Academic Advising and the Evaluation of Student Petitions

A Vehicle for Student Equity and Justice

Authors

  • Ernesto Guerrero California State University Channel Islands

Abstract

At some universities, academic advisors manage the evaluation of petitions, while at others it is the responsibility of the Registrar’s office.  For the purposes of this article, petitions are requests initiated by students for some sort of exception to a stated rule or policy.  Decisions a university makes on these types of petitions can have long-reaching implications for a student’s time to degree, GPA, and even degree completion.  As a result, those who evaluate these petitions and the processes they use to make these evaluations, play a central role in student success and retention.  Based on the literature and my own professional experience, I argue that academic advisors are the individuals best qualified to evaluate these cases, and that this contributes to institutional equity as it reduces administrative barriers for students. 

Author Biography

Ernesto Guerrero, California State University Channel Islands

Dr. Ernesto Guerrero is the Director of Academic Advising at CSU Channel Islands and an Adjunct Professor of Educational Leadership at California Lutheran University. He has over nineteen years of experience in academic advising and student success programs having previously worked and taught at UCLA. Dr. Guerrero studies student success and retention, specifically in underrepresented student groups.

Downloads

Published

2019-05-16

How to Cite

Guerrero, E. (2019). Academic Advising and the Evaluation of Student Petitions: A Vehicle for Student Equity and Justice. Allies for Education, 2(2). Retrieved from https://journals.calstate.edu/afe/article/view/3295

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2019): Assessment and Evaluation in Education: Do Our Policies and Practices Promote Growth, Equity, and Justice?

Section

Perspectives from the Field

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).