Humanities and Social Sciences advisor Sara Hausladen with student Noemi Garzon Villanueva.
BY JOE TOUGAS
Ben Stolee arrived at Minnesota State Mankato in fall of 2014. Like so many others, it was his first serious foray into independent living. He was an hour away from his native New Prague, where he had already received colleges credits through PSEO.
“I had been a really good student all through high school,” said Stolee, 26. “But you know, that first year you’re on your own. I didn’t want to do school anymore.”
His classes went on, but he wasn’t in them. He wasn’t taking school seriously at all and his grades dipped into the danger zone.
“I got suspended from school and had to leave for an entire academic year,” he recalled. And when he returned after that year, it happened again. He stayed away from college and found work and went at it full-time for several years. But he regretted not finishing school and returned one last time for another go at it in 2022.
That’s when he began working in earnest with Jodie Ward, an advisor, with whom he’d meet with about four times a semester. While Stolee was embarrassed and worried if he had what it took, Ward was steadfast in getting him on track, he said.
Ben Stolee, upcoming graduate and grad student.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without her,” said Stolee, who this spring will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in geospatial studies while pursuing a master’s degree in the same area. “She was absolutely amazing. She never made me feel ashamed for having done so poorly at first.
“The first time I got that straight-A record,” he said, “she just started tearing up.”
An advising system in place
Of the many ways Minnesota State Mankato strives to make life easier and more successful for students, few programs are more tailor-made toward a student’s success than the University’s advising system. Here, the strategy is a little ahead of its time.
“Even when they are prospects, they are meeting with our professional advising crew,” said Sara Granberg-Rademacker, director of the University Advising department, where staff help students at the early stages of navigating the big picture of college life and study.
“It can be anything from ‘Who’s my advisor?’ to ‘I think I’m going to be suspended, what do I do?’” Granberg-Rademacker said at one of University Advising’s locations, in the Memorial Library lower level.
“We welcome every question with a very non-judgmental ‘Come on in, let’s figure this out together.’”
Once enrolled, students who attend orientation meet with the same professional advising team to go over particulars of the year ahead, including planning and registering for their first semesters.
It’s plenty more proactive than generations before, when students frequently discovered advisors only when situations reached what Granberg terms triage. And while the University’s advising centers do plenty of triage, they offer a great deal more. From outreaching to students with academic alerts to resolving graduation concerns, advising centers located in each college and the School of Nursing are hands-on advocates, present to problem-solve with students.
In the course of a student’s time at the University, the advising available starts with introducing students to important advising tools such as the catalog and degree audit the first year or two, to a specific advisor once a major is declared. At that stage, advising duties are taken on by faculty in that area of study. These are the advisors on hand who will guide students up to and through the final stretch of obtaining their degree.
The Advising Center
If a new student is struggling, faculty know to steer them toward the advising center in their college or the University Advising Center for support.
“We want students to know they can come to us if they’re having difficulties we’re not picking up on. We try to establish that from the very beginning,” Granberg said, noting a new slogan shared with incoming students last summer: “When in doubt, seek your advising team out.”
“Your situation may not feel like it’s academic advising related, but if a conflict with your roommate is leading you to skip class and you’re struggling, we can talk with you through it, help you brainstorm solutions, even do some advocacy work on your behalf.”
Advising centers are also good spaces for big-picture planning, or even a little soul-searching about the path thus far.
“We can have in-depth conversations on the front end,” Granberg said. “If you’re struggling in the natural sciences, should you be a nurse?”
These conversations get to be frank and less awkward than if they waited, she added.
“It’s a lot easier to tell an advisor, who’s more a generalist, that this field I thought was for me really isn’t for me. Instead of telling somebody who’s devoted their life to studying biology that ‘No, biology isn’t something l like.’
“So we’re hoping that builds a comfort level so students who are coming to that conclusion themselves and are worried about what mom and dad are going to say, or they’re worried what peers are going to say—we coach through that.”
The focus of faculty advising
In the psychology department, Emily Stark is often the person who knows where the answers are hiding. She’s been a professor in the department for 17 years and advising for nearly as many.
When she can’t solve an issue directly on her own for a student, her experience allows her to match up students with the people who can.
With an average of 40 students to advise per semester, typical issues for her involve going over and double-checking a student’s academic path.
“Usually they don’t have an issue, they just want to make sure they’re on track,” Stark said. “I love those meetings. Because you do want someone else looking at everything to make sure you’re on track. We don’t want you to get close to graduation and realize you’re four credits short.”
Another aspect of her work involves helping transfer students apply the credit they’ve already acquired into the graduation requirements for the psychology program.
“When you transfer a class to MSU it doesn’t automatically wind up in psychology,” Stark said. “We may have to approve it as a substitution for our classes…We want to be really welcoming to transfers. … It’s fine if your class is a little bit different. If it’s fulfilling the same type of thing as what we want you to do, that’s fine, but you need to talk to a human person who takes a look at it and thinks about all this.”
She has also dealt with panicky students who are failing in a class and want to know the ramifications of dropping if need be.
“That’s where we talk about well, if it drops you below full-time status, you may want to talk to financial aid. Or if it’s going to affect your academic completion, we don’t want you to wind up on academic warning without notice.
Sometimes, she added, her role is to let the student know that dropping a class isn’t a tragedy.
It is OK if this isn’t going great for you. You can take it again. You're not terrible (laughs) you’re fine. This happens a lot, and when you take something again it will replace that grade. You don’t want to make a habit out of it, but stuff happens, and we get it.”
Advisors are ideal advocates if a class is cut or unavailable, as can happen with low-enrollment upper-level courses or classes that have hit capacity.
“I also tell them it’s good to have alternatives. This might be the elective you want but is there another class that can substitute. “As long as a student has thought about it and isn’t super-tied to one version of things happening. Things happen, and sometimes it’s that change-management: Its OK, things are going to be a bit different, and we’ll figure it out.”
In her current position since 2018, Granberg herself began advising in 2004 with the then-College of Arts and Humanities, followed by 10 years coordinating advising for undecided students. She will still get word of student success stories long after they’ve walked through the advising process.
"Even though I am not as student-facing anymore, I still get goosebumps hearing stories of student progress from advisors," she said. "College students are so fascinating. Walking alongside them throughout their journeys is an absolute privilege."