Page 9 - Priorities #48 2011-January/February

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The Advisory Program has been in place for many years at the Priory and has been managed by the Counseling department with input from administration and faculty alike.
Urban legend has it that the irst thing workers on the Golden Gate Bridge do after repainting the bridge is to go back to thebeginningandstartallover. Theexpression“paintingtheGold- en Gate Bridge” has actually become shorthand in many organiza- tions for a spirit of continuous improvement.
As Program Coordinator of the Advisory Program at Wood- side Priory, I’m excited to share that we are “painting the Golden Gate Bridge” again this academic year. This includes exploring new ideas for Advisory Program sessions as well as new ways to link these sessions with the many other sources of relevant advice and guidance that exist at
the Priory.
First, a bit of historic
perspective. The Advi-
sory Program has been
in place for many years at
the Priory and has been
managed by the Coun-
seling department with
input from administra-
tion and faculty alike.
Its intentions have long
been to serve as a mecha-
nism to foster guidance-
oriented relationships
between faculty advisors
and students and to pro-
vide a medium whereby
the Priory’s values can be
explored and understood
via various activities and
discussions. Whilethere
has been less emphasis
in Advisory on academ-
ic counseling per se (a function generally satisied by the Dean of Academics and the Counseling department), advisors have been responsible for signing off on their advisees’ course selections over the years and encouraged to track academic progress in general.
All faculty members serve as advisors, each advisory group including up to 10 students. Advisors “follow” the same group of students, in Middle and High School, across their years at each level. Frequencyofadvisorymeetingshasvariedovertheyears;in 2008-2009, Advisory occurred 8 times.
Our current direction and priorities were forged following the 2008-2009 academic year, when a systematic effort to evaluate the AdvisoryProgramwasconducted. Thisincludedgatheringinput from faculty and students alike, and proved to be an exercise that yielded a number of valuable insights.
Perhaps the most rewarding insight to surface in this process mapped onto a core principle of the Priory’s mission, one Head- master Tim Molak reiterates in many of his comments related to the Priory’s values: “these values are made real in our commu- nity in which every student is known and loved.” The vast ma-
jority of Priory students did acknowledge that they felt they had at least one adult on campus they could go to with questions or just to talk. While for some this may be their advisor, it ap- pears that the small size and culture of the Priory com- munity naturally fosters rich relationships between faculty and students, and students do feel each has a “go to” person no matter the issue at hand. It is en- couraging to hear that our students generally feel their guidance needs are being met, while not always rely- ing on advisors per se to do so.
Other positive feedback from faculty Advisors in- cluded feeling good about
providing students an opportunity to discuss topics (including non- academic ones) with them and each other, and the opportunity to helpsolvestudents’problems. Studentsalsoappreciatedconnect- ing in a non-classroom environment with their advisor and each other, as well as using this time to discuss “hot topics,” such as on- line security behavior or academic integrity.
Opportunities for improvement from the faculty feedback took the form of a recognized need for more consistency in approaches to Advisory across advisors, the sense that some topics addressed