The Role of First Year Advisors

We are about building supportive relationships with first year students that foster a sense of belonging and help eliminate barriers to success at EMU. We strive for collaboration and partnership across campus, helping our students develop the agency to solve any problem that they may encounter during their enrollment at EMU.

First Year Advisors will:

• support and guide first year students academically, socially, and functionally (business office, financial aid, health paperwork, etc.) as they navigate college life
• proactively remind students of important deadlines and milestones they need to consider during their first year.   
• collaborate with academic departments, student life, athletics, registrar, and career services. 
• help students connect with campus services (like counseling, faith and spiritual life, tutoring, etc.)

How Did First Year Advising Start At EMU?

Our new first year advising model was designed to help address the opportunities for increasing student sense of belonging and student success identified through institutional conversations prior to and during our 10 year re-accreditation process.   First year advising was selected is 2020 as our Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), which is a key piece in the re-accreditation process.  EMU’s first-year advising is designed to increase students’ success and retention, but also to build up their sense of belonging in the EMU community. This proactive and personalized first year advising structure ensures that all first year students have a built in support structure from the first day they step foot on campus.  

All first year students are assigned to a first year advisor and will remain assigned to this first year advisor until after their first year of enrollment. During their second year, students will be assigned to a faculty advisor in their major of choice, where they will remain until graduation.  First year students will still declare a major and have access to our wonderful faculty in their respective departments.  In fact, this first year advising structure should help faculty have more time and energy to devote to helping first year students (and all students) with questions related to career opportunities and classroom questions.  

First Year advisors work collaboratively with the Assistant Provost for Student Success, along with various other offices, including the registrar’s office, financial assistance office, career services, intercultural office, CoachLink program, business office, athletics, and the student life office.