TRUE BELONGING Students rely on MTSU academic advisors, who work tirelessly to guide them toward a successful educational future, even if that means countless appointments, emails, and phone calls. The 47 new advisors MTSU hired (a significant investment made during a period marked by budget tightening) restructured a patchwork system that had offered mostly transactional relationships between advisors and students. With an ideal new advisors 300 students, advisors now have time to get to know advisees and offer interventional support at the first sign of a problem. For example, if the tough STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum still threatens to derail their graduation, there are options to recalibrate. Advisors have been training on Degree Works, new software that gives students a “roadmap� to graduation and lets advisors gauge the impact of changing course.
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