The Academic Advising Center, located in the Center for Student Success on the second floor of the student center, was created to develop students skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to acquire a degree in hopes of a better future. Jake Brownfield, director of academic advising, was hired in the fall of 2011 and was the driving force in helping the center’s clients achieve their goals.
The Academic Advising Center offers help to a wide range of student needs. Brownfield deals with everything from class scheduling to counseling struggling students. He often works directly with academically at-risk students and undeclared majors, but he also directs all academic advising on campus.
According to Brownfield, it is important for advising to be the same for every student and advisers to work according to a common standard. He also emphasized the importance of students having equal attention, regardless of their major.
Brownfield himself was an undeclared major for his first two years of college. It was not until his third year that he declared Bible as his major, and remained unsure of his postgraduate plans. He said his own personal experience enabled him to better do his job and serve students in a more full capacity.
“Every student’s situation is different, I can certainly empathize with the ‘I don’t know what I want to do with my life’ thing,” Brownfield said. “My main problem was that I didn’t know what I was good at. I really just wanted to be a professional college student. But little did I know that there are entire careers based on helping college students become better college students.”
Brownsfield said he understands the mindset his clients are coming from, he understands how to approach a solution. His colleagues notice his work and said they are impressed by his integration of business and relationship.
“It has to be a developmental thing, where you are mentoring them, seeing them become excited about their goals and major,” dean for Student Success Todd Patten said.
By using a combination of personality and skill evaluations, the advising center creates assessments for each of its clients that are later analyzed by Brownfield and discussed with each student.
“It’s definitely been very helpful in narrowing down a major,” freshman Travis Boatwright, one of Brownfield’s clients, said.
“The assessments have insight not only on my personality strengths but also my weaknesses. This became very helpful when looking at majors because it gave me a heads up on some of the more difficult ones.”
The employees of the Academic Advising Center, particularly Brownfield, are resources for students dealing with any part of the academic process. Clients are often those who are struggling, but Patten said he does not want students to wait until they need advising the most.
“Student success means attaining a degree,” Patten said. “We don’t just serve students who are in trouble academically but all students on campus.”
Patten said Brownfield is an important component to student academic success, not only by helping students choose classes and majors that best suit their strengths, but also by becoming a friend to students who need one and by connecting with them on a more personal level.
“He is a key person,” Patten said. “People oftentimes think advising is simply schedule building but it’s more than that. It has to be relationship building. Our goal is to create relationships.”
