VCOM Academic Advising Handbook

Academic Advising Mission Statement The mission of the VCOM Academic Advising Program is to promote student success by empowering students to take responsibility for achieving their academic goals. Academic Advising, a shared responsibility among the student, advisor and college community, promotes individual growth consistent with the students’ academic, personal, and professional goals through direct service to the student and collaboration with faculty and other campus resources.

Academic Advising Goals

• To help students explore educational, career, and life goals. • To teach students how to monitor progress toward established educational goals. • To encourage students to utilize college support services and community resources. • To provide students with a professional, leadership, and academic role model.

The Role of the Academic Advisor Serving as a faculty advisor is both an honor and a responsibility. Academic Advisors are a valuable part of the overall academic support provided to students at VCOM. Your advising relationship with students provides them with another knowledgeable and supportive individual to discuss their concerns or share their successes with. Advisors are usually among the first to notice when a student is having academic or personal difficulty. As an Academic Advisor, you are in a unique position to offer useful advice to the student throughout their journey in medical education. Students truly benefit by your mentorship! The Center for Institutional, Faculty, and Student Success assigns each new OMS 1 student a biomedical faculty Academic Advisor at the beginning of the OMS 1 year. During the student’s OMS 2 year, they are also assigned a clinical faculty Academic Advisor who can provide more guidance specific to clinical rotations and applying to a residency program. Students on all campuses in their OMS 3 and 4 years may continue to seek guidance from their biomedical faculty Academic Advisor but will primarily rely on their clinical faculty Academic Advisor, DSME, or Department Chairs. Many advisor relationships continue through graduation and beyond, regardless of your status as a biomedical or clinical faculty member, which speaks to the power of the advisor/advisee relationship!

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