A System Dynamics Approach to Improving An Advising System for Business School Undergraduates

摘要

A School of Business located in the northeast United States annually administers the AACSB/EBI Undergraduate Business Exit Survey to all its graduating seniors. One area that has consistently received low marks has been advising. The Associate Dean of the Business School wanted to address the situation and see how the system could be improved. Through interviews with the Associate Dean and the advising staff, a consulting team compiled information about the system and identified the major problem as congestion in the system. Recommendations included changing the criteria for students required to use the system, simplifying the curriculum, better promoting the advising function to students, increasing the use of automated advising tools, expanding the length of the advising period, and adding advising staff or having faculty do advising. So far, the School of Business has adopted only one of these recommendations - curricular simplification - which may improve the situation as time passes. The School is currently examining other options, especially changing the criteria for required advising and having the faculty get involved in advising.