Early in the semester, I needed to change my schedule and set up a meeting with my advisor to understand which classes I could take. When I walked into the advising center, about 95% of UConn Hartford’s student body was in the room with me.
I was previously a Pharmacy major and realized that it was not my path, so I switched to Journalism and English. While there are ways to check Student Admin to see what classes you need for your major, it is easier and more logical to speak to staff who know what you need to do.
Student administration workers are meant to support you and assist you with the challenges of being a college student; even someone who knows exactly how to work the system deserves to have a person there to guide them when needed.
Later in the year, when I had to meet with my advisor to take the hold off my account for class registration, I couldn’t. Again, pop-up advising sessions were held, and students gathered in one of the computer labs to wait for assistance. Luckily, I am a sophomore at UConn, so I have the benefit of knowing what classes I need to take and how to select the right ones. Freshmen, however, were incredibly confused, which is fair! They only had one semester to figure it out, and knowing exactly how everything works is difficult.
My advisor did not have the time to meet with me for more than five minutes, and the same applied when I went to a pop-in advising session to get the hold off my account. We were told that she was late since she was conducting interviews, and we were assisted by someone else until she came in. The session lasted two hours, and the advisor was there for one out of the two. Students who could not meet with her had to find another time to come in.
And that’s when it hit me: UConn Hartford has only one academic advisor — one person for the 1,600+ students who attend the school.
But what is absurd is how UConn Hartford has been handling this situation. With a massive influx of 32,332 students admitted to all campuses in total, 4,500 first years at Storrs and 2,000 at regional campuses, all of these new students at Hartford will have only one advisor. Meanwhile, at the Storrs campus, students have physical access to advisors specifically for their majors. At Hartford you can access them, but it takes more to do so. Instead of just dropping by, Hartford students have to work harder to reach out to those advisors and arrange meetings virtually. In an effort to get students to attend UConn’s regional campuses, more staff should be there to assist the student population.
My experience comes from attending the Hartford campus, so I can’t speak personally about what it’s like to attend Storrs or other UConn campuses. Still, from personal experience alone, handling classes, schedule changes and any other administrative work that a student needs to process is challenging.
UConn needs to hire more staff, period. Specifically, more staff in their regional campuses. This shortage slows down the system, the students, and basically everything in the school. Students had to take time out of their day to join the pop-up advising session, and with the time allotted for each session (two hours), it was impossible for everyone to get the help they needed.
UConn Hartford is also a federally designated Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI) and HIS (Hispanic-Serving Institution). As a school that is designated to serve minority students, lacking these resources means that students who come to UConn, specifically to one of the regional campuses, are unable to access the true cost of their education. It isn’t okay to have a promise of expensive, useful resources and have these students find out that they can’t even access them.
Say there are two hours per session and 40 students in the room. Each student gets three minutes of the advisor’s time, which makes no sense. Each meeting would amount to saying hello to the advisor and them counting on you knowing what to do, rendering the whole system useless.
Each student needs a sufficient advising session to make it worthwhile. If you just started out at UConn, you might need more time, which would work if you had an advisor to meet with.
To be clear, I am in no way, shape or form blaming the academic advisor, the staff or anyone who works in that office; it is not their fault that they are understaffed and unable to accommodate the school’s students. It’s unfair to the advisor as well—while she does have staff there to support her, that stress is not maintainable and is difficult for her as well. I am sure that with holding interviews and having to do all the other work one would do as staff; she barely has the time to make things work.
I know that there used to be more advisors on the Hartford campus, and that most of them have left for other roles (either at UConn or elsewhere), which created the chaos we have this semester. I genuinely have not had the ability to set up a one-on-one meeting with my advisor, and I know other students had the same issue.
The staff is working tirelessly to ensure that students are getting the help they need — and while I can’t speak about the hiring process or what goes on behind the scenes, it is clear that more support is needed now. It’s time for UConn to put more effort into helping the regional campus students. If more advisors are coming next semester, that would be wonderful! But if there aren’t, we’re in for a repeat of this semester, and I don’t think anyone wants that.