﬁt this model. In an
effort to improve the services offered to under-prepared students, designed to ensure their
success in college, it is imperative that a fresh look at ideal developmental education
practices be conducted and then compared to current practices.

Developmental education has been described as programs and services designed
to retain students and equip them with effective basic skills so that they can successfully
complete an academic or vocational curriculum (Cohen & Brawer, 1996; Weissman,
Bulakowski, & Jumisko, 1997). Miller (as cited in Davis, 1999) adds social and
psychological support services to the deﬁnition of developmental education. These
programs and services include tutoring and mentoring, academic advising and
counseling, learning laboratories and centers and developmental education courses
(Boylan, 1999).

Boylan (1999, pp. 4-5) posits that there are several components to a successful

developmental program. These components include:

35

1. an institutional commitment to developmental education concepts and
programming

services provided by well-trained people

services and programs that are student-centered and holistic

services and programs that are consistent with the college’s academic standards
coordination and collaboration between developmental education service
providers

services and programs that are based on articulated goals and objectives

a curriculum that integrates critical skills—such as critical thinking, diverse ways
of knowing and study skills—into every activity

8. an evaluation component.

9:59!”

>19

Other authors (Morante, 1998; Spann, 2000) reiterate many of these points and
add other requirements to the list, including accurate assessment and mandatory course
placement in appropriate learning formats (courses, tutoring, counseling, learning labs,
etc.), on-going training and professional development for developmental education
providers and collaboration between community college developmental education
providers and secondary education leaders regarding requisite skills, knowledge and
attitudes for successﬁrl navigation of postsecondary education.

Weissman, Bulakowski and Jumisko (1997) recommend that under-prepared
students begin a developmental education program upon enrollment and be allowed to
enroll in college-level courses while concurrently enrolled in developmental education
courses, unless the student needs remediation in reading and writing, or reading, writing

and math, in which s/he should be required to concentrate on a developmental education

program ﬁrst.
Impact of Developmental Education Programs on Academic Success

Several studies have shown a positive relationship between under-prepared students who

complete developmental education courses and postsecondary academic success (Long &

36

Amey, 1993; Boylan, Bliss, & Bonham, 1997; Amey & Long, 1998). Boylan, et al
(1997) posit that several components have been mentioned most oﬁen in the literature as
contributing to academic success: centralized program organization, mandatory
assessment, mandatory placement, tutoring, early and mandatory advising and program
evaluation (Long & Amey, 1993; Hanson & Huston, 1995; Amey & Long, 1998;
Merisotis & Phipps, 2000).

Even though reports such as these tout the academic successes of under-prepared
students who complete developmental education courses, the literature is replete with
data stating that most developmental education programs have been ineffective regarding
future prospects of academic success for students (McGrath & Spear, 1991; Weissman,
Silk & Bulakowski, 1997; Roueche & Roueche, 1999). Grimes & David (1999) cite
Adelman (1996) when they write that nationally, 47% of developmental education
students graduate from college and only 24% of students enrolled in three developmental
education courses graduates. Others (Maryland State Higher Education Commission,
1996; Merisotis & Phipps, 2000) corroborate these low success rates.

Boylan, Bliss, & Bonharn (1997) and Adelman (1998) offer an explanation:
although placement in- and completion of- developmental courses were inversely related
to student performance and success, it did not cause that performance. Adelman writes
that students who did not enroll in developmental courses graduated at a rate of 60%,
while those who took ﬁve developmental courses, the “least academically prepared,”
graduated at 35% (p. 75), indicating that the weaker students graduated only three-ﬁfths
as often as their stronger cohorts. Boylan, et al suggest that developmental education

programs, by design, enroll larger numbers of the weakest students, who

37

consequently have lower cumulative GPA and retention rates.

Role of Academic Advising in Developmental Education

Under-prepared students differ considerably from their academically prepared cohorts in
many ways (Frost, 1991; Long & Amey, 1993; Amey & Long, 1998; Dirkx, Amey, &
Haston, 1999; Grimes & David, 1999). Under-prepared students arrive on community
college campuses with myriad academic preparations, demographical backgrounds and
educational goals, so diverse, in fact, that a comprehensive deﬁnition of under-
preparedness is impractical (Amey & Long, 1998; Shaw, Rhoads, & Valadez, 1999;
Merisotis & Phipps, 2000). In addition to being academically under-prepared and
struggling with coursework, these students may be working full time, they may have
family responsibilities, they may have little or no support ﬁ'om family members, some are
high school dropouts, some may be learning- disabled or products of poor school
districts, many have economic hardships, some are recovering from substance abuse or
mental illness, some are international students or students for whom English is their
second language, some were told they could not learn and would never amount to
anything (Maxwell, 1997).

A report sponsored by the American Council on Education (Knopp, 1996) shows
that students typifying the developmental education student are white, from low-income
families, were not born in the US. and do not speak English at home. Oftentimes, they
are not aware of what college-level work is and what professors expect. Maxwell writes
that “often they don’t know what they don’t know” (p. 2, 1997). Because of factors such

as these, advisors must be more proactive and directive in assisting under-prepared

38

students than with academically prepared students. A system of early and intrusive
advising, mandatory testing and placement, tutoring and mentoring, academic skills
development and completion of developmental courses designed to enhance their
academic foundations is warranted if under-prepared students are to survive in college
(Long & Amey, 1993; Boylan, Bliss, & Bonham, 1997; Maxwell, 1997; Amey & Long,
1998; Morante, 1998; Merisotis & Phipps, 2000).

Academic advising is an important component of a model developmental
education program (Kull, 2000). The role of an advisor in a developmental education
program at a community college is different ﬁ'om that of a typical advisor in a centralized
advising center on two- or four-year institution (Maxwell, 1997). Advisors who work
with developmental education students may still advise on issues of life goals, vocational
interests and strengths and course selection, (O’Banion, 1972), but their primary
responsibility is to provide support and information to students and faculty regarding
institutional programs and services designed for student success (Maxwell, 1997).

Academic advisors who work with under-prepared students must take a proactive,
preventative position with these students. The advisors must engage in early and
intrusive advising (Amey & Long, 1998; Morante, 1998; Merisotis & Phipps, 2000), as
well as advising throughout the ﬁrst semester (Maxwell, 1997). Donovan (1975) stated
that a successful academic program is one where the students are provided with an
atmosphere of “tough love,” not one where they are given choices.

This philosophy is exempliﬁed by Xavier College in New Orleans, a small
college that, since 1993, is ﬁrst in the nation in placing African American students into

medical school with almost all placements eventually graduating ﬁ'om medical school

39

and becoming doctors (Maxwell, 1997). The belief behind the Xavier College success is
that ﬁ’equent, intrusive and intensive support and attention will propel the student toward
academic accomplishment. This, Maxwell writes, is a different approach than the
customary practice of enrolling students and letting them “sink or swim—it’s the
student’s decision” (1997, p. 20).

A recent study examined teacher beliefs and assumptions regarding change at an
urban, Midwest community college (Dirkx, Amey, & Haston, 1999). The researchers
studied community college teachers as they worked towards curricular and institutional
transformation. The study’s ﬁndings suggest that a college’s advising program has great
power to enhance or weaken institutional transformation.

During the study, it became apparent that one faction of the college, namely
academic advising, could play an integral role in the success or failure of institutional
transformation and in fact, in this situation, the advising program was informally
associated with the lack of transformational success. In interviews with students in the
study, many said that they were dissatisﬁed with the advising they had received and
moreover found it to be detrimental to their academic success.

Others (Opp & Colby, 1986; Platt 1995) have corroborated this position. Platt
(1995) provides information on the annual report from The Learning Center (LC) at
South Plains College (SPC) in Texas. She writes that of the 1,129 students who took the
Texas Academic Skills Program (T ASP) math test, only 497 (44%) met the remediation
standard and 126 students failed all three parts of the test. Case studies were conducted
on three of these students and ﬁndings indicated that in each case appropriate academic

advising could have placed the students in proper courses, thereby resulting in increased

40

chances for their academic success.

As is evident ﬁom the previous discussion, the planning and delivery of academic
advising for developmental education students at a community college oﬁen involves
multiple aspects of the organization. In this section, I address how we might think of this

organizational and planning more theoretically.

Negotiation

Program planning or group decision-making is always conducted in a contextual
manner—that is to say that many elements impact the process of program planning.
Cervero and Wilson (1994) describe program planning as “a social activity in which
people negotiate personal and organizational interests” (p. xiii). Programs, they posit, are
designed by planners in complex organizations, each of which has speciﬁc agendas,
traditions and political relationships that must be considered as programs are planned and
realized. In this regard, program planning and requisite group work cannot be performed
absent the presence of these individual, organizational and societal needs and interests,
which are not always necessarily consensual. Consequently, group work focuses on ways
to negotiate involved interests in order to facilitate program creation and implementation.

A literature review on program planning revealed that planning historically has
been approached from a fairly technical-rational manner but Cervero and Wilson’s
(1994) work and others seem to challenge this notion, stressing the interpretive and even
political nature of the planning process. Most often missing in program planning theories
is the people work which is inherent in program planning and group work—the political,

the social, and the individual to which Wilson and Cervero refer (1996). In commence,

41

Sandmann, in her study of cooperative extension agents, writes that:

The educators didn’t see program development as a step—by-step process. . .They

spent much of their time trying to alleviate the tensions that resulted from

conﬂicts between the amount of time available, and inevitable interruptions
among differing organizational clientele, community, and personal goals (1993, as

cited in Wilson & Cervero, 1996, p. 7).

Cervero and Wilson identiﬁed four concepts that are frmdamental in program
planning: power, interests, negotiation and responsibility (1994; 1996). The authors
argue that planning activities always occur in situations involving issues of power, by
people with interests that are not always compatible, wherein negotiation is the medium
necessary to reach accord. It becomes the responsibility of program planners, then, to
facilitate negotiations between the various stakeholders involved in planning.

In comparing Cervero and Wilson’s approach to planning with traditional
viewpoints of planning, there are areas of disconnect. Such a format often does not
consider power relationships and how inﬂuential they are on group actions and behaviors.
Traditional planning theory advises to follow prescribed steps in sequence and absolutely,
and all will be ﬁne. But, again, important factors are disregarded, such as ﬂexibility in
periods of uncertainty, dwindling and shifting resources, institutional policies, personnel
changes, public image, and other contextual factors. In other words, the human element
working within structured organizational and implicit power relationships oftentimes is
overlooked and neglected. Planning involves “people wor ,” and by nature, people work
tends to be political and inﬂuenced by issues of power, personal and professional
interests, limited resources, changing priorities, and transient personnel. Since these

elements of political and contextual inﬂuences are customarily omitted in traditional

planning theory, successful planning ventures are more dependent on the context—what

42

is “doable” in a particular context versus what planning theory says can be done (Cervero
and Wilson, 1996, p. 8).

A second problem with a prescribed formula for program planning is that
planning is composed of signiﬁcantly more factors than traditional planning theory
insinuates. Such a prescribed formula ignores details such as determining which
personnel should participate in the group, understanding individual interests and how
they inﬂuence decision-making, persuading associates and superiors of the importance of
their programs, procuring resources ﬁom limited sources, and maximizing strengths and
minimizing weaknesses (Wilson & Cervero, 1996). In responding to and considering
these issues it is apparent that program planning is a shared, or social, activity and that
planners must interact with their organization’s culture, which includes institutional and
personal interests, organizational history and mission, available resources, and political
climates.

Program planners must understand existing institutional power relationships and
anticipate how these relationships might effect the work they are attempting to do. In
order to create educational programs, it is incumbent upon the planners to be able to
negotiate among the various stakeholders’ interests. In fact, Cervero and Wilson write
that it is “the planner [who] is responsible for negotiating the interests of all people who
may be affected by the educational program” (1994, p. 5). “Negotiating interests,” the
authors posit, “is central to planning” (IBID, p. 13).

Intrinsic to this notion of “people wor ” is the idea of “acting responsibly in the
face of power” (Cervero and Wilson, 1994, p. xii). Planners must address questions like

the following as they plan their programs:

43

o For whom are these educational programs being deve10ped?
0 To whom are the planners responsible?
0 Who are the decision-makers regarding program goals, design, and subject

matter?

Ways in which Decisions are made Regarding Interests

Cervero and Wilson (1994) posit that “a central truth about planning” is that “it is
accomplished in a world of power relationships. . .that deﬁne the terrain on which
planners must act” (p. 117). They clarify by stating:

Adult educators always plan programs in contexts deﬁned by a

concrete set of power relationships and associated interests. These

concepts (power and interests) and their relationships structure

planners’ action in planning practice (p. 119).

The authors cite Forester (1989) who stated that the enactment of power in real
situations always results in negotiation among the participants. To say that power is an
essential part of program planning is not to say that conﬂict is always present.
Oftentimes, Cervero and Wilson (1994) assert, power is evidenced in rather noneventful
ways. Jane Durfee referred to this phenomenon:

You have. . .people [with] different types of opinions. Essentially

[the decision] goes in front of the Vice Presidents and the Deans.

but they’re. . . going on the decision that the committee did some

work on it when they made the decision [and] that it was a good

decision.

A caveat is appropriate here: typically, this power is exercised in overt ways in
which one planner exerts power over others. But there are times when the power is more

collegial and shared somewhat symmetrically with all participants. There are different

types of responses for the different types of power relationships that exist. It is

incumbent upon program planners to be familiar with the various types of power

relationships they may face in program planning.

A Template for Action

Cervero and Wilson (1994) borrow from Forrester (1989) to present a conceptual matrix

describing four different ways that power relationships and interests can intersect and

guide the work of program planners (p. 128). See Figure 1.

The Political Boundedness of Nurturing a Substantively Democratic Planning Process

Figure l
Consensual
Relations
Among
Legitimate
Interests Conﬂictual

Source of the Power Relations

 

Socially Ad Hoc Socially Systematic
Bounded Rationality 1: Bounded Rationality 2:
Individual Limits Social Differentation

Strategy: Satisﬁce

Strategy: Network

 

 

Bounded Rationality 3:
Pluralist conﬂict

Strategy: Bargain

 

Bounded Rationality 4:
Structural Legitirnation

Strategy: Counteract

 

 

Source: Adapted from Forester, 1989, pp.34, 53.

Regarding Source of the Power Relations, there are Socially Ad Hoc relations—

representing short-term conditions or relationships, and Socially Systematic—

representing existing conditions or relationships, which are generally unchanging in

nature. Relations among Legitimate Interests also has two dimensions: Consensual—-

same or similar interests, and Conﬂictual—different or competing interests. These

differences are important, Cervero and Wilson write (1994) because when planners

45

holding different interests are involved in planning, the planner with the most power will
generally use it to their advantage. The authors advise that to plan responsibly, planners
must recognize the planning situation in which they are operating, and then employ the
appropriate strategy of response (Cervero and Wilson, 1994).

Each of the four quadrants will be discussed individually below. In Chapter VII,
examples from this study will be used to support the different situations.

Another caveat: a matrix such as this cannot possibly encompass all the diverse
types of situations in which planners will inevitably ﬁnd themselves. The authors present
this matrix merely as a template representing one model—theirs—of program planning.
Program planning, and other things, are not so neatly deﬁned in a cell.

Bounded Rationality I—Individual Limits. In Individual Limits, decision makers
or planners face no major conﬂict ﬁom other members but the terms of the relationship
are not existant or continuing. Oftentimes there are insufﬁcient resources, including time
and support, and incomplete information. The suggested strategy for responding in this
situation is satisﬁcing. Cervero and Wilson (1994, p. 131) cite Knox (1982) who
indicated that “In contrast with idealized models of rational and goal-maximizing
decision making, most able administrators ‘satisﬁced’ or muddled through by accepting
courses of action that were merely satisfactory rather than best.”

Bounded Rationality 2—Social Diﬁizrentiation. In Social Diﬂerentiation, group
participants have consensual interests and are involved in existing organizational or
political systems. This is not to say that this type of situation is without conﬂict.
According to Cervero and Wilson (1994) it can actually be more complicated than the

situation in the ﬁrst cell due to the various interpretations of the program or decision that

46

must be negotiated. Individuals in this type of environment have an invested interest in
the situation, thus it is important for the planner to involve the others in pertinent parts of
planning or decision-making. As Cervero and Wilson (1994) write, “The key here is
forming and maintaining relationships with people who regularly contribute to the
program planning in a particular setting” (p. 133). The authors advocate networking as
the preferred strategy to manage this type of situation.

Bounded Rationality 3—Pluralist Conflict. In the Pluralist Conﬂict, resistance
and conﬂict exist amid temporary relationships, sometimes lasting only as long as the
planning or decision-making phase lasts. This is not a cooperative situation, the authors
report. In fact, group participants are mainly interested in advancing their own agendas
and use resources like time and information for this purpose (Cervero and Wilson, 1994,
p. 134). Issues of trust arise and participants use “asymmetrical relationships of power”
to advance their interests (IBID, p. 133). Networking will not work well in this situation;
the authors advise bargaining between the conﬂicting interests.

Bounded Rationality 4—Structural Legitirnation. In Structural Legitirnation,
participants holding competing interests are involved in asymmetrical power
relationships that are entrenched in existing organizational or political systems.
Individuals with the power are the ones who get their interests furthered. Cervero and
Wilson maintain that the strategy best equipped to manage these guidelines is to

counteract (l 994).

Summary

In this literature review, theoretical ﬁameworks related to academic advising, community

47

colleges, developmental education and negotiation have been presented. The interplay of
these four areas meets at the place where this study begins. How do group members
involved with academic advising issues in a community college developmental education
program negotiate their interests? What factors play into this process? How are these
factors managed? Using these four ﬁameworks, this study looks at academic advising for

adult learners in a community college developmental education program.

Transition to methodology

The next chapter addresses the design of the study and is structured in the following way:
The qualitative case study Research Design is presented, followed by information
describing the Context and Setting of the Study, the Population and Selection of
Participants and Participant Profiles. The section on Data Collection describes the in-
depth Interviews I conducted with the nine study participants, and Document Analysis
and Participant Observation. I describe the methods used with the data in the section

titled Data Analysis. The Chapter concludes with Reporting the Findings.

48

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Although academic advising is just one component of undergraduate education, it is at
the core of learning. Thus, by its nature, it is a likely place for change to begin.

Frost, 2000

This study outlines an in—depth, exploratory, and descriptive case study of academic
advising for developmental education students within one community college. The
purpose of this study was to describe the nature of academic advising within a
community college developmental education program and to understand the ways in
which the process of academic advising is negotiated among key players involved. The
research design was intended to address questions such as the following and was

considered through the perspective of each of the chosen groups:

1. Who are the key players in the process of academic advising for community college
developmental education students?

2. What are the views of the key players regarding academic advising in a community
college developmental education program?

3. What issues can be identiﬁed from the descriptions that are manifested in the differing
views?

4. How are issues negotiated within the developmental education program?

49

Research Design

This study utilized a qualitative method case study consisting of semi-structured
interviews with community college faculty, administrators and academic advisors
regarding how the ﬁrnction of academic advising is negotiated among the key players
involved in a community college developmental education program. Creswell (1994)
writes that in a case study,

The researcher explores a single entity or phenomenon (‘the case’)

bounded by time and activity (a program, event, process, institution

or social group) and collects detailed information by using a variety

of data collection procedures during a sustained period of time (p. 12).

Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996) suggest that case studies are generally done for one of three
reasons: to describe, explain or evaluate a phenomenon. The rationale for using this
methodology is beﬁtting: to produce a description of a phenomenon—in this case, how
the ﬁmction of academic advising is negotiated among the key players involved in a
community college developmental education program.

Creswell (1994) deﬁnes a qualitative study as “an inquiry process of
understanding a social or human problem, based on building a complex, holistic picture,
formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural
setting” (p. 1-2). In a qualitative study, the researcher starts with broad questions, gathers
vast amounts of data generally from small numbers of informants, induces conclusions
from the data gathered (Leedy, 1997, p. 105), and presents them with words. In this type
of study, the researcher endeavors to understand the participants from their own
perspectives by “attempt[ing] to gain entry into the conceptual world of their subject”

(Geertz, 1992, p. 34). This approach necessitates the use of interpretation because in

trying to enter the subject’s world, the researcher inevitably brings her biases and “points

50

of view” to the situation. It is important to acknowledge these biases in the research
report and I did. But it is also important to remember that there are myriad ways to
interpret others’ experiences and it is through interacting with them that we can attempt
to understand their reality. This approach made use of traditional qualitative methods,

such as interviews, document analysis, and participant observation.

Context and Setting of the Study
This study focused on how the function of academic advising is negotiated among the
key players involved in a community college developmental education program. The
selected community college, Mid-State Community College, was chosen because it has a
developmental education program for under-prepared students currently in service.

Mid-State is located in the heart of a large, urban Midwest city. It offers
instruction on several off-site locations in the metropolitan area, serving approximately
20,000 credit and non-credit students annually. The college employs 500 faculty, with
equal numbers of full-time and part-time instructors, and ten academic advisors and
counselors. The college, founded in 1914, was the ﬁrst community college in the state,
and has been accredited continuously since 1917 by the Commission on Institutions of
Higher Education of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Mid-State
Community College is comprised of two schools: The School of Arts and Sciences and
The School of Workforce Development, and currently serves over 400 local businesses
annually with its job uaining and retraining programs.

In addition to traditional classroom settings, students may also enroll in distance

learning courses, seminars, workshops, training classes, and participate in community

51

service offerings and other educational programs. The college is committed to preparing
their developmental students for college and/or work. Its mission states that “All students
are encouraged, supported, and given opportunities and the means to reach their goals

within their own learning styles.”

Population and Selection of Participants

Gaining access. Burgess (1984) deﬁnes access as obtaining institutional consent to do
research at that location. Bogdan & Taylor (1975) state the importance of getting
permission from the ‘gatekeepers’ before going into the setting where data will be
collected. My study was conducted at a community college, thus approval for my
research was procured ﬁom the college’s Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and
the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, under whose joint leadership the
advising services are located. One month prior to data collection, both individuals were
sent a synopsis of the study and a letter requesting permission to use the community
college as a research site and to interview college advisors, faculty members and
administrators involved in the Developmental Education Program. In addition, I asked
the Dean and the Director to recommend individuals whom I might interview. I invited
their questions and concems regarding the study.

With input from the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and the Director of
the Center for Teaching and Learning, four academic advisors, three faculty members and
two administrators were selected for interviews using maximum variation sampling, a
form of purposeful sampling (Patton, 1987). Purposeful sampling is designed to get

"information-rich cases...ﬁ'om which one can learn a great deal about issues of central

52

importance to the purpose of the evaluation," as opposed to " gathering little information
ﬁ'om a large, statistically signiﬁcant sample" (Patton, 1987, p. 52). According to Patton
(p. 53) maximum variation sampling is a type of purposeful sampling that describes
"central themes...that cut across a great deal of participant...variation."

As a means of properly initiating my research study and in following standard
research procedure at Michigan State University, an Application for Approval of a
Project Involving Human Subjects was submitted to the University Committee on

Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS).

Participant Proﬁles
The participants in this study comprised a broad representation of the community college.
The demographics of the participants were as follows: Four of the nine participants were
women, one participant was a person of color, three participants held doctorate degrees,
one participant had a terminal degree in developmental education and all of the
counselors were licensed counselors. The length of time participants had been at the
college ranged between two and twenty-four years.

Seven initial interviews were conducted: Will Rann, Charles Nolen, Alyssa
Martin, Jane Durfee, Matt Jefferson, Chris Jacobs, Nicholas Johnson. Two of the
participants, Will Rann and Charles Nolen, were interviewed twice, the second set of
interviews consisting of points of clariﬁcation from the ﬁrst interview. After a
preliminary review of all interview transcripts, it was determined that more information
was warranted ﬁom different sources. Vice President Judith Tumle and English

faculty member Gina Pearson were subsequently interviewed. Protocol for Vice

53

President Turnbull and Ms. Pearson consisted of the semi-structured protocol used for the
ﬁrst set of interviews, but was infused with questions designed to more deeply probe
some of the issues that arose with the original queries. Questions were posed to gain
biographies of the participants, such as:

0 What is your role at Mid-State Community College?

0 How long have you worked here?

0 Tell me about your educational background: Degrees earned? Institutions

attended? When?
0 How did you become involved working with developmental education students?

(See APPENDD( ONE for complete Interview Protocol.)

Role of the researcher

My study utilized qualitative research methodology. Janesick (1994) writes, “There is no
value-free or bias-free design” in qualitative research—the researcher’s values, biases
and beliefs are evident in the written report. This candor is deemed appropriate and
positive (Locke, Spirduso & Silverman, as cited in Creswell, 1994, p. 147). In following
this credo, it is important that the reader be cognizant of my biases, values and judgments
and how I propose to regulate my beliefs and values in this study.

One of my responsibilities as the Director of the Academic Resource Center at a
small midwestern liberal arts college was to supervise the academic advising program. In
this role I saw ﬁrsthand the consequences that occurred when under-prepared students
who, based on placement tests, were advised to enroll in developmental or preparatory

courses and did not. These students oﬁentimes had difﬁculty in their courses, passing

54

their courses, staying off academic probation lists, and remaining in college. Part of the
problem was that there was no institutional policy requiring them to enroll in the courses
in which they placed—they were free to enroll in whatever courses they wished. Another
element was that there was little continuity among the faculty who worked with under-
prepared students: some faculty members referred these at-risk students to the Academic
Resource Center for tutoring, help with study skills, reading, writing, etc., and others leﬁ
it up to the discretion of the student whether to seek help or not.

My work with under-prepared students and with administrators, faculty and
academic advisors who work with these students has created in me a strong ally to their

needs and situations.

Data Collection
The study utilized a qualitative design incorporating interviews, document analysis, and
participant observation as methods of data collection.

Interviews. F ontana & Frey (1994) posit that interviews provide “one of the most
common and most powerful ways we use to try to understand our fellow human beings”
(p. 361). A semi-structured interview format was used in accordance with Patton (1990),
who writes, “When one is attempting to understand the holistic worldview of a group of
people, it is not necessary to collect the same information from each person” (p. 286). A
semi-structured interview is a combination, or intersection, between a structured
interview, where the questions are identical for each respondent with virtually no
variation, and an unstructured interview, where there is great ﬂexibility and spontaneity

in the questions.

55

An interview guide was used with identical questions for each respondent, but
allowing for variance and ﬂexibility in the probing questions, permitting the respondent
to take the interview to places I might not have considered. Protocols were required for
administrators, teachers, and advisors. Although the general form of these protocols was
similar across the different roles, some of the questions were tailored to the particular role
represented by the person interviewed. Community college academic advisors, faculty
and administrators who work in a developmental education program on a selected
community college in the Midwest were interviewed for this study.

From the literature, a preliminary interview protocol was created, designed to
develop a better understanding of how the ﬁmction of academic advising is negotiated
among the key players involved in a community college developmental education
program. This protocol was used in informal pilot interviews to get a “lay of the land” of
academic advising within a community college and to ascertain the relevance of the
interview protocol to my guiding questions. These pre-interviews also proved beneﬁcial
in testing the timing, construction and delivery of the interview questions. Based on
these initial interviews and in consultation with my committee chairperson, a revised
protocol was crafted for subsequent interviews with advisors and developmental
education faculty.

Data for the study were collected between October 2002 and January 2003. The
primary interest in this study was to understand how the function of academic advising is
negotiated among the key players involved in a community college developmental
education program. Thus, only these individuals were included in the study. Since I was

not interested in narratives from faculty who count advising as but one of their roles and

56

responsibilities, faculty who advise or advisors at four-year colleges and universities were
not included in the study.

Three weeks prior to data collection, each study participant received a letter
explaining the research and requesting his or her permission to participate in the study.
(See APPENDD( TWO and THREE.) F ollow-up phone calls were placed to each
individual within the next week to determine their interest in participating and to
schedule an interview.

One individual recommended for the study did not respond to emails or telephone
calls. This instructor was described by the chairperson of her department as “someone
who was very knowledgeable and proﬁcient” in working with developmental education
students, and someone who “will add greatly” to my study. Another individual, an
adjunct faculty member in the same department, was added in her place. No information
was provided as to the instructor’s rationale for not participating in the study.

The semi-structured interviews lasted approximately one hour each and took place
in the participant’s campus ofﬁce. With the exception of the Director of the
Developmental Education Program and the Director of Counseling and Advising, each
individual was interviewed once. Emails were sent and phone calls were made when
more data were needed. The interviews were audiotaped and the tapes were transcribed
verbatim in order to provide exact commentary and inﬂections from the respondents for
my analysis. The tapes were kept in a ﬁle cabinet in my office during data collection and
analysis of the study. The tapes were destroyed upon completion of the study.

Documents. Document collection and analysis offers the researcher an easily

accessible, rich and unobtrusive source of information (Merriam, 1988; Bogdan &

57

Biklen, 1992; Creswell, 1994). Document collection consisted of materials from advisors
and the advising center, institutional documents such as advising manuals and
publications, copies of the college’s advising policies and procedures, required advising
forms, letters, emails, memos, and any other pertinent publications. The college’s Web
site was explored, paying close attention to the advising and developmental education
links. A college’s mission statement provides insight into the values that the institution
deems important. This document was reviewed. Statistical information, as well as
reports, college “Viewbooks,” and other promotional materials can offer data that may
beneﬁt the study. These, too, were reviewed.

Participant Observation. Leedy (1997) explains that case study researchers spend
many hours in the ﬁeld with their research participants, “watching people in their own
territory and interacting with them in their own language, on their own terms” (Kirk &
Miller, as cited in Gall, Borg, and Gall, 1996). The goal of observations is to provide the
researcher with ﬁrsthand information about participant behavior (Merriam, 1988; Bogdan
& Bilden, 1992; Creswell, 1994). By observing and critically examining actual advising
behaviors and procedures in comparison to stated behaviors garnered ﬁom interviews, the
researcher begins to understand what is really occurring (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998).

To capture explicit behaviors and ways of doing things, I interacted with the
participants in their settings: I attended Developmental Education Program comrrrittee
meetings involving key players in a community college developmental education
program. Participants were informed of the observations at least three days in advance.
During the observations, I assumed a non-intrusive role and documented the events in my

ﬁeld notes. Thorough ﬁeld notes were taken to chronicle my thoughts, perceptions and

58

experiences while conducting the study. Observations lasted for the duration of the
meeting. Immediately after the observation, I spent ten to ﬁfteen minutes with the
participants discussing my perceptions of the observation as a means of substantiating

them.

Data Analysis
Tesch writes that “The process of data analysis is eclectic; there is no “right way” (as
cited in Creswell, 1994, p. 153.) The data analysis entailed coding and inductively
analyzing the data as a means of identifying patterns and connections of meaning.
Reﬂecting on Patton’s (1980) words when he writes about the overwhelming feelings
students experience when they begin to analyze their qualitative data, I endeavored to
analyze and interpret my interviews concurrently with data collection and report writing
(Creswell, 1994). Miles and Huberman (1984) recommend that data analysis be
conducted on an ongoing basis in order to intentionally collect data of a higher quality
with each interview. In keeping with these suggestions, my analysis of the data was
continuous throughout the course of the study. Categories were developed from careful
readings, comparisons and interpretations of the interview transcripts and other forms of
data. The data collection was focused on the themes that emerged while more data were
simultaneously collected.

Once the interview was concluded, it was important to record observations and
explanatory notes as soon as possible in order to ensure that the data was useful and to
reﬂect on the interview itself (Patton, 1990). Field notes were reviewed and tapes

listened to as soon as possible after the interview, usually that afternoon or evening.

59

After receiving each interview transcript, I read it carefully and compared it with
my typed ﬁeldnotes. In the margins of the uanscripts I noted ideas, themes, or questions
that came to mind as I read. I made a list of the topics I identiﬁed, I clustered similar
topics together and I crafted categories (Bogdan & Biklen 1992). I regularly returned to
the transcripts, searching for sections of the text that ﬁt my coding schema. I searched
for quotes and examples to use in my report. I endeavored to constantly “stay close to the
data” (Janesick, 1994, p. 215) as a means of reaching a “higher level of analysis”
(Creswell, 1994, p. 154). Marshall & Rossman (1989) term this process data reduction
and interpretation (p. 114) and Tesch calls it de-contextualization and re-
contextualization (as cited in Creswell, 1984). “The ﬁnal goal, “Tesch writes, “is the
emergence of a larger, consolidate picture” (IBID, p. 154).

Establishing T rustworthiness of the Data. By establishing internal validity in my
study, I can better present my ﬁndings as “common practice” across the ﬁeld of academic
advising, as they pertain to these particular settings. As a means of addressing concepts
of internal validity, the following techniques were used. I triangulated the data by
collecting information from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations,
institutional documents, advising documents and manuals. I looked for themes and
patterns within and across these sources. I consulted the literature as a means of
comparing my ﬁndings to other researchers’ ﬁndings; I grounded my research in theory
and used theory to help make sense of my data. My hope is that I “added to the running
dialogue.” I asked a fellow doctoral student to serve as a peer examiner and she reviewed
my analysis for internal validity.

There were undoubtedly conﬂicting data in my study. The best way to present

60

this information is to acknowledge the disparities, and I did. I identiﬁed issues that I
believed were missing from the data.

Janesick (1994) writes about the importance of cross-checking the researcher’s
work by allowing the respondents to examine the data in some way. This is called a
“member check” (p. 216). She states that in writing the narrative the researcher must
decide how s/he will conduct a member check. One possibility, according to Janesick, is
to ask someone outside the study to review the data. Another possibility, Creswell (1994)
writes, is to take the themes back to the respondents and verify that the researcher’s
analysis is correct. In this situation, I elected to have the data reviewed by an individual
not afﬁliated with the study.

At the time of the interview, several of the respondents requested a copy of my
ﬁndings, and I will provide them with one at the conclusion of my study. I believe that
since they voluntarily agreed to answer my questions, and, as individuals who are directly
involved with the issues in my research and have a vested interest in the study, a copy of

my ﬁndings are appropriate and helpﬁrl to their work.

Reporting the Findings.

This study resulted in an in-depth, exploratory and descriptive case study of how the
function of academic advising is negotiated among the key players involved in a
community college developmental education program. Data collection and analysis were
described appropriately so as to provide sufficient information regarding the

methodologies inherent in the study.

61

Since, as Miles and Huberman (1984) suggest, describing qualitative research
ﬁndings is most often done using a narrative text, the results of my study are presented
here in rich, thick and descriptive narrative form. The ﬁnished report describes how the
function of academic advising is negotiated among the key players involved in a

community college developmental education program.

62

CHAPTER IV

Organizational Context and Structure

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to understand how the function of academic advising is
negotiated among the key players involved in a community college developmental
education program. This study utilized a qualitative method case study consisting of
semi-structured interviews with community college faculty, administrators and
counselors regarding how the function of academic advising is negotiated among the key
players involved in a community college developmental education program.

Eleven interviews were conducted with nine individuals between October 2002
and January 2003. Observations of committee meetings and advising sessions with
developmental education students were conducted, as were analyses of institutional
documents. A report of the results of the interviews, observations and document analysis
as they pertain to the organizational context and structure, constitutes this section.

The study addressed the following questions:

1. Who are the key players in the process of academic advising for community college
developmental education students?

2. What are the views of the key players regarding academic advising in a community
college developmental education program?

3. What issues can be identiﬁed ﬁom the descriptions that are manifested in the differing
views?

4. How are issues negotiated within the developmental education program?

63

This case study demonstrates that the structure and process of academic advising
for community college developmental education students are shaped by differing and
often competing interests of the key players involved in this process. Strategies used to
address these diﬂ‘ering interests among the key players reﬂect differing rationalities and
different ways in which these groups use their power. In contrast to the dominant
conceptions of academic advising as either developmental or prescriptive, these ﬁndings
suggest that the nature of academic advising for developmental education is best regarded
as inherently political.

The next three sections contain information gleaned from semi-structured
interviews with community college faculty, administrators and counselors, document
analysis, participant observations. The sections are divided into the following chapters:
Chapter IV—Organizational Context and Structure is divided into ﬁve parts:
Organizational Context, Community College Mission, Developmental Education,
Support Services, and Academic Advising; Chapter V—Key Players presents group and
individual proﬁles for the major personnel involved with the Developmental Education
Program at Mid-State Community College; Chapter VI—Themes and Issues discusses the
main topics inherent in the ﬁndings; and Chapter VII—Discussion connects the ﬁndings

to theory, presents implications for the study and offers suggestions for further study.

Organizational Context
Semi-structured interviews with community college faculty, administrators and
counselors, in conjunction with observations and document analysis were used to

understand how the function of academic advising is negotiated among the key players

involved in a community college developmental education program.

The Mid-State Community College Board of Trustees has identiﬁed eight
Strategic Outcomes to facilitate the management of institutional efforts. Written with a
long-term perspective, these Outcomes represent most of the board's part of long-range
planning. The Board deﬁnes Strategic Outcomes as mission-related policies, which
specify which human needs are to be met, for whom, and at what cost. Among the eight

Strategic Outcomes is Developmental Education.

Community College ’s Mission

Mid-State Community College’s Mission as presented in institutional documents, the
college’s Web site and evidenced in interviews and observations reﬂects a strong
emphasis on learning. The college’s mission is “to provide the community with learning
opportunities that enable people to achieve their goals.” The Community ’s College, as
the Vice president affectionately calls Mid-State, “. . .is a vibrant institution of higher
education dedicated to enriching people's lives and contributing to the vitality of the
community.”

Mid-State’s instructional goal, as described on the college’s Web page “. . .is to
foster active, responsible learning.” This is promoted through the various programs and
services offered at the college as well as faculty and staff who are committed to working
with students and equipping them with the tools necessary to do their best—personally,
socially, academically and vocationally.

Mid-State Community College is dedicated to its students and demonstrates this

dedication with an Assurance of Quality Pledge, found on the college’s Web site,

65

whereby:

0 Students transferring to a baccalaureate granting institution with at least a 2.0
grade in the subject under question, will perform academically as well as their
colleagues who enrolled as freshmen, or Mid-State will provide the course(s)
necessary to acquire the skills at no cost to the student

0 Students who have earned a certiﬁcate or degree ﬁom an occupational program
at Mid-State may expect to be competent in a job if that work is what they
were prepared for in their College curriculum. If an employer so deems that the
worker is not adequately prepared, the College will provide additional training
to the student at no cost to the employee or employer.

Additional descriptive information regarding Mid-State Community College is

presented in Chapter III of this study.

Developmental Education
The Board of Trustees and the administration at Mid-State Community College hold
developmental education in high regard—it is in fact one of their eight Strategic
Outcomes. The Strategic Outcomes Policy on Developmental Education states that the
college will prepare developmental education students for college and/or work by
offering the students opportunities to reach their goals within their own learning styles.

The Developmental Education Program committee, as the guiding team for issues
pertaining to developmental education at Mid-State Community College, is charged with
improving services and drafting policies, such as identiﬁcation of under-prepared
students, testing, grading, prerequisites, et cetera. The committee is comprised of two
administrators, two counselors, and six faculty members.

In responding to questions regarding processes when a student ﬁrst enrolls at
Mid-State, study participants stated that all newly admitted degree-seeking applicants

must attend an academic planning session before they can select classes Degree-seeking

66

students who are considered under—prepared must take a placement test and a
computerized writing assessment tool. According to the college’s annual progress report,
produced by the Office of Institutional Research and presented to the Board of Trustees
in September 2001, 35% of degree seeking students in 1999-2000 required placement
testing. 3

As a community college, Mid-State Community College has an open-door policy,
meaning that all students are eligible to attend the college, regardless of academic ability.
An open-door policy, however, allows students into the institution who might not be
academically prepared to do college-level work. In order to best serve the student gm
maintain the integrity of the institution, certain entry requirements are standard
procedure.

Students meeting certain criteria are required to take a placement test designed to
identify skill deﬁciencies in writing, reading, computation, science, and study skills.
These criteria are:

0 an ACT composite score below 16 or no standardized test scores

0 a high school grade point average below 2.0

0 all home school students regardless of GPA or ACT scores

0 international students

0 students who have a GED.

At Mid-State Community College the placement test used is the “Accuplacer Test,”

which, as created by The College Board and teams of college faculty, assesses the

 

3 Footnotes detailing citations will not be provided in order to maintain conﬁdentiality.

67

student’s skill levels and abilities in mathematics, English, reading and writing. The
resultant scores are used to place students into the mathematics, English, reading and
writing courses that are deemed most appropriate.

Students whose placement test scores fall below institutionally set levels are
expected to take speciﬁc developmental education courses in Math and/or English,
depending on what they need. Faculty trained in using creative teaching techniques to
ensure student success teaches these courses. In addition, all faculty members at Mid-
State Community College have access to training in working with students who have
different learning styles.

Once the placement tests are completed they are graded immediately, and students
learn whether or not they perform at college levels in mathematics, English, reading and
writing. If the student has been identiﬁed as being under-prepared for college level work,
or work that is typical for ﬁrst-year regular classes, she is placed into the appropriate
developmental courses and must meet with a counselor to create a schedule.

The developmental education program at Mid-State Community College is
comprised of six coruses:

0 Math 001 - A review of math ﬁmdamentals

0 English 001 — A review of language skills necessary for proﬁcient writing
0 English 002 - A continuation of English 001

0 Reading 001 — A reading skills reinforcement class

0 Reading 002 - A continuation of Reading 001

0 Psychology 101 — Assists the student with adjustment to college.

68

Until the student successfully completes her developmental courses, a hold will be placed
on her course enrollment card and she must register for courses with a counselor. Upon
successful course completion the hold will be released and she can register independently
of the Counseling Center, if she chooses to do so.

Students who have been identiﬁed as under-prepared and are enrolled in two or
more developmental courses are automatically assigned to a section of Psychology 101——
the college’s student success course. Required enrollment in this course, however, is
more of an unwritten policy and is difﬁcult to mandate. Dr. Charles Nolen, Program
Director of the Counseling Ofﬁce and Counselor, reported that “[Ensuring that students
enroll in Psychology 101] is not the most successful follow up piece.”

Within many sections of English 001, there is another component called the
Student Victor Program, which entails assigning a counselor to meet with students in
class and be their mentor. One counselor meets with one-half of his assigned class every
week to work on student-college connections, and periodically to work with the full class
on advising and administration matters. Dr. Nolen provided a clear rationale of the
Student Victor Program:

.. .it’s that role model piece that’s missing for the students. It gets

students connected to each other. Students are in isolation typically,

especially developmental education students. They sit there in their

class thinking, “I’m the only one with these problems. No one else

has the problems like I have.” In reality, the person sitting next to

them has similar problems.

Support Services. In addition to the courses created for under-prepared students, a review

of institutional documents highlights numerous support services available for students at

Mid-State Community College. Some services are mandatory for students in certain

69

federally-funded programs; for example, students in the Occupational Support Services
Program, Disability Support Services Program or the Student Support Services Program
are required to meet with their counselor at least twice a semester. Occasionally students
with severe academic problems will be asked to sign a contract agreeing to meet with
their counselor more often.

Counseling and advising services are provided by four different support service
centers. All four centers are on the same ﬂoor of the Student Building. Although they
are not necessarily interrelated, their proximity to each other makes it appear as though
they are. Three of the four centers are housed within Academic Support Center Services:
Occupational Support Services, Disability Support Services and Student Support Services
Program (TRIO). The Occupational Support Services Program provides services to
eligible students who are enrolled in any one or two-year occupational major. To be
eligible students must be formally enrolled in an occupational program or have declared
an intent to enroll and must meet one or more of the following conditions:

Physically disadvantaged

Economically disadvantaged

Academically disadvantaged

Enrolled in a non-traditional curriculum

Single parent individual, pregnant woman or displaced homemaker

Limited English proﬁciency
Other barriers to educational achievement

Tutoring and computer labs are available free of charge, either in a group format, a lab
format or individual tutoring to any Mid-State Community College student. There are
many subj ect-centered tutorial/computer labs available to students on a walk-in basis.
Professional and student tutors who work with students on their homework assignments

and answer questions about class lectures or readings assigned in textbooks staff the labs.

70

A faculty recommendation for tutorial assistance is needed from the student’s instructor
before a tutor will be assigned.

The Disability Support Services Program provides academic support to students
with disabilities, as deﬁned by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990. Students must submit documentation verifying that they are
eligible for disability support services. The Student Support Services Program (SSS or
TRIO) is a federally funded program designed to help low income and ﬁrst generation
college students reach their educational goals. Students must be part of these programs in
order to meet with counselors and receive services.

Counseling Center. There are three chief areas on campus where advising occurs:
the Field House, in-class and the Counseling Center. Advising services at the Field
House take place twice yearly—in late fall and late spring semesters—and are termed
“Academic Advising Day.” In-class group academic advising occurs sporadically
throughout the semester in campus classrooms. The fourth center comprising Support
Services—the Counseling Center, which is the focus of this study—is a separate unit and
the main provider of academic advising to the majority of students at Mid-State
Community College. Counselors in the Counseling Center refer to themselves as the

,9

“general counselors. There are seven counselors in the Counseling Center: four women
and three men. All are licensed counselors, as are the counselors in the other centers on
campus.

According to the Counseling Center’s Web page, the mission of the Counseling

Center is to provide academic advising and personal and career counseling to prospective

and crurent Mid-State students. The Center’s goal is to facilitate academic and personal

71

success to all Mid-State students through informed decision-making. To achieve this,
counselors offer academic advising, both short term—designed to select courses for the
following semester, and long term—clarifying values, identifying life and career goals
and then choosing an academic major that corresponds with those goals, transfer
planning, crisis intervention and referral, and personal counseling. Counselors also
inform and help students understand college expectations and procedures, make referrals
to college and community resources when needed and participate in the colleges’
Academic Orientation and Registration Program. Services provided by counselors are
conﬁdential and free of charge.

The Counseling Center serves as the college’s Research Center where students
interested in transferring to a four-year institution can research academic programs. The
Research Center holds college catalogs of all four-year and many two-year state colleges,
provides applications for state colleges and has hardcopy and CD-ROM view books for
many colleges and universities.

The Counseling Center sponsors many events designed to enhance the student
experience at Mid-State Community College and to facilitate student success. These
events include a Community Agency Fair, which introduces the college community to
services and assistance available to them within and beyond the college, and the annual
College and University Representatives Day, which provides students the opportunity to
gather information about transfer schools.

The Counseling Center schedules workshops throughout the semester which are
designed to help students strengthen the skills necessary for successful navigation

through college. Workshop topics include note taking, listening, improving

72

concentration and memory, managing time, mastering the textbook, studying for exams,
reducing test anxiety and setting goals.

There are also services available for students who need more specialized or
personal help, including academic advising and personal counseling, free printed
materials, advocacy, help completing ﬁnancial aid forms and transfer applications, career
exploration and referrals to other services, both on campus and off campus. Since all
counselors are professionally trained and licensed they are cognizant of the various issues
that college students face, such as juggling school with work and family obligations,
uncertainties about their abilities to “do college,” depression, substance abuse, career
guidance, and other issues.

However, according to participants’ responses, the majority of work done by
counselors in the Counseling Center involves academic advising: assisting students with
course selection, choosing and changing majors, transferring to four-year institutions,
remaining in good academic standing at the college, et cetera This role of the Counseling

Center—academic advising—is the context in which this study was couched.

73

CHAPTER V

Key Players

There are many different participants involved in academic advising for developmental
education students on college campuses (Roueche & Snow, 197 7; Maxwell, 1997). At
Mid-State Community College, the group vested with the major responsibility for
development education programs and services is the Development Education Program
committee. But one committee alone cannot enact all programs and services. There is
consensus among the participants in this study that advising and servicing developmental
education students at Mid-State Community College is an institution-wide responsibility
and not the purveyor of a single ofﬁce or individual. There are many factions on campus
that share this responsibility, including counselors, faculty, student support personnel and
tutors.

Counselors prepare students for success—both in college and after college—and
encourage students to consider and set goals for themselves. Faculty, through their
teaching and interaction with students, help students implement their goals academically.
Student support personnel and tutors provide auxiliary services to students that support
the faculty and counselors’ work with students. One group, working in isolation, cannot
accomplish what a network of groups and individuals can.

Although Will Rann has been identiﬁed as the Coordinator of the Developmental
Education Program at Mid-State Community College, participants in this study
unanimously agreed that Mr. Rann does not work in a vacuum. When asked to name

others involved in advising developmental education students at Mid-State Community

74

College, all responses included the Developmental Education Program committee,
chaired by Will Rann and comprised of administrators, faculty members and counselors.
Members of this committee include study participants Charles Nolen, Program Director
of Counseling Center/Counselor; Matt Jefferson, Director of Student Victor Program and
Counselor/counselor; Chris Jacobs, MTH Chairperson/MTH Faculty; and Gina Pearson,
ENG Faculty. Non-study participants include Roberta Bright, Assistant Dean; Stanley
Leon, MTH Faculty and MTH lab coordinator; Jim Fischer, ENG Department
Chairperson; Brody Hocking, Bob Jackson, ENG Faculty; and Michael Sweeney, ENG
Faculty.

In addition to the Developmental Education Program committee, faculty
members, counselors, and student support personnel, there are others who have a stake in
assisting under-prepared students. Charles Nolen, Program Director of Counseling
Center/Counselor commented, “A lot of people have responsibilities for under-prepared
students, they just may not realize it.” In describing a new initiative at the college, Dr.
Nolen provided examples of individuals who share in the responsibility for
developmental education students when he said:

We have a [program]. . .here. It’s a streamlining process from

getting that student from the street to a seat. There are a lot of

people who play a role in that process, from the recruiter who goes

out and makes neat programs and makes our college known to

people, to people in Admissions. . .to people in counseling who

help. . .orient and provide an overview of services to students. . .to

faculty [who help register and advise]. A lot of people played a

role in that. I don’t know if they always know that they do.

Another participant, Counselor Jane Durfee, relayed an example that occurs early

in the school year:

75

People who work in facilities [and] the custodians have responsibilities

for under-prepared students. The ﬁrst day of the ﬁrst week [of the school

year]. . .we get volunteers from every department. . .there are student

stations set up all over campus to help the new student, not just the

developmental student, but any student. We have people stationed at

those tents... [With] signs everywhere to. . . provide help to students who

need it. And I think those people have responsibilities for developmental

students too.

These comments offer support and credibility to Roueche & Snow (1977) and Maxwell’s
(1997) statements, which posit that there are many participants involved in truly effective
community college developmental education programs. Among the participants at Mid-
State Community College are counselors, faculty, administrators, personnel from other
Student Services ofﬁces, and plant and grounds people. However, key players regarding
academic advising for developmental education students are counselors, faculty and
administrators, due to the level of involvement these individuals have with developmental
education issues.

Depending on the background, training and experience of study participants, each
had their views of what advising in a community college developmental education
program should entail. Not surprisingly, the views were not dissimilar. Counselors saw
their role as attending to the “whole student” and facilitating the student’s growth and
development in myriad ways: academically, socially, emotionally, mentally and
intellectually. It also means sometimes doing nothing and letting the student make his

own way. Faculty considered counselors’ roles as “doing what it takes to help students.”

Administrators viewed advising as contributing to student retention and success.

76

Table 2 illustrates a list of study participants and their roles at the college.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE 2

NAME ROLE
Judith Turnbull Vice President
Will Rann Developmental Education Program (DEP) Coordinator
Charles Nolen4 Program Director of Counseling Center/Counselor
Alyssa Martin Counselor for Disabilities Support
Jane Durfee Counselor
Matt Jefferson Director of Student Victor Program/Counselor
Chris Jacobs MTH Chairperson/MTH Faculty
Nicholas Johnson MTH Faculty
Gina Pearson ENG Faculty

 

 

 

 

The ways in which the participants arrived in their roles as developmental educators were
as varied as were their educational preparations. Their stories were all very engaging.
Not one individual set out on their career path with the intention of becoming a
developmental educator. For all individuals in this study, the ways in which they entered

the ﬁeld of developmental education was purely accidental.

Administrators
There were two administrators from Mid-State Community College interviewed for this
study: Vice President Judith Turnbull and Developmental Education Program

Coordinator Will Rann.

 

’ Charles Nolen is grouped with counselors instead of administrators because his interview responses were
more aligned with counselor’s responses than with administrators’ responses.

77

Background. Judith Turnbull is the Provost and Vice President for Academic and
Student Affairs at Mid-State Community College. She is responsible for all instruction
and all academic deans report to her, including student affairs. Vice President Turnbull
has been at Mid-State for twenty-seven years. She began her tenure at Mid-State as a
faculty member in the technology department and remained in that role for eighteen
years, eventually assuming the role of department chairperson.

Vice President Turnbull has an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree in
industrial education, a master’s degree in vocational education, an Educational Specialist
degree and a Ph.D. in Curriculmn, Teaching, and Educational Policy.

Will Rann is the Developmental Education Program Coordinator at Mid-State.

He earned a BA. in, an M.A. in English Language and Literature, and an E.D.S. in
Developmental Education from. Rann has worked at Mid-State for six years. Prior to his
appointment as DEP Coordinator, Rann taught developmental and college level writing
courses.

Involvement with Developmental Education In her role as vice president, Judith
Turnbull works with advising developmental education students indirectly—she does not
teach or advise them but chairs the committee that represents the developmental
education students’ needs and requirements. Tumbull has the authority to accept or reject
the Developmental Education Program committee’s recommendations: “. . .about a third
of our population [is in the Developmental Education Program], so it is something [with
which] I have a lot of concern since I’m in charge of all instruction. We worry about the
retention and success of those students. . .My involvement is more along the leadership of

it ,9

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Will Rann’s entrée into working with developmental education students began in
1974 when, as the newest and youngest person in the English Deparunent at a local four-
year institution, he was assigned the added responsibility of teaching at-risk students. He
realized that he really enjoyed it. Later in his career when he was job searching, the
position that was available was in a Federal TRIO Program for at-risk students. He
accepted the position and realized that, although he loved working with this population,
his educational training had not prepared him to work with at-risk students. He
discovered an institute that certiﬁes developmental educators, and enrolled. “That was
the smartest decision I ever made,” he reported. “. . .it really solidiﬁed my understanding
of myself as a developmental educator. They gave me the training and the background I
needed to [work with developmental students] better.”

Involvement with Academic Advising. Administrators view the role of advising as
a link for students and the college—counselors are there to encourage academic success
for students and to promote student retention for the institution. Counselors are trained to
work with students in ways that foster positive habits and ways of doing things.

Vice President Judith Turnbull stated that students at community colleges have a
number of needs outside of deﬁcient academic skills. As Vice President Turnbull
understood it there are two kinds of advising: academic advising which is skill-based,
including helping the student select classes, and advising which addresses the extraneous
variables that impact their learning, such as problems with childcare, transportation,
ﬁnances or relationships. Both types of advising are intricately related and important to
the student’s ability to learn: “. . .All these other things are. . .impacting that [student’s]

learning. . .They can’t concentrate. . .because they have a child at home that’s sick and

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[they are] wondering who is taking care of that child. . .”

She reminded that “Everyone learns differently and oftentimes schools [act] much
like factories—we try to treat them all the same... [as though they] all have the same
needs.” What we should be asking, she suggested, is “What’s the best way to get them
from here to there?” Turnbull believed that this is what advising should entail—being
able to identify students’ skills and then placing them in the right situation to encourage
skill development and experience the right level of instruction.

It is crucial, Developmental Education Program Coordinator Will Rann cautioned,
for the counselor to have “a personal connection” with the students. “You’ve got to
somehow help them see that the things they have to say are important, that somebody
wants to hear them. You don’t get very far with developmental students without a
personal connection.” He also stressed the importance of a “tough love” approach: “You
[have to] be tough enough to hold them to improvement, but you will also be supportive

enough that they can deal with things.”

Counselors
Four counselors from Mid-State Community College were interviewed for this study:
Charles Nolen, Program Director of Counseling Center/Counselor; Alyssa Martin,
Counselor for Disabilities Support; Jane Durfee, Counselor; and Matt Jefferson, Director
of Student Victor Program/Counselor.

Background Dr. Charles Nolen, Program Director of the Counseling Center, has
a Bachelor’s degree in Restaurant and Hotel Management, an MS. in Counseling and

Educational Psychology and a Ph.D. in Workforce Education and Development. Dr.

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Nolen has held the position of Program Director of Counseling Center/Counselor since
the beginning of Fall Semester, 2002 and has been employed at the college since January
1991.

Alyssa Martin, Counselor for Disabilities Support, earned a Bachelor’s degree in
Business Administration and an M.A. in Counseling. She has been employed at Mid-
State Community College for two years.

Counselor Jane Durfee earned her Bachelor’s degree in Business. She holds two
Master’s degrees—one in Educational Administration and one in Counseling. She has
been at Mid-State for ten years. Prior to her employment at Mid-State, Durfee taught
high school business courses, coached athletic teams, and was a school administrator.
She returned to college to pursue a second Master’s degree in counseling. She accepted
the counselor position at Mid-State after graduation.

Matt Jefferson, Director of Student Victor Program/Counselor, has a BA. in
communication, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Counseling and Higher. Jefferson has been
a counselor at Mid-State Community College for twelve years. Previously, Jefferson was
Director of the Counseling Center and Coordinator of the Retention Program for DEP
students at Mid-State. Jefferson has also worked on a bridge program for minority
students pursuing math/science in order to attend to graduate school in bio-medical
research.

Involvement with Developmental Education. Dr. Charles Nolen began working
with developmental education students as an undergraduate when he was assigned to
tutor students with learning disabilities. As a Master’s degree student, Nolen’s graduate

assistantship was with one of the ﬁrst programs in the nation to have a separate support

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service for students with learning disabilities. In this appointment, Nolen supervised a
caseload of students with learning disabilities, managing their learning needs and making
sure they were connected with the services they required. After earning his M.A, Nolen
worked as an academic counselor and later as a Learning Disability Specialist, eventually
managing the Disability Support Office.

Counselor Alyssa Martin began working with under-prepared students by default:
her original interest was students with disabilities. However, through her work at the
college with differently abled students, approximately half are also under-prepared
academically: “These students with whom I work are not just under-prepared students——
they are under-prepared students who also happen to have a disability.”

Counselor Jane Durfee became involved working with developmental education
students as she counseled college athletes. Since Durfee was an athlete and had
experience in coaching and working with students athletes, she was assigned to work
with the student athletes when she began counseling at Mid-State. At the community
college level, Durfee stated, many of the athletes are developmental education students.
Student athletes remain the largest student population with whom she works.

Dr. Matt Jefferson, Director of Student Victor Program/Counselor, began working
with developmental education students in his role as a counselor. He created a retention
program for DE students——Student Victor Program—that provides counseling services to
students in their classes. The program provides the affective side of student success.
Jefferson’s goal is to implement Student Victor Program across the campus.

Involvement with Academic Advising. Counselors, as practitioners, perceived

their role as varied, wide-ranging and encompassing topics ranging ﬁ'om academic issues

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such as choosing classes to personal issues covered in counseling sessions to preparing
for life after college. Counselors tended to consider the “whole student,” not just the
student who was snuggling in their math course, or who read at pre-college levels.

At times counselors ﬁnd themselves representing both students and the institution,
a role that can position the counselor in a conﬂicting mindset, as counselor Alyssa Martin
remarked: “Sometimes my responsibility is to the student and sometimes it’s to the
institution. It’s my responsibility to explain to them why they have to take a
developmental class, what the implications of that are, that yes you get credit for these,
however, these will not work towards transfer.”

Dr. Charles Nolen, Program Director of Counseling Center, stated that:

Advising to me means working with the whole student. There is a

.. .personal piece on it, there is an academic piece on it. You have

to look at the whole picture [and] be able to explain it, be able to

talk about it, be able to look at past behaviors and be able to help

that student develop action plans on improving in areas. I think

advising, particularly developmental advising, is really looking at

the whole student [and helping them] set goals and target those

areas that need to be addressed.

In order to be equipped with information to help the student the counselor must
know and understand their student. Several counselors emphasized the importance of
listening to the student to ﬁnd out what their interests are. Dr. Nolen mentioned that he
considered this skill of listening to the student the most important of all counselor skills.

Equally as important as listening to the students, counselors must hear their
students. Alyssa Martin, counselor for Disability Support Services, remarked that in

order “to help the student. . .you’ve got to somehow help them to see that the things they

have to say are important, that somebody wants to hear them.”

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Sometimes, though, listening to and hearing students seem to be contradictory to
students’ wishes and desires. Information received ﬁ'om counselors may not be what the
student wants to hear. Dr. Nolen noted that:

Sometimes advising is telling a student they are not ready for this. . .not
that they can’t do it, but that they are not necessarily ready for it.
[Advising is] giving them the information they need, not

necessarily. . .that they want to hear.

Counselors saw their role as teaching “a class of one.” Jane Durfee is one
counselor who considered herself a “non-classroom faculty” member:

We go into it teaching—we feel that we have some [information]
...that the student needs when they leave. . .we’re trying to give them
an idea on basic college. How does this work? What are credits?
What’s the difference between a credit hour and a contact

hour?. . .[What is] a full-time student? How do you meet those
categories for a degree? If you’re a transfer student, what’s the
beneﬁt of the MACRAO Agreement? How do you [navigate]
through the system? That’s what we have to teach them. We try to
teach the ins and outs of college.

Counselors believed that it is a component of their job responsibilities to help
students identify options that will help them realize their goals, whether that involves
transferring to a four-year institution, experiencing an internship or changing their major
course of study. According to Matt Jefferson, “Advising to me means answering the
student’s question: ‘Here’s my goal—how do I get there?’ and through teaching. . .work
on things that I know they are going to need for life.” Dr. Nolen agreed with Mr.
Jefferson when he said:

Advising helps prepare the student for the next steps. [Our job is to

help students] make informed decisions. . .we need to have them ask

questions. Advising opens up the door to that student and says

“these are the options that you have.” Students sometimes just want

to be told what to do. And you have to explain that you cannot just

tell them what to do, because “what is right for me is not necessarily
right for you.”

Counselors also saw their role as demanding that students assume some of the
responsibility for their advising. Counselors believed it was their responsibility to
explain to under-prepared students why they had to take a developmental class, for which
the student will get credit but will not count toward any degree program and will not
transfer to another institution. Conversely, counselors also believed that students had a
responsibility to the advising process. Alyssa Martin stated, “You can give them a boost
to shed their mindset. . .you’ll be tough enough to hold them to improvement, but you will
also be supportive enough that they can deal with things.”

As licensed counselors, counselors also provide personal counseling. Although
the counseling program at Mid-State Community College is not organized to offer long-
term counseling, some counselors have students with whom they have worked for a year
or two while the students were attending Mid-State. Ms. Durfee communicated that she
sees students for personal counseling once or twice a week, usually when it has reached a
crisis point for the student. For approximately ﬁfty percent of the students requesting
personal counseling, she estimated, the problem began as an academic issue that boiled
over into their life and became a personal counseling issue. In the majority of cases,
however, students needing long-term counseling are referred to a therapist outside the

college.

Faculty
Three faculty members from Mid-State Community College were interviewed for this
study: Chris Jacobs, math chairperson/math faculty; Nicholas Johnson, math faculty; and

Gina Pearson, English Faculty.

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Background Chris Jacobs, math chairperson/math faculty, holds a BS. in
Engineering/Physics & K-12 Certiﬁcation, and two M.A.s—one in Educational
Leadership and one in Math. Jacobs has been at Mid-State Community College for
twenty-four years.

Math faculty member Nicholas Johnson’s educational background includes a B.A.
and M.A. in Education with a math emphasis. He has been teaching Math at Mid-State
since 1982.

Gina Pearson earned a B.A. in history, with an English minor. She unsuccessfully
tried to ﬁnd employment as history teacher, then returned to college and earned another
B.A. and eventually an M.A. in English. Pearson is in her 20‘“ year of teaching at Mid-
State Community College.

Involvement with Developmental Education. Math chairperson/math faculty
member Chris Jacobs began his involvement in developmental education when he was
working with the local K-12 Community Education Program. He was hired by Mid-State
Community College to work as a tutor in the tutoring lab helping students with physics
and mathematics assignments. He continued tutoring for ten years. As a new community
college faculty member he saw there was a need for educational intervention regarding
under-prepared students. He considered this part of his responsibility as a faculty
member so he began teaching students in the Developmental Education Program. His
interest and commitment to under-prepared students continues today.

Math faculty member Nicholas Johnson began working with students in
developmental education programs when he was teaching middle school math and had

several students who had trouble learning. It was at this time that Johnson’s second grade

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son was diagnosed as dyslexic. As a teacher and parent, Johnson decided he would learn
what he could about at-risk students in an effort to help his students and his son. He
joined a parent consortium group sponsored by a local college, whereby parents were
trained to tutor another group member’s child. Within ﬁve years, Johnson’s son was in a
gifted and talented program in his junior high school. This was all the proof and
inspiration that Johnson needed to merge teaching with developmental education. This
created a passion in him for students who were at risk and he continued in this venue.
Johnson remains to this day a staunch supporter of developmental education.

English faculty member Gina Pearson began working with under-prepared
students at Mid-State when, as a teacher in the local Community Education Program, she
was chosen to be an English tutor at Mid-State. She realized that she enjoyed working
with the students and the instructors. A few years later, after a brief teaching stint
overseas, Pearson was assigned to teach three sections of college-level English. She
currently teaches ENG 002 and commented, “I think I do my best teaching with those
students for some reason. I don’t know why. . .maybe it is just experience. I’ve been at it
20 years with them, if you count the tutoring.”

Involvement with Academic Advising. Faculty envisioned the counselor role as
generally “being there to help students.” Chris Jacobs further deﬁned this role when he
noted that counselors are there to help students decide work, academic and career goals.
Faculty member Nicholas Johnson had a different notion of counselor roles, as expressed
through his comment that:

Counselors make contacts for [students] and do advocacy regarding

help with ﬁnances if they know [students] are going to be in trouble

if they. . .drop this class—if it is going to affect their funding. Which
[students] don’t know on their own. [Counselors]. . .have the

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information in ﬁ'ont of them that [students] would not go ﬁnd on
their own.

Some faculty members considered it important that the counselor know
their students and are familiar with individual students’ needs, learning styles,
et cetera, and conversely, that students know who their counselors are, where their
offices are located and what services they can expect from their counselor. It is
imperative for counselors to make the effort to connect with students, as Nicholas
Johnson established:

...[counselors need to] get to know the students on a personal level

and so they are able to recommend instructors. . .if they know that

someone would do better in a certain type of class. . .they’ll contract

to get them in certain classes. [Counselors] do a really good job

helping the students succeed.

Faculty members also considered counselors responsible for encouraging students
to become more accountable for themselves. According to faculty member Chris Jacobs
the role of the counselor entails meeting with students, helping them formulate academic
and work/career goals, and then encouraging and supporting them to go “to the next
level” and achieve their goals.

However, Mr. Johnson cautioned, the counselor/counselor’s role is to facilitate
the student’s growth, not to do things for the student.

[Counselors] give and give and give of themselves, but they have their

criteria the students have to meet, [for example] they can’t just drop in

to take a test, they have to make an appointment. [Students] are

gradually learning the importance of those things, of thinking

ahead. . .that somebody softly guides them through it the ﬁrst time, but

they don’t just let them get by it.

The next section will present ﬁndings from the study in a section titled, Themes and

Issues. Three major themes were extrapolated from the data: Location where advising

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occurs; Placement issues consisting of mandatory placement and placement tests; and

Ways to Improve Advising.

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CHAPTER VI

The Process of Academic Advising

This chapter will focus on the process of academic advising as described by participants
at Mid-State Community College and will demonstrate that academic advising for
developmental education students at Mid-State Community College is a fundamentally
contested process. Advising is characterized by several issues in which there is little
agreement among the key players. Negotiation of these issues reﬂects the power
relations and interests of the participating actors.

The major issues include location of academic advising, placement concerns,
speciﬁcally placement tests and mandatory placement, and ways to improve academic

advising.

The Process

How is academic advising negotiated among the key players involved in a community
college developmental education program? The ﬁndings from this study substantiate that
academic advising at Mid-State Community College occurs in many different ways in
many different locations. Key places where advising occurs include the Field House, in
classrooms and in the Counseling Center. When advising occurs in traditional locations,
such as the Counseling Center, there are few to no disagreements or discrepancies
regarding provision of services or personnel responsible for advising. However, when
advising occurs outside the traditional realm, conﬂict arises. At Mid-State, nontraditional

and problematic locations were the Field House and in classrooms, in particular

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developmental English reading and writing.
Also inherent in this study is that placement concerns, speciﬁcally regarding
placement tests and mandatory placement constitute major areas of contention for study

participants.

Location
Advising at Mid-State Community College occurs in many different ways and in many
different locations. Places where advising takes place include the college’s Field House,
in classrooms, and the Counseling Center. Both faculty and advisors were vocal about
their involvement and roles in these programs and most of the opinions expressed were
negatively skewed. Faculty did not like being required to sign up for two hour shifts on
Academic Advising Day and have no students appear, or not be able to register a student
because they had no authority to change a developmental education program student’s
schedule. Advisors complained about the format of In-Class Advising being detrimental
to academic advising’s philosophy of individualized attention. They also felt that by
taking advising into the classrooms and away ﬁ'om their “turf,” their job was devalued
and considered ineffective.

Each location will now be discussed in detail, explaining what kind of advising
occurs and what controversies exist vis-a-vis each location.

F ieldhouse. About two years ago, Mid-State instituted an Academic Advising
Day in spring and fall in which classes are cancelled and students are strongly
encouraged to go to campus and meet with either a faculty member or an academic

advisor to get academic advice and register for classes. According to Dr. Nolen, on

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Academic Advising Day Mid-State’s Field House is transformed from a basketball court
to “a truly one-stop shop. . . [where] every department has their own table, counselors
have tables, and students can go ﬁ'om place to place.”

Last year the college held the event in a central location—the college’s Field
House—but prior to that, the faculty would sit in their ofﬁces and wait for students to
arrive for help with class registration. Since Academic Advising Day was contractual,
faculty were required to participate, even, as Chris Jacobs complained, “[not one student]
would come in this building. No one would come on this ﬂoor.” Faculty members were
required to sign up for two-hour shifts, during which time faculty, like English instructor
Gina Pearson, would “maybe see one person.” Many faculty members did not consider
Academic Advising Day successful.

In the Field House location faculty again sign up for two hour shifts and represent
their various academic departments. The advising staff is available to help with
scheduling questions and problems and all developmental education students must talk
with either Developmental Education Program Coordinator Will Rann or Student Victor
Program Director Matt Jefferson before they can enroll. Will Rann commented on this
new format:

[It’s not very well] attended by students. We don’t think that the cost to

beneﬁt ratio is good enough to continue it, but it is in the contract, so we

have to do it for another year. But that will probably be phased out,

because it is costly in terms of time, in terms of money, in terms of

person power and we don’t get the number of registrations to make it a

good investment.

English faculty member Gina Pearson had a different perspective on the day:

Some of [the developmental education students] didn’t get scheduled

until Academic Advising day. Academic Advising day was horrible.
There were two people, Will Rann and Matt Jefferson who were able

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to program students on that day and they had a huge line of students

who needed to. . .get one-on-one [attention]. They get one-on-one

attention for maybe 5 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever, however

long it takes them to punch it in. But there is no real discourse or

opportunity to talk and I think they need that.

Counseling Office Program Director Charles Nolen had an even different slant on
Academic Advising Day:

In the past I would say [students were not] attending the advising day. It

was pretty much an opportunity to sleep or take the day off. This past

winter in April, was probably the ﬁrst time in a long time that the

campus had come together in one location and really had their signups

for class. Faculty had to volunteer for their shift. . .And there was a lot

of promotion and marketing of that event. It was really successful.

Students turned out in droves for that. So that was good. And we have

record enrollment for this fall semester and I don’t know if that’s had

any part to play or not, but certainly that had to have been a piece of

getting the continuing students to think about the fall and to think about

what they were going to do.

Some members of the Developmental Education Program committee cited
feelings of powerlessness associated with Academic Advising Day. Before students in
the developmental program can register for classes, they are required to meet with a
counselor for his/her signature, which allows the student to register for classes. This
procedure provides a system of checks and balances and assures that the student will not
advance into higher-level courses before s/he is ready. However, as Gina Pearson
explained, this practice becomes problematic when only the Developmental Education
Program Coordinator and the Director of the Student Victor Program have the authority
to register students and their lines are thirty-plus students deep, with waits of an hour or
more not being uncommon, whereas lines of students in front of academic departments
are curiously empty. Pearson derided the procedure: “Only Will and Matt have that

authority. And, of course, they don’t want to give that authority up because they see that

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as a lessening of their rights.”

In-Class. Two years ago, Will Rann and Matt Jefferson created a pilot program
for advising developmental education students called In-Class Advising. The goal of the
program was to facilitate responsibility in developmental education students. The
objective was to get students registered for the next semester’s classes. Matt Jefferson
described In-Class Advising as “a very, very controversial thing.”

The format of the program entailed two counselors, Rann and Jefferson, attending
developmental English reading and writing classes for one-hour class periods. The
advisors took course catalogues and schedule books with them and essentially taught
students how to locate classes in the schedule book and create a schedule. Students were
also advised as to appropriate courses to take based on their academic program, and at the
end of that hour, if they had completed the process, the advisors returned to their ofﬁce,
entered the schedule into the computer and the student was registered.

Rann and Jefferson considered this program beneﬁcial to all groups involved with
developmental education students. The advisors saw it as valuable for faculty because
“[it] makes that classroom faculty member aware of the services that we perform and the
work that we do and how important it is.”

Rann and Jefferson also considered the program time efficient, although some
classroom faculty members weren’t supportive of the program. Faculty complained that
the new advising program took time away from class instruction time. “But it was time
well spent,” maintained Charles Nolen, “because it was helping the students.” Matt
Jefferson’s perception was that after he worked with a class, student learning went much

faster so the learning time is recouped and students are equipped to learn even better.

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Rann and Jefferson also considered In-Class Advising a good orientation tool for
adjunct faculty members:

[In-Class Advising] helps adjuncts be integrated into the college. In the

ﬁrst place, they meet two advisors. It has been real good for the

adjuncts because it integrates them into the work of the college. Usually

they are out there not involved. . .but [with In-Class Advising] the

teacher stays in the room and helps. ‘Cause you can help them read a

catalog. You can help them ﬁnd their program of study. You may not

be able to answer all the speciﬁc questions that they have, but you can

answer a lot of the simple ones and with developmental education
students a lot of them are simple.

The program was helpful to students because the advisors were able to “take
[advising] to [the students] so that they are not always having to come to us.” Jefferson
continued, “Students have a fear of going to counseling offices. [This is why] In-class
advising [is a good idea]. . .it helps reacquaint [and] re-orient students with services of
the Counseling Center. It takes away that fear factor.”

Another beneﬁt of In-Class Advising, according to Will Rann was that it
encouraged students to be an active participant in their learning. Rann told about
students, anecdotally referred to as having “empty vessel syndrome,” who showed up for
In-Class Advising without preparing or thinking about what classes to take. A typical
response from the student was “I’m going to see my advisor and s/he will tell me what I
need to take. I don’t need to do this [In-Class Advising].” The advisor then encouraged
the student to use the time provided by In-Class Advising to prepare for the meeting with
the student’s advisor.

Will Rann compared the current model of advising at Mid-State to previous
models which he called a system “that encouraged passivity on the part of students.” In
the past students simply did not go to the counselors. It was hard to get an appointment

with an advisor and it took time. So students advised themselves, oftentimes with input

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from peers. “Students who needed an advisor tended to give it all over to the advisor and
we have had some advisors who will do it for them.” But this new model of advising
urged advisors to perceive advising as a developmental process. “With In-Class
Advising,” Rann stated, “at least students are beginning to ask questions and engage the
material.”

In-Class Advising encouraged students to work on advising and registration issues
so that when they met with their advisor it could be a more productive and in-depth
session “because they will have sorted through some things on their own.”

Finally, In-Class Advising was good for the advisors. Will Rann said it best:

The counselors start understanding the difﬁculties of working with a
group of [Developmental Education Program] students. When they see
them one on one, some counselors will just talk at them and assume that
they’ve been heard and understood. If the student actually has to
produce something like a schedule from the information and then [the
advisor] realizes they can’t, they start realizing what it is like to work
with students and actually have to have them have an outcome.

As proactive as the In-Class Advising Program was purported to be, it was not as
successful as the developers had intended. Developmental education faculty and advisors
alike were verbal in their disapproval of the program. Will Rann was very vocal in
describing his experiences with the program:

[We] got so many angry emails, so much frustration. Counselors did
not like the counseling advising operation leaving their turf. They are
very upset about that... English teachers, on the other hand were
furious because that would take class time and they could not give up
class time for something that students should be able to do on their
own. . . There was a lot of disagreement. . .Everybody was angry that
from this English side of it the classroom was being invaded by people
who weren’t doing English on their class time; ﬁom the counselors
point of view, their job was being usurped, deﬁned, modiﬁed and
weakened by the [fact that] these English people wanted [students] in
the English classrooms. So we got just a lot of anger and frustration.

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One issue for advisors concerned advising people in a group that large: “We need
to work with people one on one.” In reality, as Jefferson explained, “. . .there are 16
advisors if you count the ‘special pops.’ We have 12,000 students. So, the ratio just
doesn’t work out.” By eliminating special populations advisors from this number, there
are eight advisors for the entire student body of Mid-State. “So we brought the advisors
into the classroom.” By implementing the In-Class Advising program, each of the
advisors in the classroom worked with ﬁve or six students per session. Jefferson realized
that:

...it is not [an] ideal [situation]. . .it is not like sitting down with a

student one-on-one—you don’t get a long-tenn education plan. You

don’t deal with issues, but you do catch enough issues. . .one of the good

results is that we get appointments made to work with the counselor on

other things. We start to identify what some of the issues are beyond

selecting classes, career planning, making decisions, that kind of thing.

Will Rann admitted that results were obtained when a counselor could work one-
on-one with a student: “When you connect [with a student], when they know you care,
they know you like them and they know that you respect them. Then they will work. But
if they don’t think that, they are not going to wor .”

Advisors also expressed concern that In-Class Advising “doesn’t get anybody in
the math classes. . .there are a lot of people who take just math that don’t take anything
else. Math is run in a lab setting, so it is harder to do it with math. They aren’t in
separate classes.”

Faculty member Gina Pearson was particularly outspoken about her disdain for
the program. In part, she disliked relinquishing part of her instructional time:

I have trouble getting everything covered in my seven classes

academically, let alone ﬁtting in eight hours of counselors when I am
teaching a class. . .I don’t think [my class] should turn into a counseling

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class or a personal inventory of themselves class. It is a class that

prepares them for [the next departmental course]. . . So there is kind of a

philosophical difference between me and some of the other people in the

program who believe it should be that and we should have counselors in

the classroom teaching every week and advising as part of that class.

Her rationale for not liking the program was that the counselors were “instructing
[students] in small groups about decision making and ‘how to do’ the catalogue” and
“working with personal problems of the student”—things that, although important to
students’ academic success, the counselors should be doing in one-on-one advising
sessions in the Counseling Center, not in classrooms.

Even with strong resistance ﬁ'om some faculty members and advisors, Rann and
Jefferson persisted. “We got the department chair’s consent ﬁnally and we persevered. I
think this must be our second year [and we’ve] had no angry emails and probably I’m
getting a two-thirds positive response rate,” mostly, according to Rann, from adjunct
faculty:

Not from my full time people. We have two full-time English people

and one full time reading person. Only the department chair, who is

one of the full-time English people, will do it. The other two will not.

So all the other [positive] responses are adjunct.

Rann added that some of the full-time faculty “won’t touch it” and “it doesn’t get
every adjunct.” Still, Rann and Jefferson realize that In-Class Advising will never be a
mandatory program: “We will never be able to say to a faculty person that you must have
in-class advising. That would be contractually impossible.” But, for most of the faculty
who have included In-Class Advising in their curriculum, they “liked it and they’ve seen

the beneﬁt to their students.” And, on a positive note, Jefferson added, “Everybody who

has done it is repeating.”

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The program is still considered a pilot program in that no decision has been made
whether to implement the program throughout the institution or to cancel it. Rann and
Jefferson believe that the program will garner “increasing buy-in from counselors. . .Our
adjuncts, for the most part, are coming along, but the counselors have been resistant.”
Rann reminded himself that it would take time for others to join.

Counseling Center. The Counseling Center at Mid-State Community College is
the main location where academic advising occurs and, as the traditional site for advising,
it is relatively uncontested. This is the terrain of the counselors. Students may schedule
appointments to talk with their counselors about numerous issues including academics,
personal matters, assisting students with course selection, choosing and changing majors,
transferring to four-year institutions and remaining in good academic standing at the
college. These are typically the kinds of things that occur in counseling centers on
college campuses. Mid-State is no different than other colleges in this respect.

There are two physical parts to the Counseling Center: a large cafeteria-size room
where students wait to see a counselor and a smaller lobby where counselors have
individual offices around the perimeter. On this day, approximately twenty students are
sitting in the outer lobby, talking to others, reading or listening to their headphones.
Periodically, an individual comes ﬁ'om the inner lobby, calls a name, and a student rises
ﬁ'om his/her chair and follows the announcer into the inner room.

Upon ﬁrst entering the inner Counseling Center one notices a long reception
counter along the left side. Two students staff the counter, managing counseling
appointments and offering help. Around the perimeter of the room are the counselors’

ofﬁces, situated in such a way that a very large empty space is left in the middle of the

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room. Four counselors appear to be milling around the Counseling Center, not meeting
with students. One of the counselors, Dr. Charles Nolen, is walking around talking
informally with students who are in the ofﬁce. Another counselor, Matt Jefferson, enters
his office and partially shuts the door. He opens the door approximately ten minutes later
to meet with a student. Counselor Jane Durfee takes a student into her office. She smiles
at me and says "hi" on her way by.

An Advising Session. Counselor Hollis Carson accompanies a male student,
Dayton Trent, into her ofﬁce and introduces him to me. Dayton mentions that he wants
to transfer next year and needs to register for classes for next semester. Hollis and
Dayton are sitting about three feet apart. They chat for a few minutes, then Dayton tells
Hollis that he wants to be a teacher. Hollis moves to the round table next to Dayton, after
asking me to move over. She faces corner with her chair and body but shoulders and
head are turned toward the student. Dayton is enrolled this semester in two
Developmental Education Program courses, but dropped one—Math 001——because it was
too much work. Hollis does not respond but asks Dayton if he has used a course catalog
before. He responds that he has not. She asks him to look up a course-— Math 001. He
says that he does not know how to, so she helps him and explains it as he goes.

Hollis asks Dayton if he remembers what the MACRAO is. “No.” She wonders
if he attended Orientation. “Yes.” “Do you know what an acronym is?” He does not.
“You need to know so you can teach your students,” she responds and then explains an
acronym to him.

Hollis asks Dayton if he wants to take his jacket off: “My mother would say ‘I'm

hot—take off your jacket,"' Hollis tells Dayton. And he does. But he leaves his

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ski cap on.

Hollis talks to Dayton about the courses he has this semester and how he is doing
in them. They talk about courses he needs to take and Hollis asks him to ﬁnd some of
them in the course catalog. It is unclear whether Dayton understands this activity. He
stares at the catalog and says “Ok” or “Uh-huh.” I wonder if he is getting more
information than he can handle. There is a blank look on Dayton's face and a faint, but
noticeable smell of marijuana on his clothes.

After a few minutes, Hollis says, “I've been doing a lot of talking. Do you have
any questions?” He says he does not. She has him register himself by writing everything
down on his registration card so when the hold on his record is removed he will know
how to do it. Hollis tells him "Next semester, come see me sooner. This is late—lots of
classes are already gone." Dayton mumbles “Ok.”

Hollis makes a phone call to see if any classes are still available. She questions
Dayton, “What will you do to ﬁnd out if a class you want is available?” She tells him to
use the catalog as a resource. During the call she asks him how he is doing. He responds
that he has found two more classes on his own. He keeps thumbing through catalog. She
is on the phone for over seven minutes during which time Dayton and I are sitting and
waiting.

After her phone call, Hollis looks over Dayton’s schedule and notices that he
seemed to take any class that was open—it appears that he did not consider the course
description in including a course on his schedule: if the course ﬁt what he needs (a social
science course, for example) and it is open, he says "I’ll take it."

They conclude the session, which lasts forty-ﬁve minutes. Dayton has thirteen

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credits for next semester.
Hollis Speaks. After Dayton leaves, Hollis begins talking to me:
This is "Drop-ins" at the college, which means students are seen on a
ﬁrst-come, ﬁrst-served basis. Each student is supposed to get 15
minutes with a counselor. We're supposed to meet with students for
10 minutes. Can you imagine doing this in 10 minutes and having
the student go away with an understanding of the process? I have a
hard time cutting students off. They come for speciﬁc purpose and I
feel like we owe it to them to help them. If we had signs that said
“Only 15 minutes per student,” that would be different. But we
don't.
In this advising session, Hollis infuses a strong educative, developmental

component to her advising style.

Placement
There are disagreements in the developmental education program at Mid-State
Community College, speciﬁcally regarding placement tests and mandatory placement.
Institutional policies seem vague concerning who should take the placement test. Should
minimum cut-off scores be raised? Should there be mandatory course placement? Is the
policy of counselors overriding course placements institutionally sanctioned? What
constitutes successful completion of developmental courses? Are there alternative ways
to complete Developmental Education Program requirements such as labs or review
sessions? and similar questions. The following section will present a discussion of some
of these issues.

Placement Testing. At a recent meeting of the Developmental Education Program
the issue of minimum acceptable scores for placement testing was discussed. Chris

Jacobs wondered if all or at least more students needed to be tested in order to promote

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more success for students in next tier courses. Gina Pearson asked if the college needed
to test more students if students are successful now: “Should we ﬁnd out how they're
doing before we raise the scores?”

Currently, the college requires students who have a score below 16 on the ACT to
take the Accuplacer. However, the College Board, creator of Accuplacer, recommended
a cut-off score of 21 for Mid-State. To increase the scores would result in many more
students being tested, and most likely placed in developmental education courses.

This introduces another new problem: course section management. If Mid-State
tests more students, more classes and/or sections will be needed. However, as Vice
President Judith Turnbull stated, “There's a need to streamline the process of adding more
classes.” If Mid-State were to place more students in DE classes, the college would need
to have the classes to back it up. Chris Jacobs mentioned that currently the college has
170 fewer course sections than it did 10 years ago with the same numbers of students
enrolled. The extra courses a decade ago just about killed them ﬁnancially. Charles
Nolen suggested an idea to offer classes later in the day with the caveat that the classes
must consistently be offered: “If students change work schedules, they must be assured
that the classes they need will continue to be offered at the time they originally planned.”
Later aﬁemoon classes would also help the #1 campus problem, which is parking, Nolen
added.

Math faculty member Nicholas Johnson wondered if students could retake the
placement test and proceed to the subsequent course:

We have no policies stating how often [students] can take the

placement test and at what intervals. Can you take the placement test

halfway through your semester. . . [and] place into the next level and
then be done with [that course]? No one has addressed those issues.

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Mandatory Placement. A resultant problem arose when students who were given
the placement test at the beginning of the semester, were placed in a class, and then,
based on additional information ﬁ'om transcripts or an academic department retesting,
were placed in another class. Advisors and faculty both expressed frustration with this
policy because they felt their expertise was being questioned and usurped. They
perceived this procedure as administrative and one in which their power as advisor or
faculty member was stripped away.

Most people interviewed mentioned this problem of students “testing” into a
speciﬁc course but not being required to enroll in that course, and in fact, many times,
being able to circumvent their way out of taking the course. Typically, students who are
considered under-prepared receive a postcard from the college instructing them to call the
testing center to set up an appointment to take the placement test. Immediately upon
completing the test they are given the test scores, but must wait a minimum of two weeks
to see a counselor and receive an interpretation of the scores. This lapse of time is due to
counselor schedules. At the appointment, the counselor interprets their scores for them,
tells them what classes they need to take and enrolls them into those classes. However,
counselors can over-ride the test scores if they think that they are inaccurate for some
reason. Counselor Jane Durfee commented:

Placement is mandatory in English except, as counselors, we do have

access to more material: high school transcripts, information from

the high school, things like that, which may allow us to override the

recommendation for placement. So, it’s a very gray [area].

As part of the Accuplacer placement test given to new students at Mid-State, counselors

are privy to students’ writing samples. Some of Mid-State’s counselors have gone

through training to proﬁciently assess the writing sample.

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Not inﬁequently, counselors will consider an individual’s writing placement
scores with less signiﬁcance than other factors, such as high school GPA, SAT or ACT
scores, and/or previous grades in writing courses. In responding to possible motives
behind this practice of ignoring placement scores when enrolling students into classes,
counselor Jane Durfee proffered that “Some of our people feel conﬁdent enough to do a
reading sample [and change the student’s placement]. Some of their backgrounds are in
language arts. I tend to follow the placement. . .I don’t feel conﬁdent in myself enough to
sit and do a reading sample [like] some of our people.”

Many people on campus believe that there should be mandatory placement and
there are others who believe that some ﬂexibility with placement is warranted. Alyssa
Martin, counselor for Disabilities Support, offered, “We muddle around and I would say
the vast majority of the students end up with mandatory placement.”

It’s not a very good system. We don’t have any systematic way to

[place students]. We don’t have a list of weighted reasons that

might want to ignore the test scores and place the student higher

than their test scores indicated. Typically we don’t send students

immediately back to re-test. That would be a much better

procedure. We just have the counselor guess at it. Sometimes

that’s good. Counselors can have really good instincts about that

sort of thing, but sometimes there are. . .counselors who are more

likely to ignore the test scores than others. There are no

standardized procedures [for placing students in courses].

The issue of mandatory placement seems to divide counselors and faculty into
several camps: some counselors believe they can accurately assess a student’s transcript
well enough to by-pass placement test results and change students’ course placement.
Others do not feel conﬁdent enough in their knowledge of math or language arts to make

such changes.

Ms. Martin explained that:

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The faculty is kind of “split”. . .the language arts faculty feels that

[there] should be mandatory placement and the math faculty are

looking for some recommendations. . .they’re willing to sit down

with. . .a student and say, “Okay well, let’s see where you’re at.”

Maybe even give ‘em their own test and say we’ll give [you another

chance] if you feel you’ve been placed wrong.

Some faculty, namely in language arts, are involved in assessing placement tests and do
not think advisors have the “proﬁciency” to undermine the faculty’s expertise. Language
arts faculty attempt to use power to enforce their placements: they introduce the topic in
committee meetings, as when English instructor Gina Pearson communicated at a
Developmental Education Program committee meeting, “There’s no policy in place for
mandatory placement here at Mid-State, even though studies show that programs with
mandatory placement have more successful student statistics.” Pearson continued:
“Mandatory placement should be insisted upon. . .If the student tests into a developmental
class, the counselor shouldn’t be allowed to say ‘You don’t need to take this.’”

Math faculty, conversely, are more lax regarding mandatory placement in that
since they are not test proctors, they are not as invested in the test as are the language arts
faculty. Also, if they disagree with a placement, math faculty will make their own
placement changes.

This is problematic for faculty involved with the developmental education
program at Mid-State. Faculty member, Chris Jacobs, expressed his ﬁ'usuation with this
practice when he said:

Students who [are under-prepared and] want to take business and

technical English as part of their occupational program can

circumvent the [developmental] English courses. . .l’ve never really

understood the logic. . .If your skills are not good enough to go into

college writing, why would it be good enough to go into business
and technical English?

Several faculty members mentioned that they do not like this practice of changing

a student’s course placement based on what they see as arbitrary reasoning.

Unfortunately, they do not know if the student is in their class because the student placed

in it or because the counselor changed the course. They know if the student is not

appropriately enrolled in the right class and cannot do the work, but they do not know

how that happened.

Recently, the Developmental Education Program committee discussed the issue of

counselors overriding course placement at Mid-State. Several committee members

thought there was no policy in place for mandatory placement, even though, as Gina

Pearson pointed out, studies show that programs with mandatory placement have more

successﬁrl student statistics.

As Will Rann and Charles Nolen understand it, one of the problems
with course placement for under-prepared students is that many
come to registration late, sometimes even after the semester has
begun. Consequently there are few-to-no classes available. This is
problematic in that the counselor must scramble to ﬁnd something
for the student to take, even non-developmental courses. Then, if the
semester has begun, the student, who is already under-prepared, now
is even more behind.

Of course, many unanswered questions and problems accompany such a dilemma:

If all developmental education classes are full several days or weeks before the
next semester begins, when should classes be added?

How many people have been lost in the meantime?

We don’t have any policies for adding developmental education classes

We only have developmental education classes. What else should we have?

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Ways to Improve Academic Advising
Most participants at some point during their interviews expressed ﬁ'ustration with the
status quo of developmental education and advising at Mid-State. One of the interview
questions asked, “What changes should be made to advising regarding the Developmental
Education Program at Mid-State?” Some of the problems in the program were attributed
to the ways in which information was communicated. Other problems centered on the
role of faculty in advising and program centralization. These themes will be ﬁrrther
explored in this section.

Communication. With the centers and ofﬁces that are integral to Mid-State’s
Developmental Education Program scattered around campus, and people who do not like
to attend meetings, as Will Rann mentioned, it is not surprising that communication
would be a problem. Several participants mentioned an institution-wide problem with
communication, ﬁom getting timely and accurate information ﬁ'om the college to its
students and the community at large, ﬁom counselors to faculty members including
adjuncts, and information transfer necessary for program evaluation. Rann described
Mid-State as a college where a lack of communication is typical: “The counselors don’t
talk to the classroom faculty—you need major regular communication and we have
people who can’t stand to go to meetings. They probably hate meetings as much as they
hate the thought of a centralized department.”

This problem, in part, stems from a time a few years ago when the administration
was faced with hiring a new president. The college was in transition, there were many
retirements college-wide, and patterns of behavior born out of that uncertain time were

hard to break. Developmental Education Program Coordinator Will Rann proffered:

108

We have a history—when I came here we got rid of our president and for
two or three years no one did anything other than the absolute minimum
assigned contractual duties. In fact, they worked without a contract for
several years. And there is just a sense that you don’t do what is not in the
contract. [You don’t go to] excessive meetings. . .they don’t see that as
their job, they are classroom faculty. . .they’ll go to a few [meetings].

Counselor Jane Durfee provided additional information:

We’ve had probably over 50 percent turnover in our ofﬁce since I
started. People that were ready to [retire]. . .didn’t establish a
relationship with the developmental faculty. . . [they] probably
didn’t leave the ofﬁce very often. . .they were here, [they said]
‘yeah, I have appointments. I’ll see my appointments, but I’m not
gonna go to the classroom and do advising.”

The Counseling Ofﬁce was not the only unit on campus to experience a mass
exodus of its personnel. Ms. Durfee disclosed that many faculty members also retired at
this time, further alienating faculty and staff and contributing to indifference regarding
developmental education:

I bet our faculty’s changed over 50 percent, too, the last ﬁve or six

years. It’s happened and we’ve had a lot of retirements. You had an

older set of faculty. . .some people [were] leaving and they were

being replaced with new people who are coming in, trying to ﬁnd

their way and developmental education does play quite a role. . .

we’re all new and nothing is really established that you have to do it

this way.

Another concern frequently cited was the need for better explanation of the
Developmental Education Program, including a brief written piece to be disseminated
to students that communicates program goals and objectives. Study participants believed
that such an institutionally sanctioned document would send a clear and consistent
message that “This is the ofﬁcial policy for developmental education at Mid-State

Community College.” Anyone—students, faculty, counselors, administrators,

et cetera—could refer to the document and all would get the same information.

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Study participants considered the publication of this document important because
students will oﬁen throw things away or overlook stuff. By distributing the document,
Dr. Nolen posited that “at least you can say you presented that information.”

Lack of regular communication with students is another problem the college
faces. Rann related that this lack of communication has made “everyone angry.”
According to Rann, the registrar was angry because students in the Developmental
Education Program could not register for classes without permission ﬁ'om an advisor.
This caused students to become frustrated and complain to the registrar, who became
annoyed because the advisors were not communicating regularly with him. “One reason
we aren’t communicating with him,” Rann conveyed, “is that we don’t know what to
communicate, because the policies aren’t clear.”

Adjunct math instructor, Nicholas Johnson, mentioned the problem with
communication as it related to adjunct faculty. Johnson decried the fact that adjunct
faculty are left on the periphery regarding meetings speciﬁcally focusing on
developmental education topics. He felt largely unsupported and on his own to learn
about under-prepared student needs and college policies that pertain to them. He would
like to see training be offered for all who work with students in the developmental
education program, but especially for adjunct faculty who might be new college
instructors, or who, as part-time employees, need mentors or human connections at the
college.

Last year, Johnson attended the state developmental education conference and
met Will Rann, Mid-State’s Developmental Education Program Coordinator. Even

though Johnson had taught at Mid-State for twenty years and Will Rann had been there

110

for six years in both faculty and administrative roles, their paths had not crossed. In the
interim, Johnson has “gotten on [Rann’s] contact list.” He expressed his excitement
about the resource that exists on campus, the Developmental Education Program, and the
fact that faculty members, and especially adjunct faculty, are not alone in promoting
developmental education at Mid-State.

Will Rann does not agree with Nicholas Johnson’s sentiment regarding lack of
support for adjuncts. Rann asserted that he has been working “a lot” with adjuncts: be
arranged professional development seminars for adjuncts and he has sent weekly or bi-
weekly emails and/or articles on developmental education and other areas of interest to
adjuncts to encourage them to think of themselves as developmental educators.

Another concern involving communication involved program evaluation. Will
Rann and Gina Pearson both cited program evaluation and subsequent reporting as
problematic at Mid-State. In fact, Rann debated whether to call it “evaluation” or if
simply “data collection” was a better term. Both individuals expressed frustration and
dissatisfaction with the evaluation done by Mid-State’s Office of Institutional Research
(OIR). Rann felt that there had been no communication ﬁ'om OIR. He shared that the
college had projects involving developmental students whereby progress reports were
required. OIR collected data on these projects and never reported their work to the
Developmental Education Program or any of its members. Also bothersome to Rann was
that Institutional Research did not request any information from the Developmental
Education Program regarding the developmental education program at Mid-State. Rann
and other members of the Developmental Education Program alleged that Institutional

Research was creating a report based on questionably collected and misanalyzed

lll

information. According to Rann there had been no communication between the
Institutional Research personnel and the people working with developmental students,
even though reports were being generated and distributed about the Developmental
Education Program.

The Role of Faculty in Advising. Participants interviewed for this study were
divided in their attitudes regarding faculty advising, from advocating faculty members as
advisors to admonishing faculty members as advisors. Will Rann was strongly in favor
of faculty advising, nurturing and mentoring. He cited the literature when he remarked
that “mentoring of whatever kind is an effective retention strategy.” He did not stop at
faculty mentoring but also expressed a need for more human connections for
Developmental Education Program students, including peer mentoring and more
counselors. The caveat to his requests is that more personnel naturally requires more
money. “We probably need money to pay faculty to [advise]. Not gobs of money, but it
takes some. . .a lot of good developmental practice is not particularly more expensive than
bad developmental practice. You just have to [have] people [who] will want to do it.”

Counselor Jane Durfee would like to see more faculty advise but realized that
faculty “. . . just don’t have time.” To use faculty members as advisors would beneﬁt Mid-
State since, as Ms. Durfee mentioned, “. . .we have 12,000 students and there are only
about 20 of us overall in three different ofﬁces. . .we really need to work [faculty
advising] in somehow.” But ‘Vvorking it in” is problematic, according to Durfee,
because at a community college, especially one that deals with a lot of transfer plans such
as Mid-State, faculty members really don’t have time to know the particular transfer

requirements that each institution maintains. In lieu of employing faculty as advisors,

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Matt Jefferson suggested that it is important to consider advising and teaching as
complementary to each other and to know that they are there to support each other.

On the opposite end of the continuum ﬁom Will Rann and his preference for
using faculty as advisors is Gina Pearson and her opinion that faculty do not belong in
advising. A faculty member’s role, Ms. Pearson stressed, is to teach. Occasionally that
means offering a student advice about courses or career options in one’s ﬁeld. But
faculty members are not trained in dealing with various issues that invariably arise with
students and should not be required to do so, especially if there is no remuneration for it:

I kind of resent the idea that we should turn into advisors and then

not be paid for it, if we are going to take on somebody else’s

responsibility and it is just going to become part of our job.
Pearson is passionate about her belief that faculty should not advise:
[Advising] is problematic. I don’t mind advising students about

English. . .I tell every student individually, “This is your skill in
English right now, and this is the next English class I think you should
take for success.” I do that consistently one-on-one. But in terms of
ﬁlling out their whole schedule and telling them, “This is what you
need next, this is what you need to take two semesters from now,” no,
I don’t see that as something I should take class time to do.

Faculty members felt that there was pressure on them to advise. Although they
realize that developmental education students need extra attention and intervention, the
consensus is that a trained counselor is the appropriate one to work with them. Gina
Pearson said that she was always willing to advise students for their next English class,
but disclosed that she does not feel adequately trained to counsel them in social or
personal issues that interfere with their academic success:

I do a lot of advising and personal counseling. [Students] want to

talk to you, but I’m not a professional counselor and if they get into

something, how do I tell them I really don’t feel like I should be the
one talking to you about this? And I send them [to the Counseling

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Center] for counseling, but urn, there still is the idea that we should
be doing our own advising. So yeah, it is a big problem.

Pearson acknowledged that there are not enough advisors at Mid-State and the
current advisors “feel very besieged.” She shared a situation that occurred this past fall in
which students who, as participants in the Developmental Education Program were
eligible for early registration and needed to see an advisor before they could register,
could not schedule an appointment because the advisors had no openings:

...that proved real unfortunate to me that they couldn’t get in. They

should have been the ﬁrst people to get in because they are the ones

that need the most one-on-one attention. . .to help them ﬁgure out

what it is that they are to do.

This lack of advisors, Pearson postulated, is behind the “push on [faculty] to [advise].”
She explained that she is trying to work with advisors to set up counseling appointments
for her students for next fall’s registration so that they will have an opportunity to meet
with an advisor and “talk one-on-one about. . .what they need to do.”

Counselors have relatively little overt opposition to the role of advisor being
assumed by faculty, but they believe it would be difﬁcult for faculty to remain informed
and current regarding all aspects of academic advising in addition to their faculty
responsibilities.

Centralization. There was concern expressed about the need for centralization of
developmental education services. As things currently stand, service providers are
located in four different areas of campus:

0 Advising services are in the Counseling Ofﬁce, Student Services Building

0 Developmental Education Program coordinator’s office is in South Building

0 Developmental math is located in the Math Department, Old Central Building

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0 Developmental reading and writing are in the Language Arts Department, State

Building.

In Will Rann’s thinking, scattering the various offices around campus is not a
desirable situation: “. . .as a program we have to become more centralized. . .one of the
ﬁndings in the research is that the more centralized the program, the more effective.”
Rann continued by quoting Hunter Boylan: “‘ . . .developmental education does not work
well when it is a random, nonsystematic effort carried out by uncoordinated units spread
across the institutional ﬂow chart’ and that would pretty much deﬁne us. That’s a perfect
picture of us.”

As desirable and focal to effective program management as cenualization would
be, such a dramatic change would not come without consequence or issue. Rann
expressed several concerns regarding possible repercussions with the implementation of a
centralized developmental education program:

The faculty will be very resistant to a separate department, even though

that is the model that seems to be the most effective in getting results

and improving retention. They will be very resistant to that because they

see themselves as [for example] English people, not developmental

educators. . .and that they will somehow compromise. . . instruction in

English in a developmental department.

Mr. Rann postulated that to locate all developmental education services under one central
ofﬁce and out of the academic departments in which they are currently housed, the
faculty and perhaps even advisors would construe this as an issue of power. Instead of
being an English or math department member, they would become a developmental
education program instructor, thereby necessitating a change in their identity and the

“loss of a piece of their turf.” Rann cited Boylan in his rebuttal to this notion: “. . .if you

do research-based decision making, it points towards more centralization or

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understanding of yourself as a developmental educator.” Will Rann’s goal was for
“every Developmental Education Program instructor to see themselves as a scholar
practitioner in developmental education.” But, he realized that there is a long way to go
before that identity forms.

Rann predicted that there was not going to be a happy solution to centralization:

. . .The kind of coordination that this would mean and the kind of

cooperation this would take would be at a level that is not done here, so

however we move to centralization it is not going to be a happy move at
least for some of the old entrenched full-time people.

In fact, he wondered if cenualization would materialize at all, or to what extent. If
centralization of program services did not occur in the near future, then minimally some
form of regular communication must be maintained among developmental education
faculty and staff, another issue of concern to Rann:

You can do centralization through regular communication—that really

means face-to face in teamwork with all the players from student

support in the academic side. If we can’t even be together one hour in

the classroom for advising, we’ve got a long stretch to go to do that

voluntarily. So those are real issues that face us as a program.

Vice President Judith Tumle shared Will Rann’s ﬁ'ustrations regarding
centralization of services: “We looked at whether or not we should have a centralized or
decenu'alized program. I’ve really struggled with that.” Turnbull continued by stating
that she has been reading a book on developmental education by Hunter Boylan:

It looked to me like a centralized program might be the most

effective, but it might be the hardest as we have a decentralized
program now. And so, the question becomes, ‘How do you get

there?’ so we are probably looking at something like a modiﬁed
decentralized program.”
When asked for clariﬁcation, Vice President Tumle responded that according to

Boylan, a totally centralized program includes a director who administers all

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developmental education courses. Currently Mid-State has a Developmental Education
Program director, Will Rann, and courses, but the courses are housed within their
particular departments. In order to centralize the program, Turnbull added, faculty who
are currently teaching developmental education courses would report to Will Rann, the
program director and not to their respective department chairs.

English faculty member Gina Pearson had a different slant on the topic of
centralization—she did not support centralization of services. Pearson, too, quoted
Boylan in her interview but did so somewhat irreverently, citing Boylan’s notion that
“The best developmental education programs are centralized,” a notion that, Pearson
added, “according to Boylan, is research based...” [Pearson’s emphasis]. Pearson
continued by stating that “Boylan also says. . .that coordinated programs have been well
coordinated, [and] can be very successful.” Pearson seemed to feel validated by Boylan’s
claim that a successful developmental education program can be a coordinated program,
not necessarily a centralized one. “So, it is more [of a] philosophy. . .For me it is not

territory, it is philosophy. There is a difference in philosophy.”

Summary
Acaderrric advising within this particular setting is an inherently contested process in
which differing interests vie for inﬂuence. Although sharing some areas of concern,
counselors, faculty, and administrators often reﬂected differing and even competing
interests in how academic advising was structured and delivered, as well as its overall
goals and purposes. Among the key issues surrounding this process were locations where

advising occurred, guidelines for placing students into developmental courses, and ways

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to improve academic advising. The strategies used to address these issues varied
according to the context and reﬂected differing power relationships, as suggested in
Cervero & Wilson’s political theory of planning.

The ﬁnal chapter will elaborate these ﬁndings theoretically and will present
implications for their utility to the ﬁeld, as well as provide recommendations for further

research.

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CHAPTER VII

Discussion

Higher education institutions depend on academic advising to assist students with
academic program selection or career guidance. Through such processes they hope to
assist students in beginning to organize their lives (Crookston, 1972; O’Banion, 1972)
and becoming lifelong learners and “effective agents for their. . .own personal
development” (Chickering, 1994, p. 50). While academic advising at four-year
institutions is a well-developed area of study (Gordon, Habley, & Associates, 2000), at
the community college it is less well studied. In particular, we know relatively little
about advising for so-called "at-risk" or "under-prepared" adult learners who typically
enroll in community colleges and are assigned to one or more “developmental education”
courses.

Developmental education occupies a key role in most community colleges in the
United States, often serving up to a third or more of a community college’s enrollment at
any given time. Through assessment and advising processes, under-prepared learners are
assigned to appropriate developmental education classes intended to prepare them for
college-level work. Developmental education students, however, are often dealing with a
host of psychosocial and economic issues not characteristic of their four-year peers
(Frost, 1991; Long & Amey, 1993; Amey & Long, 1998; Dirkx, Amey, & Haston, 1999;
Grimes & David, 1999). For this reason, community college advising for developmental
education students is often a corporate responsibility, typically involving administrators,

faculty, support services, and certiﬁed counselors, as well as the students themselves.

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This research explored the questions of how advising occurs within these complex
environments, what theoretical assumptions guide the processes, what various issues arise
within these settings, and how these issues are negotiated. Questions that guided the
study were:

1. Who are the key players in the process of academic advising for community college
developmental education students?

2. What are the views of the key players regarding academic advising in a community
college developmental education program?

3. What issues can be identiﬁed from the descriptions that are manifested in the differing
views?

4. How are issues negotiated within the developmental education program?

Prescriptive and developmental models of academic advising (Cookston, 1972;
O’Banion, 1972; Grites, 1994) and the politics of planning and negotiation, as described

Cervero and Wilson (1994), Forester (1989), and others informed the study.

Academic Advising as C onstituted by Multiple Constituents and Multiple Interests
Academic advising at Mid-State Community College is a highly contested arena of
activity. Several different groups of stakeholders with potentially differing and even
conﬂicting interests inﬂuence the process of academic advising for developmental
students in the community college: administrators who have power to accept or reject
recommendations and are ultimately responsible for programs and services; counselors

who support students in their learning, including attending to affective issues; faculty

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who develop and teach the courses; and students who need to strengthen skills in certain
academic areas, and consequently enroll in the courses.

Frequently embedded in these relationships are conﬂicting and competing
institutional and individual interests, histories and interactions, “hidden agendas,” issues
of power and jockeying for position, resistance and loose adherence among key players
toward program policies and procedures. The ways in which these interests are played
out and decisions are mediated are social processes that involve power and power
relationships (Cervero and Wilson, 1994). The risk exists of having a process of advising
that is administered in different and not always consensual ways.

Cervero and Wilson (1994) posit that “negotiation is the central form of action
that planners undertake in constructing programs” and that “negotiation always involves
two separate actions that occur simultaneously”—interests and power (p. 29). Successful
planners, the authors believe, must be able to interpret organizational power relationships
in order to foresee any controversies and to provide the leadership necessary to see the
planning process to ﬁ'uition in a fair way (IBID, p. 115).

At Mid-State Community College, one gets the sense that constituents involved
with academic advising oftentimes were not working as one uniﬁed entity. Examples of
this can be seen in the subjects of Academic Advising Day, the selection process of the
placement test, and In-Class Advising. Academic Advising Day, which is located in the
Field House, remains a controversial program. Events and decisions associated with
Academic Advising Day were made without procuring support ﬁ'om the committee
responsible for managing a major constituency of students—the developmental education

students. The Developmental Education Program committee was not consulted for their

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advice or direction for keeping within the boundaries of the Developmental Education
Program as Academic Advising Day was being planned. Will Rann commented “. . .that
it was very probable that they would not think that particular issue through for all its
ramiﬁcations. Why would they? It’s just a small subset of what they have to deal with
on a day like that.” Even though Rann feigned an understanding of the way things
occurred regarding planning for Academic Advising Day, he still harbored feelings that
no attention was paid to the students for whom he has main responsibility—the
Developmental Education Program students.

There were scarce resources available that day: only two counselors were able to
work with developmental education students and computers were in short supply and not
working properly. In addition, there were many complaints ﬁom faculty members about
the goals of Academic Advising Day and the way in which it was implemented.

One wonders why this happened. Rann answered that in planning and decision
making committees outside of the Developmental Education Program committee, no one
considered developmental education students and how the system is set up for them.
“That’s where the distinctive boundaries between all the people working with

developmental students becomes a problem, because there is no cross discussion.”

A Political Theory of A cademic Advising for Developmental Education

In observations of committee meetings and discussions with study participants, it
appeared that decisions regarding the developmental education program at Mid-State are
made by one of ﬁve methods. The Developmental Education Program committee either:

1. Deliberated on an issue and tabled it for a future meeting

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2. Made a decision to proceed with an action without procuring support ﬁ'om outside
the committee

3. Made a decision to proceed with an action without procuring support from the
committee

4. Sent the committee’s recommendation to the Dean’s Council for ﬁnal decision

5. Did nothing because the Dean’s Council absent any recommendation from the
committee made an executive decision.

We can understand these different decision-making processes and their
underlying rationalities by framing the academic advising process from a political
perspective. Bolman and Deal (1991) have constructed a matrix entitled Four
Frameworks for Leadership that presents four unique approaches to leadership and
management: Structural Framework, Human Resource Framework Political
Framework, Symbolic Framework Each of the four ﬁameworks approaches
management tasks differently. The processes that characterized this case study reﬂect a
reliance primarily on a political framework. From this perspective, organizational reality
is recognized as inherently political and conﬂictual. The group facilitator understands
conﬂict and limited resources, the political nature of organizations, and the fact that each
person comes to the table with individual interests. S/he identiﬁes major participants and
forms bonds with their leadership; s/he is able to manage conﬂict and use power
carefully, and s/he creates situations for negotiating differences. This framework is
appropriate when resources are low or waning, when there is diversity, and/or when there
is goal and value conﬂict. The themes used to characterize academic advising process at

Mid-State in this study clearly reﬂect these attributes.

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Cervero and Wilson’s theory of planning is a way of operationalizing the political
framework of Bohnan and Deal (1991). According to Cervero and Wilson (1994),
planning is closely associated with “institutional contexts that have a history, are
composed of interpersonal and organizational relationships of power, and are marked by
conﬂicting wants and interests” (1994, p. 25). In order to successfully plan or facilitate
decision-making, planners must be cognizant of how best to proceed in circumstances
that are steeped in institutional power relationships, historical milieu and competing
interests all vying for consideration and implementation.

Cervero and Wilson (1994) present a matrix, based on Forrester’s (1989) work, in
which two Sources of Power Relations—Socially Ad Hoc and Socially Systematic—are
considered through two forms of Relations among Legitimate Interests—Consensual and
Conﬂictual (Cervero and Wilson, 1994, p. 128) as a means of predicting group members’
actions. (This ﬁamework was explored in detail in Chapter H). The matrix deﬁnes four
forms of rationality that planners use to address the political dimensions of the planning
process.

The negotiation of interests in academic advising at Mid-State Community
College reﬂects primarily a form of rationality that Cervero and Wilson refer to as
structural legitimation. Conﬂictual relations or interests and existing organizational
situations or interpersonal relationships characterize this situation. In structural
legitimation, planners in asymmetrical power relationships have differing, even
competing interests which, unless there is a conscious effort otherwise, can contribute to
programs that reﬂect the dominate planners’ interests. Cervero and Wilson assert that the

strategy best equipped to manage these guidelines is to counteract (1994). Planners need

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to be cognizant of the ways in which associations of power can guide the planning
process and then counteract them in ways that offer power and voice to all participating
members of the planning committee. Otherwise, the one who has the most power will
triumph.

This situation is illustrated in the way in which the college’s current placement
test-—the Accuplacer—was chosen. When the time came to decide which test to
implement at the college, counselor Jane Durfee said the decision was made from an
administrative dictate: “There are some decisions being made and not necessarily by us,
but this is what we’re gonna (sic) do and this is how we’re gonna (sic) do it.” According
to Durfee, committee members greeted this decision with “varying degrees of buy-in.”
Vice President Judith Turnbull described the story:

A separate committee was set up [to choose a placement test] and

they actually came up with a very tried and true assessment. Well,

there was a problem with the writing assessment [part of the test]. I

thought it was very time consuming. Plus it was expensive to do.

So we looked at different [options]. . .There was a lot of passion

around that [decision]. These people [worked hard on this decision]

and then this stupid [vice-president] comes in [laughs] and says

“we’ve got to do it differently.”

Vice President Turnbull realized that her decision was controversial and would
not be met with accolades: “The [faculty] didn’t see any good change” in adopting a
different test. Even though there are still faculty members who harbor bitter feelings
about Tumbull’s decision, she maintained that she made the right decision for Mid-State:
“Because the Accuplacer seems to be working.” Vice President Turnbull added that the

college “will continue to monitor the Accuplacer and see how the students do in the rest

of their classes.”

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The issue of in-class advising represents another area of the process that illustrates
one of the ways the committee chose to make decisions - proceed with an action without
procuring support ﬁ'om the committee. In-Class Advising was a controversial program
from its inception. Counselors did not like leaving their “turf” or working with students
in large groups; faculty did not like “losing” instructional time for an activity they
believed should be conducted outside the classroom on students’ time. In spite of strong
resistance from both sides, program developers Will Rann and Matt Jefferson by-passed
the Developmental Education Program committee and procured permission from
department chair people to institute the In-Class Advising Program. The decision to
implement In-Class Advising was reached without garnering support ﬁ'om the committee.
After two years, it is still considered a pilot program. The program does not have
complete buy-in ﬁ'om all counselors and faculty, but in Rann’s estimation, there is
enough involvement to make it a success.

Will Rann acknowledged that the In-Class Advising Program is not the perfect
model and Mid-State historically adapts to change poorly. But he stood by his decision
to go outside the Developmental Education committee and to the department heads for
support and approval of this program. He stated his belief that the longer the program
continues, the more buy-in there would be.

To a lesser degree, other forms of rationality were also evident in the decision-
making processes of academic advising at Mid-State. The rationality of individual limits
is deﬁned by a temporary organizational situation or interpersonal relationship and
consensual interests. Program plarmers or decision makers face no major conﬂict ﬁ'om

others but the terms of the relationship are not existant or continuing: “The capacity to

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act is limited to a particular planning situation” (Cervero and Wilson, 1994). The
appropriate strategy for response is satisﬁcing.

An example of a decision that was plarmed with no major opposition from others
but also without pre-existing or long-term organizational conditions and/or interpersonal
relationships is the Student Victor Program, designed and implemented in fall 2000 by
Matt Jefferson, who provided information on the program. When the Student Victor
Program was introduced:

[It was] not so much a formal committee meeting [that planned the

program]——it was kind of very informal. . .it was not a huge

program. . .And then, I was not able to work very closely to the

program that he I’d written, so four other counselors were identiﬁed

that actually went in and met with the class.

Jefferson related how even after two and one-half years of using the Student Victor
Program, it is still considered a pilot program: “I would like to institutionalize that piece
as part of the Developmental Education Program.”

The rationality of Social Differentiation reﬂects consensual relations and interests
among decision makers and existing organizational or interpersonal relationships.
Participants regularly contribute to decision making in a speciﬁc situation and have
various information and authority to share with the effort. The strategy suggested for
managing social differentiation is networking——it is important to maintain a good
working relationship with all planning participants. Group uncertainty about including
Math 002 as a Developmental Education Program course illustrates this situation.

Math 002, the follow-up course to Math 001 - A Review of Math Fundamentals,

was recently discussed at a Developmental Education Program committee meeting.

Apparently, the course is considered a developmental education course in some situations

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but not in all; for example, it is considered a developmental education course for funding
purposes, but not according to college procedure that states a hold is to be placed on
students’ registration cards who place in Math 002 as a means to prevent them from
registering in the wrong class. Most committee members seemed to agree that the course
should be considered a developmental education course in all areas, not just in selected
ones, but also realized the implications of such a change. Developmental Education
Program Coordinator Will Rann informed the group that “This is not a simple or
hassle-free move. [You] need to know how big a problem this is before [you] proceed. It
will add a LOT of work to the counselors, especially if it’s not needed.”

In a later interview, Rann mentioned that he had sent out an email regarding this
issue to get people thinking about their position. It was unclear who, if anyone, engaged
in email exchanges with Rann regarding whether or not to include Math 002 in all areas
of the Developmental Education Program. I was meeting with Math Chairperson and
faculty member, Chris Jacobs, when Will Rann called him to talk about Math 002.
Through the emails and phone calls, Rann was networking with other committee
members to gain an understanding of their position on the subject.

The rationality of Pluralist Conflict illustrates conﬂictual relations and interests
and a temporary organizational situation or interpersonal relationship. This is not a
collaborative environment in which to plan a program: not only are there competing
interests but planners have little to no long-lasting organizational conditions or personal
relationships. Planners involve themselves in the planning effort as a way to promote
their own interests with little regard to developing or sustaining any kind of continuing

relationship. The recommended strategy for managing Pluralist Conﬂict is bargaining,

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or short-term compromise.

In-Class Advising provides a good example of Pluralist Conﬂict. In spite of
strong resistance from faculty and counselors, program developers Will Rann and Matt
Jefferson by-passed the Developmental Education Program committee and procured
permission ﬁom department chair people to institute the ln-Class Advising Program.
After two years, the program does not have complete buy-in from all counselors and
faculty, but there is enough involvement to make it a success.

The People Work of Program Planning. In summary, the processes used by
participants in academic advising for developmental education at Mid-State were
characterized by multiple constituents with differing and often competing interests.
Negotiation of these interests reﬂects the political dimensions of the organizational
context and particular forms of rationality described by Cervero and Wilson. The
dominant form of rationality evident in these processes, however, is one of structural
legitimation, in which interests are regarded as conﬂictual but are worked through within
existing, relatively permanent organizational structures. In most cases, these structures
represent positions within the organizational hierarchy that possess administrative power,
such as the vice-president and program coordinators.

The examples delineated above help illustrate how planning or decision-making
works in favor of people with the power. Cervero and Wilson (1994) ask, “Whose
interests will the planners represent in constructing an educational program?” (p. 115).
The authors indicate that there are ﬁve groups of people whose interests must always be
considered by program planners and decision makers: learners, teachers, planners,

organizational leadership and the affected public (p. 116). Mid-State Community

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College does not follow this credo: it appears as though the students are omitted in
program planning, both physically and representationally.

Study participants from Mid-State profess that the college has created an
inﬁastructure designed to give voice to constituents. There are committees that meet
regularly to discuss issues pertaining to developmental education, including advising,
placement, student progress in the program, curriculum, and other issues. Committee
members attend the meetings faithfully, but with the knowledge that much of the hard
work they are doing will likely be dismissed and vetoed by individuals invested with
more power than they. This “illusion of power” eventually takes a toll on some group
members and they are reserved in their contributions and commitment, as when English
instructor Gina Pearson commented, “There is some sadness and some cynicism in the
sense of why are we continuing to work on a committee without a say in what we do?”

One example illustrated earlier in this chapter told of events that transpired on
Academic Advising Day when the system was not set up to register developmental
education students. The reason given for this was that in planning for the event,
committees outside the Developmental Education Program committee did not consider
developmental education students and how the system is set up for them.

Also of interest is the blatant absence of students on the Developmental Education
Program committee even though several study participants echoed Charles Nolen’s
comment when asked if students served on the developmental education committee: “N 0,
but that’s a good idea. I don’t know why we don’t have students on the committee.” In
considering these two examples, it appears that some planning and decision-making

groups at Mid-State plan programs which are “in the students’ best interest” without

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asking the students what their best interests are.

The Theory of Academic Advising — Espoused Theory versus Theory-in- Use

For the most part, academic advising at Mid-State Community College reﬂects a theory-
in-use that is not consistent with the espoused theory. Furthermore, neither the espoused
theory nor the theory-in-use seems appropriate to the multiplistic and under-prepared
learner context that was observed.

According to Argyris & Schon (1974) and Schon (1983), practitioner work is
often characterized by an espoused theory and a theory-in-use. While a detailed
description of this distinction is beyond the scope of the present discussion, put simply,
an espoused theory refers to what practitioners say they do, while a theory-in-use reﬂects
theoretical assumptions evident in their actions — what they do.

In the developmental model of advising, the advisor adopts a teaching role and the
student assumes shared responsibility for learning (Crookston, 1972; O’Banion, 1972).
Long-term goals, such as life and career goals, as well as short-term goals, such as
choosing a major and speciﬁc classes, are the objectives in developmental advising. The
prescriptive model of advising occurs when advisors assist students in selecting and
scheduling courses and pay little attention to students’ life goals and its impact on their
vocational choices (Grites, 1994). Prescriptive advising is characterized by “a top-down
approach, hierarchical relationship, one-directional ﬂow of information and ideas, and the
student as passive recipient” (Lowenstein, 1999).

In the academic advising ﬁeld, it is generally presumed that developmental
advising is the preferred model (NACADA, 1994; CAS Standards, 1997).

Developmental advising is considered comprehensive and “good academic advising”

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(CAS Standards for Student Services/Development Programs, 1997).

Counselors at Mid-State Community College responded that they are guided and
informed by a developmental advising model. When asked what developmental advising
meant to them, most deﬁned it in ways similar to counselor Alyssa Martin:

To sit down and speak with a student and ﬁnd out what his or her

goals are, what their interests in that are. . .we tell them [their]

options. Then the end product, if the student is ready to do that, is to

sit down and actually pick out [courses]. . .try to set some short-term

goals—what do they want to take this semester? How busy do they

want to be? And then [set] long-term goals—maybe a year to ﬁve
years out. Where do they want this to take them?

Martin further stated that developmental advising means to “. . .meet with students
[and] help them decide on work, career and academic goals.” Martin stressed that she
tries to help her advisees become more responsible. These statements are truly indicative
of the developmental advising model.

However, there seemed to be some discrepancy between counselors’ words and
their actions: even though they professed to advise in a developmental style, through
observations and counselors’ responses to interview questions, the prescriptive model of
advising seemed more prevalent. Charles Nolen, Program Director of the Counseling
Center, started out describing developmental advising, but quickly shifted into the
prescriptive model of advising:

I think the counselor’s role and responsibility is to listen to the

student, ﬁrst and foremost. Find out what the student’s interests are,

help the student understand how he or she did on the placement

exam, and translate that into what classes will be necessary for that

student to be successful.

Rann described a typical advising session:
The counselor may spend anywhere ﬁom a minimum of seven

minutes to a maximum of probably ﬁfteen. There’s very little

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advising that happens. Counselors simply place students in classes.
If there are no open classes in developmental education, they look
for the most likely thing they can put these kids into. . .So there is a
procedure in place here, but it is not always adhered to.

When counselors must work with large numbers of students and can only spend ﬁve to
ten minutes with each student, the developmental approach to advising is not time-
efﬁcient or practical. It becomes the only choice to register the student for any class that
ﬁts the schedule, whether the student expresses interest in the subject or not. The
timeliness of this approach simply precludes delving into the student’s thoughts to
discover his/her life and vocational goals, and then matching an academic program and
speciﬁc courses to the goals.

An observation conducted at Academic Advising Day in the Field House supports
the contention that counselors at Mid-State more closely follow a prescriptive model of
advising than a developmental approach as their claims state. Long lines of
developmental education students waited in some instances for over four hours to talk to
one of two counselors. When they ﬁnally reached the head of the line, they received
approximately ﬁve minutes with a counselor. There was no discussion of any type
beyond trying to ﬁnd classes to ﬁt a schedule. Students were placed into any class that ﬁt
an open block of time on their schedules. One of the counselors insisted on proceeding
with an interview that I had previously arranged to conduct with him that day. It was
impossible for him to leave the registration table at that time, he stated, so, despite my
requests for rescheduling, the interview was conducted. It was very difﬁcult to talk
frankly about developmental education students when one is sitting three feet away.

Events such as these do not represent an approach that offers the student a strong

motivation toward student success and academic achievement, as Kuh asserts academic

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advising should do (1997). Nor do they encourage the student to reﬂect on vocational
and curricular decisions as they progress through their college experience. Indeed, such
events are more representative of the haphazard approach to decision making that
counselors and others involved in advising are admonished to avoid.

Centralization Currently Mid-State is considering centralizing developmental
education programs and services. This has caused resistance among some faculty and
staff members because it constitutes a change in the status quo and, as Dr. Nolen
reminded, “changes scare the people.” There are faculty members at Mid-State
Community College who fear that if their course is taken out of their academic
department and housed in a central unit, their “turf” is being usurped or the chance exists
that they will lose their jobs. According to Dr. Nolen, “People want to work in their
individual silos and don’t want to do a lot of coordinated stuff.” Will Rann added that the
kind of coordination and cooperation that program centralization would entail would be
at a level not done at Mid-State: “So however we move to centralization, it is not going to
be a happy move, at least for some of the old entrenched full-time people.”

Neither Developmental nor Prescriptive Advising at Mid-State. Prescriptive
advising assumes consensus among multiple players. This means that it is assumed that
all involved participants of an advising program agree that certain criteria are the correct
ones to follow. But there is no consensus regarding advising in the Developmental
Education Program at Mid-State because the overall aims and processes of advising are
not well established, and the kinds of requirements that advising needs to address are not
agreed upon. With prescriptive advising, there is little to no variation in philosophy or

methodology—there is just consensus and uniformity.

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At Mid-State, counselors purport that they follow a developmental model of
advising but in observations and interview probes, it is apparent that the prescriptive
model is more predominant. Some reasons for this include attrition of key participants
and competing multiple interests. It is problematic and exceedingly difﬁcult to maintain
continuity when personnel change constantly. Counselor Jane Durfee recounted how
there has been a large turnover in the Counseling Center in the past few years:

We’ve had probably over 50 percent turnover in our ofﬁce since I

started. [There were] a lot of retirements. It’s like a lot of places in

education now where some people are leaving and they’re being

replaced with new people who are conring in and u'ying to ﬁnd their
way. . .the relationship is starting to build.

It is also difficult to engage adequately in developmental advising when there are
12,000 credit and non-credit students attending Mid-State and ten academic advisors and
counselors on staff to meet students’ advising and counseling needs. Lack of time and
energy simply prohibit exploring a long-term plan with each student, including vocational
and academic goals and aspirations.

Is it possible that we have missed something in our analysis of Mid-State’s
advising program? Any academic advising journal or book that one may peruse extols
the qualities of the developmental approach to advising while scofﬁng at the prescriptive
model. However, in using the developmental model of advising with developmental
education students, are we trying to conjure up the old “one size ﬁts all” jingle? Does
that really work in this situation? When considering students, did it ever work in any
situation?

Maybe what we are observing is a case in which neither model, prescriptive nor
developmental, ﬁts. Both models assume a certain paradigm: prescriptive advising

assumes consensus, as described above and developmental advising assumes that

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developmental education students are capable of making decisions such as choosing a
vocation. Perhaps this simply is not realistic.

We know that developmental education students arrive on campus with varied
and countless issues, with academic preparation being but one of them. Grites (1982) and
Frost (1991) write that developmental education students have difﬁculty with decision-
making skills and are poorly informed and unclear about career goals—do we expect
them to be able to make a decision about which career to pursue? Developmental
education students oftentimes have trouble with low self-concept and need to experience
academic success but are reluctant to get academic help (Frost, 1991). Do we think they
will easily and readily go see their counselor to explore their life goals or choice of
academic program? Many under-prepared students lack basic skills in reading, writing,
mathematics and study habits (Grites, 1982; Frost, 1991). Is it fair to expect them to be
cognizant about selecting courses that are aligned with their program of study?

Maxwell (1997) writes that not only are developmental students academically
under-prepared and struggling with coursework, there are other obstacles that make
attending college difﬁcult for these students. Some may be working full time, they may
have family responsibilities, they may have little or no support ﬁ'om family members,
some are high school dropouts, some may be learning-disabled or products of poor school
districts, many have economic hardships, some are recovering ﬁ'om substance abuse or
mental illness, some are international students or students for whom English is their
second language, some were told they could not learn and would never amount to
anything.

This is not to say that developmental advising will not work with developmental

136

education students. Advisors who work with developmental education students may still
advise on issues of life goals, vocational interests and strengths and course selection,
(O’Banion, 1972), but their primary responsibility is to provide support and information
to students and faculty regarding institutional programs and services designed for student
success (Maxwell, 1997).

The ﬁndings suggest that a new model of advising for developmental education
students is needed. This model should reﬂect the diverse characteristics of
developmental students and the tools they will need for successful navigation through
college. The model should also reﬂect the politically contested nature of academic
advising, and the ways in which political interests shape and inform the nature of
advising. Such a model should also be informed and guided by the developmental and
prescriptive models.

Lowenstein (1999) suggests that developmental advising is not a model of
advising. Rather, it is a theory about the content of developmental advising. Lowenstein
advocates use of a style of advising he terms collaborative advising, which is
characterized by “dialogue, a two-way ﬂow of ideas and information (while recognizing
that the adviser may have specialized knowledge that the student does not), a question-
and-answer approach and the student as active participant.” He posits that many versions
of this content of advising are possible, with one that he likes being academically
centered advising. He compares developmental advising to academically centered
advising by writing that developmental advising focuses on the student’s personal growth
and development while academically centered advising centers on the student’s academic

learning.

137

So, what does this mean for the practice of advising developmental education
students? Such a process would involve a content-focused advising system that speaks to
developmental education issues. The content should consist of what developmental
education students need to successfully “do college.” Of course, it will be unique to each
student depending on their speciﬁc experiences and needs. Nevertheless, there will be
common components appropriate for developmental education students, such as
understanding the expectations of college, managing academics with other parts of the
student s life, handling stress, et cetera. Even in a world of budget cuts and program
downsizing, such a model does not reﬂect an inefficient use of resources. Resource
intensive processes are already provided speciﬁcally for special populations of students.
Under-prepared and other deﬁnitions of at-risk students should also be included as a
special population. Such a process would increase the likelihood that such students are
truly being served. Rethinking how academic advising for developmental education
students is conceptualized and delivered will undoubtedly reveal other things we can be

doing to ensure their success in college.

Implications for other contexts

Although the ﬁndings of this study relate directly to academic advising in a community
college developmental education program, the preceding discussion suggests its
application to other two and four-year institutions, and to different organizational models
of advising. The differing interests identiﬁed in this study, the ﬁrndamentally political
nature through which these interests are negotiated, and the ways in which power is used

to make decisions point to dimensions of academic advising characteristic of other

138

institutional settings and models of advising. However, there has not been much in the
way of conversation or exploration of these issues in the literature on academic advising.

Taken together, the political nature of advising and the assumptions about
academic advising reﬂected among the key players in this study suggest three issues
applicable to a wider range of contexts: authority, power, and inclusion. They raise the
questions: Who has responsibility and the power to make and enact decisions and to
represent our values and shared vision? From where do responsibility and power
originate? Do I have responsibility and power? Am I part of this group? If not, to which
group do I belong? These issues help us better understand what values and interests are
enacted within particular institutional and organizational conﬁgurations of academic
advising, and ultimately the overall nature and quality of such institutional processes.

The issues of authority, power, and inclusion are clearly evident in this study in
the ways in which certain issues and decisions relative to academic advising for
developmental education are negotiated. While counselors felt most comfortable and
authoritative within their own terrain (the Counseling Center), it was clear that
disruptions in their sense of location or place served to undermine their authority.
Working in the Field House or classroom settings, they seemed less conﬁdent in their
role and effectiveness. Furthermore, they had relatively little say in the decision to locate
the process of advising beyond the walls of the Counseling Center.

Teachers found themselves in a similar position. While sympathetic to and
strongly supportive of the needs of developmental education students for advising, the
teachers felt their own curricular authority undermined by the placement of counselors

within their classrooms, however brief the period of time. They valued the need for

139

advising but their vision of how to best address this need was not necessarily represented
in this decision to use instructional time for group academic advising. Furthermore,
advising in the Field House ﬁ'ustrated both teachers and students. In this case, teachers
were asked to act as advisors, locating them outside of their normal classroom teacher
roles and space. But they were given relatively little authority to make decisions in
situations that were problematic for the students. These decisions were the domain of the
developmental education coordinator and had to be referred to him. This process often
resulted in long delays for students seeking assistance with their programs.

As power and authority shaped the kinds of values enacted within the process of
academic advising, it also served to inﬂuence a sense of boundaries, of who belongs
where, of a sense of inclusion. The academic advisors in this program are all certiﬁed
counselors and preferred to refer themselves as such. Yet, what they did for
developmental education students and the role they played in the overall program was
largely perceived by the teachers and administrators as advising. Thus, there seems to be
an inherent tension within the advising role when professionals staff it. This tension
raises the question to what community of practitioners academic advisors belong. Within
this context, it is also illuminating to mention that they held faculty status within the
institution. Thus, institutionally, the role itself seems to invite a blurring of one’s
professional identity and the community of practice with which one ultimately is aligned.

This issue of inclusion is also evident in the teachers’ perceptions of their role in
academic advising for developmental education students. While their primary role is that
of teacher, they are increasingly being asked to play an increasingly larger role in the

advising of students as well. This is evident in their participation in Academic Advising

140

 

 

Day at the Field House, opening their classrooms to group advising by counselors and
their participation on the developmental education committee. Advising issues occupied
much of the time and attention of this committee but, interestingly, many members of this
committee also perceived themselves as relatively powerless to enact any of the values
that surfaced in their work or the decisions they made. In addition to teaching in the
developmental education program, these teachers were also members of separate
academic departments. This dual membership seemed to raise questions for them as well
as to which community do they belong. Faculty in their parent departments are not
always supportive of developmental students and, at times, can be stridently opposed to
the use of institutional resources to address their needs.

As a result of the ways in which authority, power, and inclusion are negotiated at
Mid-State Community College, there is relatively little sense of shared values around
academic advising. Decisions made are haphazard and inconsistent. Individuals with
authority and power to make decisions do so guided by their individual values, attitudes
and beliefs. Institutional leaders make decisions based on what they value.

Thus, surfacing through the stories and observations included in this study of
academic advising are issues of power, authority, and inclusion, issues which are evident
in other contexts of academic advising but are not, to any great extent, addressed in the
literature.

The pluralistic and political nature of academic advising, the diverse needs of the
students for whom such a process is intended, and the need to continuously address
decisions that arise within this process suggest the need for a democratic model of

planning and decision-making (Cervero & Wilson, 1994). This approach recognizes the

141

multiple interests that constitute academic advising and the need for a process that both
honors these differences as well as provides for an ethical means of working across these

differences.

Implications for ﬁiture research

These ﬁndings suggest additional research is needed regarding a conceptual model for
guiding academic advising in diverse and pluralistic settings that serve under-prepared
adult learners. They raise questions regarding the prescriptive model of academic
advising reﬂected in this and other advising programs, in which consensus regarding
what under-prepared students need is assumed. In addition, they also call into question
the appropriateness of the developmental advising model, in which the process assumes a
level of self-directedness and self-authorship not characteristic of most under-prepared
adult learners when they ﬁrst enroll for study at a community college.

The ﬁeld of academic advising would beneﬁt by considering the situational
aspects of advising; speciﬁcally, the type of college—two or four year; the type of
student—under-prepared or prepared; the type of advisor—professional or faculty; and
other such characteristics. Advising should provide an individualized approach to
students’ needs, not a generic approach designed for the masses.

Cervero and Wilson (1994) proposed a theory for program planning that was used
in this study to explore the political aspects of negotiation and academic advising in a
developmental education program at one community college. This type of study needs to
be replicated several times and then to be applied to other situations and contexts to

ascertain its applicability to situations outside of program planning.

142

Implications for practice

This study has implications for academic advisors and counselors who advise
developmental education students, faculty who teach developmental education students,
administrators who count developmental education program and students as part of their
charge, students everywhere, and anyone involved in leadership, group dynamics,
negotiation, and institutional decision-making.

Based on study ﬁndings, several implications are recommended for advisors and
counselors who advise developmental education students. This study can remind
advisors and counselors to individualize their advising practice as much as possible to
allow for maximum advising beneﬁts to their students. Students arrive on campus with
different backgrounds, experiences, goals and ideas, and by treating all students as
needing the same attention and services, advisors and counselors are not being fair to
their students. Findings ﬁ'om this study can speciﬁcally help advisors and counselors
who work with developmental education students understand them better, and tailor their
interactions to these students’ needs and capabilities.

Invariably some of the techniques faculty use for teaching one group of students,
in this case, developmental education students, can translate into practice and utility for
other groups of students, thereby improving faculty’s pedagogy all around. Findings
from this study can also help faculty know and understand advising techniques and
employ them comfortably and conﬁdently in situations that call for such measures.

Advising and developmental education programs must have administrators’
support if there is any hope of producing a successﬁrl program and maintaining it.

Findings from this study call for administrators to empower groups and committees to act

143

and make decisions in order to sustain participant interest, energy and commitment,
which ultimately lead to program betterment, improvement pedagogy and stronger and
better-prepared students.

Students everywhere can beneﬁt from this study. Students desiring to be faculty
members as well as graduate students studying Student Affairs, Educational
Administration, Counseling Psychology, Leadership Development, group dynamics,
principles of negotiation and decision-making theories and many other areas will learn
how one postsecondary institution approached the problem of exploring how the function
of academic advising is negotiated among the key players involved in a developmental
education program. Developmental education students who are part of a group involved
in program planning or decision-making will ﬁnd this study helpful in understanding how
groups work amidst power relationships and personal interests, as will anyone else

involved in leadership, group dynamics, negotiation, or institutional decision-making.

Recommendations

Understanding program planning and decision making as social processes in which
participants must negotiate between contradictory interests while also considering
relationships of power (Cervero and Wilson, 1994) provides a useful lens for
understanding how the function of academic advising in one community college
developmental education program was handled. Recommendations that resulted from
this study regarding mandatory placement, In-Class and faculty advising, empowerment
of groups and committees, and training and program evaluation will be presented in this

section.

144

It is imperative that Mid-State Community College require adherence to
institutional policies. To have organizational guidelines and procedures reliant upon the
discretion of the advisor or instructor is not a sound policy. Mandatory placement should
be just that—mandatory.

Several components have been mentioned often in the literature as
contributing to academic success: centralized program organization, mandatory
assessment, mandatory placement, tutoring, early and mandatory advising and program
evaluation (Long & Amey, 1993; Boylan, Bliss & Bonham, 1997; Amey & Long, 1998;
Merisotis & Phipps, 2000). Interestingly, some of these components are currently being
debated at Mid-State Community College: centralized program organization, mandatory
assessment and mandatory placement. It is recommended that Mid-State adopt these
components. Partial buy-in to these details is not sufﬁcient—the institution must take a
stand and require adherence to adopted policies by all involved. To do less is slightly
better than to not do it at all.

It is recommended that faculty embrace Mid-State’s various advising programs
and delivery systems, such as the Academic Advising Day, In-Class Advising and
Student Victor programs, and invite counselors into their classrooms to focus on areas in
which developmental students need work: decision making skills, career exploration,
self-advocacy, self-concept, intrinsic motivation, locus of control, et cetera (Ender &
Wilkie, 2002). Appleby (2001) advocates an advising program consisting of multiple
delivery systems, including email, workshops, panels, telephone, peer advising and
alumni mentoring, classes, seminars, group advising and handbooks. Of equal

importance is that developmental education students need an advising approach different

145

from status quo advising: they require more individualized attention than non-
developmental students, so smaller advising groups or even individual sessions is
suggested (Jones & Becker, 2002). This gives credibility to the In-Class and Student
Victor Advising Programs.

It is recommended that Mid-State Community College enact faculty advising.
Faculty have expertise associated with their discipline and are generally knowledgeable
about jobs in their ﬁeld. Professional advisors or counselors usually have student
development backgrounds and advising is their chief focus, so they have experience
working with different populations of students. Furthermore, they are most often housed
in a central location making them readily available to students. King (2003) writes that
“Given the complexity of our programs and the increasing diversity of our students, it is
unrealistic to expect one group to be able to do it all.” King also stresses the importance
of having faculty buy-in—otherwise students will not receive the quality advising they
deserve.

The voice of students is virtually absent in this process. It is important that
students are involved in groups that profess to represent them. The Developmental
Education Program committee at Mid-State Community College must include students to
really know what their interests are and to “allow all people affected by an educational
program to have a substantive role in constructing the curriculum” (Cervero and Wilson,
1994, p. 115). This is “responsible planning” (IBID) and Mid-State owes it to its
constituents to be responsible.

Training in the skills and knowledge necessary for advising developmental

education students is crucial for new and current employees who work with these

146

students. Counselors, faculty and anyone else who interacts with developmental
education students need to know their students’ characteristics and the various strategies
for best practices in order to serve this population of student well.

One thing missing ﬁ'om the advising and Developmental Education Program is a
strong evaluation component. Mid-State’s Office of Institutional Research must work
collaboratively with campus programs to develop evaluation instruments designed to
collect data necessary for evaluation. In order to assess their programs and make
improvements, Mid-State must make program evaluation a strong, regular occurrence.

Planners and decision-makers need to know whose interests they are representing
and who has power. They must be able to read various situations in which they ﬁnd
themselves and be able to negotiate power and interests responsibly. By being familiar
with issues such as these, they will be able to create and sustain better programs and
resolutions, leading ultimately to better outcomes and stronger programs. Planners and
decision-makers must remain politically astute and act in a manner concordant with a
political understanding of their organizational context. Diverse contexts require diverse
planning strategies in order to facilitate an egalitarian planning process.

It is recommended that Mid-State coordinate the developmental education
services. Recent research ﬁndings suggests that a strong coordination of services may be
just as effective as centralized programs (Boylan, Bliss, & Bonham, 1997) as long as

there is communication among those constituents involved in the program.

Summary
Institutional leaders make decisions based on what they value. Individuals with authority

and power to make decisions do so guided by their individual values, attitudes and

147

beliefs. Ideals held by constituent members are responded to with little regard. At Mid-
State Community College, there are no shared values around academic advising:
decisions are made in an indiscriminate and inconsistent fashion. It would behoove the

college for its leaders to become more inclusive of other stakeholders’ values.

148

APPENDIX ONE
INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

149

APPENDIX ONE

Interview Protocol

1. Background

 

o What is your role at Mid-State Community College?

0 How long have you worked here?

0 Tell me about your educational background: degrees earned, institutions attended.
0 How did you get involved working with developmental education students?

2. Process of advisiggat MSCC

0 What happens when a student enrolls at MSCC who is under-prepared?

Describe the procedures used with under-prepared students.
What are the academic advisor’s responsibilities in these processes?
What is advising model like here? (De/centralized; F aculty/counselor, combination?)
Walk me through a new student’s process ﬁom applying to college through the ﬁrst
day of classes, -end of ﬁrst semester, -end of year.
0 Take me through a typical advising session with a student, ﬁ'om when appointment is
made through end of appointment.
What are the academic advisor’s responsibilities in these processes?
0 Who/what ofﬁce administers placement tests?—directs Orientation?

3. Description of DE students

0 Describe the developmental education student at MSCC.

- How are DE students identiﬁed?

0 In what ways are they similar/different from one another?

0 Describe a situation where you were working with an under-prepared student, and
things went 1) well; 2) poorly. What happened? Who was involved? How was it
resolved?

.5

. Others involved

Who is involved in the advising of developmental education students?
What are their roles and responsibilities?

0 What are the academic advisor’s responsibilities in these processes?
a Who supervises academic advisors?

0 Who is involved in decision-making?

0 How are decisions about advising made?

5. Factors inﬂuencing_advising

 

What inﬂuences the process of advising?

6. Meaning of advising regarding DE students

What does advising mean to you?

What is its value to the college’s mission?

How is advising and teaching similar/different?

What should advising be like?

What changes and improvements should be made?
By whom? For whom? Why?

Comments:

150

APPENDD( TWO
LETTER TO STUDY PARTICIPANTS

151

APPENDIX TWO

Letter to Study Participants

Dear : September 27, 2002

My name is Lisa Haston and I am a doctoral candidate in Educational Administration in
the College of Education at Michigan State University. Dean suggested I
contact you to invite you to participate in the data collection for my dissertation. You
were recommended because of your involvement in academic advising in the
developmental education program at Mid-State Community College.

 

My dissertation, entitled “In Whose Interests? Negotiating Academic Advising in a
Community College Developmental Education Program” will focus on the ways in which
a pre-selected group of community college personnel arrives at decisions regarding
academic advising for students enrolled in a developmental education program at a
community college. I have chosen Mid-State Community College as the site for data
collection because it has a well-established developmental education program.

My methods of data collection include:

0 Interviews with college personnel involved with academic advising in the
developmental education program

0 Document analyses of materials pertinent to advising in the developmental education
program

0 Observations at meetings where advising issues related to the developmental
education program are discussed.

1 would like to schedule a one-hour interview with you, either in your college ofﬁce or
another location of your choice. Please know that your participation in this study is
voluntary—you may choose not to participate at all or you may refrain from answering
any question. Please be assured that complete conﬁdentiality of Mid-State Community
College and each participant will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.
Pseudonyms will be used and neither the college nor the participants will be identiﬁable
in any report of research ﬁndings.

I would like to begin interviews at Mid-State Community College the week of October 7,

2002. You may reach me at 517.267.9107 or hastonli@msu.edu if you have any
questions. I look forward to hearing from you regarding your participation in my study.

Thank you.

Lisa A. Haston

152

APPENDIX THREE
INFORMED CONSENT FORM

153

APPENDIX THREE
Informed Consent Form

You are being asked to participate in a research project studying the roles and attitudes of
community college personnel who are involved in a developmental education program.
Lisa Haston, a doctoral student in the Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education Program in
Educational Administration at Michigan State University, is conducting this study.

Procedures

I will be asking you some questions about the function of academic advising in the
developmental education program at your community college. The purpose of this study
is to understand how the frmction of academic advising is negotiated among key players
involved in a community college developmental education program. The interview will
take approximately one hour. Your participation in this interview is completely
voluntary. You are free to refrain from answering any question you do not wish to
answer and you may stop the interview at any time. Your identity and your comments
will be kept conﬁdential. At no time will your actual name be used. I would like to tape
record our conversation so I can accurately capture what you say and can participate in
our conversation without having to focus heavily on taking notes while you talk. Upon
completion of the data analysis, the interview tapes will be destroyed.

This is a consent form that I would like you to read and sign, which gives me
permission to use your comments in my work without identifying exactly who you are or
where you work.

Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

Contacts and Questions

If, at any time, you have questions or concerns regarding the study, please feel
free to contact Ms. Haston at 517.337.0379 or h_astonli@msu.edu. Ms. Haston’s
dissertation advisor is Professor John Dirkx and can be reached at 517.353.8927 or
dirkx@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns regarding your rights as a subject in
this study, please contact Ashir Kumar, chairperson of the University Committee on
Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS) at 517.355.2180.

You will receive a copy of this form for your records.

Statement of Consent

By signing below you agree that you have read the above information and had an
opportunity to ask the researcher questions. Your signature shows that you agree to
voluntarily participate in this interview.

 

Signature Date

 

Name

154

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