OSU Academic Advising Agreements and Standards of Practice

To put advisors in the best position to be successful in their work, new advisors should receive at least two tiers of positional training in their onboarding. New advisors are strongly encouraged to attend and participate in the institutional New Advisor Retreat series to gain a big picture overview of institutional advising values, policies, resources, and practices. They should also receive guided training and onboarding from their supervisor in their academic unit. 

•    All OSU undergraduate students must have a primary advisor associated with their major program of study assigned to them in Banner.
•    Students may also have secondary advisors or other assigned relationships in this system in accordance with their academic program or institutional support network (aka Beaver Hub “Success Team”).
•    For guidance on the Banner Advisor Assignment process, see this document in Canvas for Advisors.
•    Directors of Advising for each college have access to processes for bulk changes to advisor assignments.
 

•    Since our adoption of Degree Works (locally known as MyDegrees) as our Degree Audit tool, standard practice and expectation has been that advising engagement with students be tracked using the Checklist Notes Feature in MyDegrees. Students change majors, add programs, and engage with multiple members of the OSU community who have a stake in their academic journey. Good notes help with collective support of students’ academic experiences. As part of advising community work towards consistency in the first-year student experience, the Academic Advising Council (AAC) officially adopted an Agreement on November 13, 2013, that “the notes function in MyDegrees Function must be utilized to track students’ contact with advisors”.

•    The same AAC work in 2013 yielded the creation of the Guidelines for MyDegrees Checklist Notes. This document is available in Canvas for Advisors. The AAC reviewed and revised these Guidelines in 2024 because our new Salesforce CRM portal (locally known as Beaver Hub) also has a notes feature. The updated document includes the adopted recommendation for keeping MyDegrees as our primary repository for notes for the official recommendation.
 

The AAC agreement from November 13, 2013, also included codification of advising frequency. All first-time, first-year students are to see their advisor every term. This accounts for that population being lower context for understanding how to navigate the university and creates assurance that they have guidance in this critical time in their transition. After the first year, frequency is dictated by the college. All students are encouraged to connect with their advisor every term. Some, depending on college, may be mandated to do so, while the bare minimum for students should be once-a-year contact. As part of the New Student Advising workplan approved by Human Resources in February 2025, there is more guidance for advisor engagement with transfer students in their first year, as they too are population who may need extra support in their transition to OSU. 
 
 

•    With the implementation of Beaver Hub, it is now standard institutional practice to use the appointment scheduling feature in Beaver Hub. This tool allows any undergraduate student in Beaver Hub to schedule an appointment with an advisor. If an advisor is Banner assigned to an advisor, that advisor will show in the student’s “Success Team”. If the advisor is not Banner assigned, the student can use an advisor’s Beaver Hub Profile Link to set up a “Temporary Relationship” to schedule an advisor not assigned to them. More information on Beaver Hub Appointments can be found here.

•    Prospective OSU students and Inactive/Returning students who predated our launch of Beaver Hub are not loaded into the Beaver Hub platform, which means they cannot schedule through this tool. Advisors can use Microsoft Bookings as an alternative appointment scheduling system for students in these populations. More information on Bookings can be found here.

•    Advising units (colleges/schools/departments/programs) are strongly encouraged to have scheduling information and processes clearly articulated on their unit websites. 

•    Change of Program is guided by a workflow process in Banner. This workflow is initiated by the advisor in the destination program. Advisors in the program that the student is departing can guide students on how to switch according to information provided on this website.

•    One exception to the above is minors. Some, but not all, programs offering minors have authorized any advisor to submit a change form on behalf of a student wanting to add a minor from their program. Details on minors and which fall under this change practice are listed here.

•    In April of 2023, the Academic Advising Council adopted Change of Campus agreements to establish consistency to how advisors support students who wish to change from one OSU campus to another. The agreements and the processes are outlined here.

•    The Office of the Registrar has created a reference guide for Exceptions Entry in MyDegrees. You can download and review that guide here.

•    It is important to reiterate that advisors should not enter any exceptions involving transfer courses and Bacc Core/Core Ed. These requests are processed centrally via student submission to the Transfer Credits Reevaluation Request Form (more information here). Alternatively, advisors can submit on behalf of the student if you send the course syllabi, student’s name, student’s ID, their transfer institution, and specifics on the request to [email protected]. Additional guidance on MyDegrees Exceptions (including 3rd take exceptions) can be found here.

•    Advisors may be authorized to enter exceptions towards major requirements. Colleges should have processes and policies in alignment with the reference guide mentioned above. Advisors can consult with their college Director of Advising for more specifics.

•    There are varying practices and authorizations to provide overrides on campus. The standard point of contact for an override request is the Department Contact(s) listed at the end of the course information/description in OSU’s Schedule of Classes. The individual or office can direct students to any nuanced process they have for an override request. 

•    Many schools and departments are now using override request forms, and department schedulers can integrate links to those forms into the Schedule of Classes details for a course if they wish.

•    Regular contact with advisors is strongly encouraged to assure students are understanding and progressing on their academic pathway, connecting with a thought partner to help them make meaning of their overall OSU experiences, and getting appropriate support where needed. Standard practice across the institution is that all first-time, first year students have an academic advising appointment every term in their first year. This was codified in the same AAC Agreement adopted on November 13, 2013, that standardized MyDegrees notes usage. Some colleges extend this practice across every term of their students’ undergraduate experience, while others encourage frequent contact and only mandate one meeting a year. 

•    Advisors are strongly encouraged to utilize the MyDegrees Planner tool with students. This tool is mutually accessible by the advisor and the student and serves as an excellent space for the student and advisor to create abbreviated or comprehensive academic plans depending on individual or programmatic needs. Plans can also be flagged as active or locked, which can be useful towards other institutional processes like Satisfactory Academic Progress Appeals for Financial Aid eligibility. 

•    Advisors are notified at the end of each term when the Office of the Registrar completes its end of term processing, which includes the calculation of academic standing. Shortly after, advisors can access two CORE reports: ADV0450 (Academic Standing Report) and ADV0451 (STAR CORE report). The latter sources awareness of Corvallis campus first-time first-year students flagged with Academic Standing Hold. Students with this hold are part of OSU's STAR (Students Taking Academic Responsibility) Initiative and are required to have a mandated and targeted conversation with their advisor to develop an action plan towards academic improvement with a goal of mitigating future academic suspension. Comprehensive information about STAR protocol can be found in the STAR modules in Canvas for Advisors.

•    While the STAR initiative is the only institutional mandated intervention for students on Academic Warning or Academic Probation, advising units are encouraged to outreach and offer support for second year and beyond undergraduate students who land in negative academic standing. 

•    OSU has a whole suite of technological tools that can be deployed in support of advising work. Canvas for Advisors has a frequently updated resource, “OSU Advising Tools and Why You Would Use Them', that summarizes functionality of each tool and how it aids the work of advisors. Advisors can find this document on this Canvas site.

•    OSU advising is profoundly influenced by our quarter system infrastructure. That we have three shorter primary terms (fall/winter/spring) as opposed to two longer semesters (fall/spring) means we have more registration cycles on a shorter timeline. That gives us a shorter runway for proactive advising strategies and to meet the needs of our students. Canvas for Advisors includes a Proactive Advising module that includes a toolkit with tips and templates and visual representation of optimal timing for proactive advising activities: 

•    OSU has historically used a registration pin as a gatekeeping mechanism to assure student contact with their advisors. Starting in Fall 2025, OSU is shifting from registration pins to registration holds, a move necessitated by renovations to registration processes and Student Information Systems upgrades. We have a long-standing agreement where advisors will not release a pin for students not in their major, and this will continue as we transition to registration holds. An advisor is permitted to release the hold if the student is meeting with them as part of a major change process. For students pursuing double majors or double degrees, the registration hold can be lifted by either advisor, but advisors with a shared student are encouraged to nudge student to engage with their other advisor – both during the appointment in a visible MyDegrees note.  

•    It is common for students to have multiple advisors/academic counselors due to the nature of their academic program and/or alignment with an affinity population or support program. Any combination of primary major advisor, double degree advisor, Honors College advisor, Athletic Academic Counselor, EOP Academic Counselor, among others could be a part of a student’s Success Team. Each has a unique relationship with the student that guides how they support that student. It is optimal and recommended for those Success Team members to work collaboratively to support the student. This means communicating with each other directly, capturing relevant information in MyDegrees notes and encouraging students to connect with another member of their team when their situation warrants.