Rather than have students meander all over campus for advising, only to settle on using a SOAR audit, EWU is building a new centralized advising program.

On Feb. 26, Heather Page, director of academic advising, and Chris Robbins, project manager for the new advising overhaul, presented the board of trustees with a new structure for academic advising. The changes to the program will begin in fall quarter of 2016 and will be fully enacted by fall 2017.

Robbins said the current system cannot support the amount of students enrolled. The new system would not only be able to handle an expanding campus, but would also place all undergraduate advisers in one centralized location.

This centralized location would be the first place students go for an advising. Page said that in this central location, students would be assigned to a team of advisers who are specially trained for particular majors or programs and the students’ interests.

A team would lessen the caseloads each adviser would be assigned.

“One [adviser] might serve a large group of 600-700 students … it’s impossible for advisers to schedule that in a quarter,” Page said.

For Eastern, this means more jobs. Robbins said he would like to see teams of advisers include three to five people where each team represents particular fields of study, such as global initiatives, athletics, honors and diversity programs.

With the new system, Page said there would be a focus on communication. Students would be able to build a relationship with their advising team, and the advising teams would be able to reach out to faculty advisers.

As of now, Page said she views advising at EWU like a transaction. The only time students talk to their advisers is when they have a registration hold. “Getting rid of that hold distracts from the most important part of advising,” she said.

Students should be taught how to reach their outcomes, that way they are not sitting at 200 credits thinking about changing majors, Page said.

A new advising structure will not only affect students, but faculty as well.

With new hires, university president Mary Cullinan said in an email to EWU employees that current advising staffers would continue to be employed, but changes to their job descriptions may occur.

Lisa Olson, representing EWU’s public school employees union, said she was concerned about the massive changes to advising when she found out about it from concerned members of her union in early February.

Olson said she was personally aware of how much care was taken in making the plan, but said she hopes that the same care is taken into implementation.

“Change can be exciting and highly motivating, but also frightening … don’t lose sight of the human element in this,” Olson said.

The changes to the advising program have already begun. Robbins said while there is no official physical location for advising, new staff will be hired and training will begin in spring quarter and continue through the summer. The 2016-2017 academic year will allow the administration to press out kinks within the system.

“By 2017, brand new students will not know it’s a new system,” Robbins said.