In this keynote address, the author begins by talking about her practice as a First Year Advisor at Griffith University. First Year Advisors (now in the fifth year of the program) are recruited from the academics teaching in a particular program and are members of staff who understand, and are interested in, first year students, their issues and experiences. The role has been designed to facilitate the successful transition of commencing students to university. First Year Advisors respond to student needs and concerns, providing commencing students with a local, predictable, non-judgmental and accessible point of contact at the most critical and formative phase of their university experience. It is responsible for school-level transition-supportive activities such as developing a degree-level first year experience plan, leading and organising academic orientation and transition and monitoring and advising at-risk students. This innovative strategy is the first of its kind to be implemented systematically at the whole-of-university level in Australian higher education. The author then discusses the measure of effectiveness as evidenced by evaluation data. The overall data for 2007 shows a 13 per cent improvement in student retention even with slightly lower student entry level scores than for 2006. Retention data for 2008 shows that Griffith is in the top 30 per cent of programs nationally. The dual goals of effectiveness and sustainability are equally important. There is an urgent need to interrupt the recurring pattern of short-term innovations which rely on the enthusiasm of champions and which also rapidly decline when their energy is depleted. Data is required from multiple sources to assist decision-making about the cost-benefit ratio of First Year Advisor activities and their return on investment. Useful information comes from multiple formal and informal sources of feedback, with examples of readily available, low-cost and easy to interrogate data including: student feedback; partner feedback (mentors, tutors); staff feedback (convenors, tutors, administration); institutional surveys; course evaluations; student outcomes; and informal, anecdotal and incidental observations and conversations.
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