UT San Antonio celebrated National Advisor Appreciation Day on April 17. The university made a post on Instagram as an expression of gratitude. An appreciation day for one of the worst performing offices on campus shows the level of disregard that UT San Antonio admin has towards students who have repeatedly complained about advising. Showing appreciation for someone who struggles to respond to emails is like showing appreciation for that one person on the group project that does not do any work.
The typical university student comes directly out of high school and has no idea how to navigate enrollment. UT San Antonio expects them to sink or swim on their own without any help. Students are expected to perform the work of an advisor on their DegreeWorks portal, with minimal direction from staff. Students repeatedly note that there is minimal communication from their advisors, a lack of guidance, difficulty making appointments with advising staff, as well as many misunderstandings and an unwillingness to help with degree changes. This makes it difficult for students to plan out their futures and the career path they would like to take. There is unnecessary confusion for students as they have to advocate and push advisors to simply help them with their degree related issues. Many students at UT San Antonio have not had a good experience with their academic advisor. Students struggle to graduate with their degree when their advisor is nowhere to be found.
Having an advising office is pointless if it rarely answers email, phone calls or questions. Students have complained for years that the advising at UT San Antonio does not meet the expectations that a world-class university should have. The university employs seven advisors at the College of Liberal and Fine Arts, which has 6,500 students enrolled. This is not sufficient to handle the caseloads from thousands of students or communicate effectively with the student body. Understaffing may be a major reason the university staff at UT San Antonio has an unusually high turnover rate. The recorded turnover rate for the university in 2020 was 27% for university staff. The national average during that time was 15%. If the university is running its advising staff into burnout with high workloads, then leadership should invest in the department by hiring more advisors and office staff instead of offering an “appreciation day.”
Poor performance from the advising office damages the reputation of UT San Antonio. If UT San Antonio wants to market itself as a renowned research university and the third highest-ranked public research institution in Texas, then it needs to invest in an academic advising office that lives up to that reputation. Talk is cheap, but investing in students’ futures and retaining staff shows real appreciation by the UT San Antonio leadership. Having an appreciation day for advisors who do not advise is unadvisable.
