KU News Release

University Advising Center celebrates 10 years of helping students

LAWRENCE — The University Advising Center at the University of Kansas will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a reception from 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, in the rotunda at Strong Hall.

Senior Vice Provost Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett and Kathryn Nemeth Tuttle, associate vice provost for Student Success, will make comments at the event. Faculty and staff are invited to attend.

The organization of the advising center began in September 1995 when a Freshman/Sophomore Experience Committee recommended the creation of a Committee for Improvement of Advising Services for Freshmen and Sophomores. The group was established by then-Provost David Shulenburger in fall 1996 and issued the “Advising Blueprint” in December. The document advocated the establishment of an Office of Freshman/Sophomore Advising. After campuswide discussions in spring 1997, the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center opened in August 1997 under the direction of Nemeth Tuttle.

By the next summer, the center had advised about 1,200 students; it now conducts more than 14,700 advising sessions each year. The University Advising Center has a staff of more than 25 professional advisers as well as a number of faculty who have partial appointments at the center. The name was changed in summer 2007 to reflect the advising needs of the university. The center now sees freshmen, sophomores and juniors who have not declared a major as well as pre-professional students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Tammara Durham, director of the center, said “the new model is in line with what our colleagues are doing across the country.”

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