Advisor/Advisee Roles and Responsibilities
Advisors have the following responsibilities:
- Help students clarify and develop realistic educational career plans.
- Assist students in planning a program consistent with their abilities and interests.
- Monitor progress toward educational/career goals. Help identify opportunities.
- Discuss/reinforce relationships between instructional program and occupation/career.
- Help students learn to become proactive on their own behalf.
- Interpret and provide rationale for instructional policies, procedures, and requirements.
- Refer students when academic, attitudinal, attendance, or personal problems require intervention by other professionals.
- Inform students of services available for remediation, academic assistance, and other needs.
- Approve all designated educational transactions (e.g., schedule, drops and adds, withdrawals, change of major, waivers or petitions).
- Maintain an advising file for each advisee.
- Develop a caring relationship with advisees.
- Request reassignment of advisee to another advisor if necessary.
Advisees have the following responsibilities:
- Clarify their personal values, abilities, interests, and goals.
- Take a proactive role in determining their future. See “Becoming a proactive advisee.”
- Contact/make appointments with the advisor when required or in need of assistance.
- Write down all appointments in an organized way.
- Notify advisor promptly if the appointment cannot be kept.
- Prepare for advising sessions and bring appropriate resources or materials.
- Follow through on actions identified during each advising session.
- Act in a timely manner and turn in each form by its deadline.
- Become knowledgeable and adhere to institutional policies, procedures, and requirements.
- Accept final responsibility for all decisions.
- Request reassignment of a different advisor if necessary.
- Evaluate the advising system, when required, in order to strengthen the advising process.
(adapted/modified from David S. Crockett)

