Professional Advising Resources

The Importance of Advising

National research has shown that consistent and effective advising can lead to improvements in retention, graduation and overall satisfaction with the college experience. Resources on this webpage are made available to assist UW faculty, staff and professional advisors alike in providing a uniform and consistent advising experience across campus. Obviously, there will be variations within each college and department in how they provide specific advising to their students; however, it is important to have as much uniformity as possible to ensure each student at UW has a positive advising experience. 

Each advisor develops his or her personal style for conducting appointments with students. The National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) has many resources related to advising that may be useful for faculty, staff and professional advisors to review. The Advising • Career • Exploratory Studies Center (ACES) recommends developing a professional relationship with a clear understanding of the responsibilities of both student and advisor in the advising process. In the words of NACADA “I Advise…You Decide!”

UW Training Courses

To facilitate access, usage, and overall publication of the UW Advisor Training modules we have all the information you need to get started right here! To access the Advisor Training Course follow the below instructions:

1. Use Firefox or Chrome as your browser for best results.

2. Go to WyoLearn and click on the UW Training Catalog:

   • Click on UW Advisor Training

   • Click on Advisor Essentials

   Bookmark this page and use it going forward to access the class.

3. The course goes at your own pace, but takes about ten hours total to complete. There are multiple choice and short-answer knowledge checks at the end of each lesson.

4. Advisor Essentials covers the basic, day-to-day advising information needed to help most students. Topics include, but are not limited to:

   • FERPA

   • Understanding and using information in students' files

   • Theories and pillars of advising approaches

   • Making sense of degree evaluations

5. Advanced Advisor Training provides more in-depth knowledge about various student populations and more complicated processes used in advising.

6. Master Advisor Training is the capstone of the advisor training course and requires advisors to create a personal philosophy of advising.

7. Upon completion of advisor training, advisors will receive a certificate of completion and have this completion noted on their employee transcripts.

Other helpful UW resources:

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UW Advising Manual: Last updated October 2019

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UW Advising Directory

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List of all UW Minors

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UW Grading System

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UW Automatic Waitlist Information

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Other Helpful Links:

• NACADA - The Global Community for Academic Advising

• NACADA - The Counsel for the Advancement of Standards (CAS)

• NACADA - General Advising Concepts

• NACADA - Rocky Mountain Region 10

• GPA Calculator