I have been Director of Advising Program Development at UMF since 2006, and I’ve been involved in retention and student success efforts at UMF and in the University of Maine System for many years now. I am also on the advisory board of the Liberal Studies program at Kennebec Valley Community College, and worked on crafting the Gen Ed Block transfer program for all Maine state universities and community colleges.
UMF has almost entirely faculty advising, and recently scored above average in all categories in the NSSE advising survey for all institutions using the unit that year (over 300 nationwide). Our advising is far from perfect, but it is much better than it used to be, and it’s pretty good for an institution with essentially no professional advisors. I gave a presentation at the NACADA Region 1 conference in spring 2018 titled “Improving Faculty Advising: Some Things that Worked for Us”. I’ll be doing a poster with the same title at the NACADA national conference this coming fall.
I am also on the Philosophy faculty at UMF. I teach a first year seminar called “#Success”, a course for undecided students called “College and Life Choices”, and several philosophy courses including Philosophy of Language, and Environmental Philosophy.