Serious Responsibilities

Taking Our Responsibilities Seriously
1/18/07 at 5:40:01 PM

— Rebecca Rassier, Community Coordinator
Individualized Degree Programs

In the last newsletter, HNS asked the million dollar question: how do you reach the unreachable? Even though IDP functions more like a departmental advising office than a college advising office in the "transactions" we have with students, we often function as a college office when it comes to students who have lost their academic way. College offices usually see these students because of the MDR hold or the PB hold, but our office sees these students when they have declared BIS or IDIM (and are therefore "freed" of the MDR hold) but have not had a proposal approved and are therefore "shackled" with an OX or OZ hold.

We take this responsibility seriously, perhaps because of my college advising work before coming to IDP. We try to cut students a little slack to figure out their program, but once we have told then what they need to do and how they can go about doing it, they are expected to do it or they won't be able to register.

The example: We heard from a student via email yesterday who wanted to register but had a hold from our office. He sent two pages of rambling writing that did not offer any information about the program he planned to develop with IDP. He admitted that he should have done more, but he experienced mental health issues the past semester.

I took a look at his record: last semester, he earned a C-, a W, and two incompletes. He had a Spring PB hold as well. And in our file notes, there was the following message sent to him the first week of last semester:

"We have lifted the hold for fall semester, so you can register for courses, provided you decide upon a plan for which direction you would like to go within this next semester. If you decide you want to pursue IT then you should speak with your CLA advisor about how to change colleges. If you do want to pursue something with us, then we will require *a full proposal draft and a full course list* for your proposed program. We will put a hold on your SPRING semester registration which we will not remove until we receive these materials.

In the meantime, we advise you take this semester to consider which direction you'd like to go. I suggest you use the resources available on our website (below) to begin to draft a possible list of courses for BIS or IDIM. Then you can email the list to us for feedback and meet with us to discuss it further at an appointment prior to beginning the full draft. You may want to check into the resources available at the Career and Community Learning Center located at 135 Johnston Hall for more information on researching the career paths (and their recommended undergraduate preparation) that most interest you.

Again the holds are designed to ensure that students are making progress towards a particular program. Please feel free to meet with us further to discuss possible BIS/IDIM options with us further."

We didn't hear from the student again until yesterday (nor did his advising community). We won't be removing the hold this time around until he does the work we require. It's a tough stance to take: the student wants to register, among other reasons, so he can get financial aid and health insurance. It's not easy having to be the office that draws the line in the sand (or snow). But to ensure that the student "reaches" for the resources that may help him (CLA advising, CCLC, UCCS), we're drawing the line.

Here's another question for you: how does a person who eats healthy food, gets lots of exercise and rest and doesn't have much contact with people under the age of 18 get three colds in four months?

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