Student and Department Academic Information
Reviewing Majors and Minors in Academic Planning
In Academic Planning, there are different roles given to advisors. The most common advising roles are academic; major; and minor. The pre-health advisor has been given a pre-health advising role by students who have granted this permission. All of these levels of advisor status allow view access to a student’s electronic file in Academic Planning. Beyond that, the levels of responsibility and system permission differ between roles.
The academic advisor is the primary advisor. Each student only has one academic advisor at any given time. Occasionally, another person may be given academic advisor access on a temporary, time-limited basis in special circumstances, e.g. summer advising at Wabash 101. The academic advisor is the person with the final responsibility for:
- Meeting with and reviewing schedule plans with the student
- Receiving and approving proposed schedules from the student via Academic Planning
- Approving courses via Academic Planning before a student can add them to his schedule
- Both approving individual course drops/withdrawals and performing the drop/withdrawal action within Academic Planning
- Signing petitions and providing other permissions that are generally described as requiring “advisor approval”
The major advisor is the department or program chair of the student’s declared major(s). A student will have a major advisor assigned for each major he has declared. Faculty members who are not department or program chairs will not have students assigned to them as major advisors.
The minor advisor is the department or program chair of a student’s declared minor(s). A student will have a minor advisor assigned for each minor he has declared. Faculty members who are not department or program chairs will not have students assigned to them as minor advisors.
The pre-health advisor has been given permission by the student to have advisor access, based on the need to monitor academic progress as the student prepares to apply to graduate school in one of the health professions. Only students who have signed a document giving this permission will have a pre-health advisor.
View access to a student’s record in Academic Planning is provided to the major, minor, and pre-health advisors so that they may fulfill the responsibility of affirming the progress of their major and minor students as they approach graduation. Typically, this level of review has occurred over winter break prior to the spring semester of the student’s senior year; however, it can also be useful to review progress in the summer prior to a student’s senior year to catch any errors related to completion of annually offered courses that are in the fall. This access and review process should also be helpful to chairs to help plan and anticipate the courses and/or number of sections of courses that need to be scheduled based on the needs of students in their majors or minors.
Because there are different roles for advisors, students will have multiple people assigned to them with an advisor role. Many students will have three people assigned; a student whose academic advisor is also his major or minor department chair may have fewer; a student with multiple majors and/or minors may have more. However, it is always the academic advisor who functions as the primary advisor.
On the Advising Overview screen in Academic Planning, an advisor can search for his or her advisees and filter the search by advising role. Thus, an advisor who only wants to search for his or her academic advisees can select “Academic” from the Filter by Advisor Role drop-down menu, click Go, and see a list of only academic advisees. Follow the same process but select “Major” or Minor” to see only those advisees.
Informer 5 Dashboard of Departmental Data
All department chairs should have access to an Informer 5 dashboard that pulls department majors and minors, course enrollments for both the current term and historical terms, and grades for currently enrolled majors and minors in both department courses and collateral requirements. The dashboard can be used to track the number of department majors and minors as well as produce information on a variety of student metrics. To access the dashboard, log in to Informer 5 at informer.wabash.edu and type in “Department Chairs Dashboard” in the search bar on the left side of the screen. If you have trouble finding the dashboard, contact the Director of Institutional Research for assistance.
It is important to keep in mind that the dashboard contains FERPA-protected information, so department chairs should only allow others to access their contents within the “legitimate educational interests” clause. Access should be strictly limited to those who have been trained in handling FERPA-protected information and for whom handling sensitive information is within the scope of their professional duties.
Below is a link to a tutorial for using the dashboard. Please reach out to the Director of Institutional Research with any questions.
Department Chairs Dashboard Tutorial
Department/Program Codes for Course Listings
Accounting | ACC |
Art | ART |
Asian Studies | ASI |
Biology | BIO |
Biochemistry | BCH |
Black Studies | BLS |
Business | BUS |
Chemistry | CHE |
Chinese | CHI |
Classics | CLA |
Computer Science | CSC |
Division 1 | DV1 |
Division 3 | DV3 |
Economics | ECO |
Education Studies | EDU |
English | ENG |
Film and Digital Media | FDM |
Financial Economics | FEC |
French | FRE |
Freshman Tutorial | FRT |
Gender Studies | GEN |
German | GER |
Global Health | GHL |
Greek | GRK |
Hispanic Studies | HSP |
History | HIS |
Humanities | HUM |
Latin | LAT |
Mathematics | MAT |
Modern Languages | MLL |
Music | MUS |
Neuroscience | NSC |
Philosophy | PHI |
Physics | PHY |
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics | PPE |
Psychology | PSY |
Religion | REL |
Rhetoric | RHE |
Spanish | SPA |
Theater | THE |