With the huge volumes of students interested in competitive health-related pathways, colleges have needed to find creative approaches to guide these students on their pathway. At the last SUNY Student Success Summit, Monroe Community College (MCC) shared their curricular efforts to provide an alternate pathway for students to gain a credential in Health Studies as they progress toward their goals. The next progression to support these students was to ensure that they have access to high quality academic advisement from advisors prepared to help them navigate their path. Much like other colleges, the number of students far exceeded the capacity of health-related faculty, and shrinking budgets due to declining enrollment meant that we had to find a way to make due with existing resources. Additionally, the idiosyncrasies and inherent difficult conversations of health-related advising left many faculty hesitant to engage in advising health-related students. Using a cohort-based model, we recruited and trained faculty advisors from disciplines across the college to support our health pathway students.

Some key components of our approach include targeted faculty recruitment, an initial competency assessment, and a structured, continuous training where each step builds on previously established foundations. A culminating activity of role-playing with different advising scenarios helps faculty advisors put their knowledge to use and gain comfort in the skills they have learned. By connecting faculty to each other through the cohort-based approach, they are able to see each other as valuable sources of support and information in addition to the support that can be provide by those such as professional advisors.

This session will provide an overview of MCC’s successes and lessons learned in this recruitment and training approach, and provide a framework for other colleges to create similar initiatives on their own campuses. We will share the benefits of cohort-based training, methods for providing on-going training and updates to advisors, and strategies to support faculty throughout their advising journey. We’ll also share some of the resources we have developed including an online health career exploration module, a page on our college website with collected resources and FAQs, and a searchable, online advising handbook.