Blended Advising Model

Drake University is committed to best serving students academically, personally, and professionally in an intentional and strategically aligned manner.  Higher education and more specifically, academic advising research demonstrates academic advising is a critical piece to student knowledge acquisition, satisfaction, development, and success.

Starting with the Fall 2023 incoming first year and transfer student populations, Drake will begin phasing in a 1:1 faculty to academic advising specialist ratio per student. Simply put, each year the incoming (first year and transfer) class will be assigned a faculty mentor advisor and an academic advising specialist. Academic advising specialists (ie; staff academic advisors) will co-create developmental spaces for students to meet their academic and personal goals. The faculty mentor advisors will continue to provide students mentorship and guidance that supports their professional aspirations. 

Both the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication currently employ a blended advising approach and will continue to use blended advising within their academic units. Under the supervision of the Office of Academic Advising, the newly hired, Director of Advising, Whitney Harris, will begin working with the remaining academic units to implement a blended advising model for their incoming first year and transfer