December 12, 2001

Hello CUES members,

Happy holidays to all. We are all busy with the end of the year activities and I wanted to bring everyone up to date on events related to CUES in Ottawa. The Commission for Advising Undecided/Exploratory Students business meeting held October 12, 2001 was attended by over 75 members. I reported on the two
objectives from last year that have been accomplished.

  1. Establish a comprehensive web site to be a resource for members. A steering committee was formed last year to work on this goal, George Steele, Jean Martin, Mike McKay, Sarah Hammond, Tom Kenyon and Ruth Hussey. This site is now up and running and the committee will continue to update the information and to add new resources. Anyone with suggestions for items to include can contact any member of the committee. This web site links from the NACADA homepage under Commissions.
  2. Develop a list serve for our membership. The following information was distributed on how to sign up to be on the CUES list serve.
Send e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ksu.edu with this command format in the message:

SUB N-UNDECIDED Your Name

 You don't have to give your e-mail address, because the list serve software will get it off the From" line in the e-mail header. list serve will generally send a message asking you to confirm your subscription request, and will then send a notification/welcome message when you've been added to a list. Note that you can subscribe to any open lists on your own. If you try to subscribe to a closed list or to one that has limited subscription, list serve will send a notice with further information.

We discussed the role of commission liaisons to the Regions and are in the process of updating our volunteers for that position. Below I have included an overview of that position and if you are interested in being a liaison or on a team for your region please send me an e-mail.

Overview:

Commission Liaisons to Regions serve as critical links between NACADA regions and commission chairs. Ideally, liaisons will be sought for each of NACADA's geographical regions for each commission. If more than one person is interested, a regional team could be formed. The regional liaisons/teams within each commission will engage in discussions with each other and with other members of their region to continue NACADA's support of commission-related activities.

Position responsibilities could include the following:

1.  Engage in e-mail discussions with colleagues from other regions to share trends and innovative approaches to commission activities at regional conferences, and to discuss potential solutions to common issues.

2.  Encourage regional conference attendance and solicit proposal submissions from regional colleagues.

3. Participate in regional liaison forums at regional and national conferences.

4. Provide representation of commission at regional conference and consider hosting commission meeting or roundtable as regional conference programs permit.

5. Provide annual report to commission chair (with copy to regional representative) on commission-related activities that occurred at regional conference. Recommend quality regional conference presentations or formats for possible inclusion in national conference program.

6. Submit items regarding regional commission activities for inclusion on commission web site.

7. Serve as a resource for commission chair and regional representative on potential long-term issues, such as special projects and potential budget requests.

8. Assist commission chair with the national conference proposal review process. Similarly, assist regional representative with review of regional conference proposals.

9. Coordinate efforts of regional team if more than one commission member is identified from region.

10. Communicate with regional representative regarding commission-related issues/ proposals at least one month prior to conference proposals deadline. Commission liaisons to regions report directly to commission chair and indirectly to their regional representative.

 These are suggestions and not mandates so do not be intimidated by the long list and consider being part of a region team.

We then broke into four groups with a facilitator to discuss practices, problems and strategies when advising undecided/exploratory students. Participants gave very high evaluations to this format and mentioned many times the value of sharing ideas and connecting with others in similar situations. We had some very interesting discussions on topics such as learning communities, interest houses, first-year seminars, peer mentoring, choosing a major and the relationship to career planning, monitoring academic progress, and use of technology. Roundtable discussion appears to be an excellent way to use the time at National Conferences set aside for Commission meetings.

CUES sponsored six conference sessions in Ottawa that I hope many of you were able to attend. A special thanks goes to those presenters: Jane Emery and Robert Campbell - "Academic Advising and Career Planning: Any Connections?", Mary Taylor-Johnson - "Understanding Student decision Making", Thomas Kenyon -"Choosing Your Major: From Frustrated and Overwhelmed to Making a good Decision", Jennifer Mayhall and Linda Taylor - "Applying a New Voice to the Undecided Student", Barbara Miller and Stacy Woycheck - "Predicting the Future of Exploratory students: Can We Do It?", Laura Brown, Karen Feldbaum, Johanna Matyas, and Julian Parrott - "Live and Learn: Advising Exploratory Students in Residential Communities".

The regional conferences are coming up soon and I hope that CUES sessions will be well represented. I also recommend that region liaisons facilitate roundtable discussions at their regional conferences and will give me reports on activities there.

Best wishes for the New Year.

Ruth Hussey, Chair
Commission on Advising Undecided/Exploratory Students