Two Michigan State University College of Natural Science advisers, Kate Thome and Kanchan Pavangadkar, were recently named MSU Assistant Provost for Undergraduate Education, or APUE, Fellows for 2019-2020.
The APUE fellowships are part of MSU’s Proactive Advising Project, which focuses on assessing student experiences with advisers and offering targeted professional development to advisers to improve students’ experiences with academic advising. Fellows report to Debra Dotterer, assistant dean for university advising, and serve as the lead for one of two proactive advising working groups—professional development or assessment and metrics.
Each fellow will meet biweekly with their respective group to address the short- and long-term needs and priorities. For short-term issues, they will develop and support the actions necessary to address them; for long-term issues, they will develop timelines and action steps.
Each fellow will report monthly to the advising leadership on their committee’s progress and gather feedback. Fellows will also meet regularly with Dotterer and Charles Jackson, academic specialist for student success initiatives, to provide updates on their working group’s progress and achievements.
Pavangadkar, an undergraduate adviser for the neuroscience program, will be the fellow for the assessment and metrics group, which reviews current advising assessments to identify gaps in assessment across the university.
“I have been a part of the assessment and metrics working group for the past two years and I’m very excited to take on a leadership role as an APUE fellow for this area,” Pavangadkar said. “This group has given me an opportunity to work with and learn from colleagues across campus who share my passion and commitment to the field of academic advising. As an APUE fellow, I will lead the working group on assessing the academic advising climate data at MSU and brainstorm ideas that can be implemented to enhance the academic advising experience for students.”
Kate Thome, a human biology and preprofessional adviser in NatSci’s Academic Student Affairs office, will be the advising fellow for theprofessional development and training group, which assesses professional development activities for advisors to ascertain needs and wants for professional development opportunities.
“As the advising fellow for this group, I will lead a committee of academic advisers in organizing professional development opportunities for advisors across campus,” Thome said. “Professionally, I am looking forward to the opportunity to lead a group of my peers in developing training that is desired by our colleagues across campus and, through helping to make sure advisers have the training we need, ensuring a quality advising experience for our students.”
The fellowship year covers 20% of each fellow’s time and runs from May 2019 to May 2020.