ITLE Year 2

September 19, 2005

Colleagues:

As Chancellor Perlman indicated in his 2005 State of the University Address, Year 2 of the Initiative for Teaching & Learning Excellence will provide special funding for projects directed at teaching excellence and enhanced undergraduate student learning, advising, retention, and success. Special attention will be given to proposals that enhance retention through strong and creative advising and support services.

To help the campus prepare strong proposals for the Advising for Success grants offered under the Initiative--and to help us imagine new advising practices, we are bringing Dr. Charlie Nutt, Associate Director of the National Academic Advising Association, to campus. On Friday, September 30th, from 10:30-12:00 in the City Union, Dr. Nutt and a panel of UNL students will help us see the promise in advising practices emerging around the campus.

In part 1 of our program, Dr. Nutt will review the relationships among academic advising, student success, and retention, then overview the kinds of promising advising practices emerging around the country as universities work to encourage student retention and successful degree completion; ease students' transitions into college; increase advisor-student contact; approach the student and the student learning experience more holistically; promote student identification and engagement with degree programs; and provide clear, consistent, and accurate program information that is easily accessible to students.

In part 2, a panel of UNL students will draw on their own experiences to indicate the promise they see in any of the practices outlined by Dr. Nutt.

And in part 3, audience members will be invited to ask questions of Dr. Nutt and our student panelists.

I hope you'll plan to attend this event. For information on this and other events and on the Initiative for Teaching & Learning Excellence, please check out our calendar.

Best wishes,

Barbara Couture
Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.