Who’s your advisor?

If you don’t know the answer to that question, now there's an easy way to find out.

A new feature on Banner allows students to find out who their official advisor is. Faculty have a similar feature which can tell them a student’s advisor.

From the UTM Web page (www.utm.edu), select Banner from the dropdown menu. Sign in, go to Student Services and Financial Information, and then go to the registration menu.

From there, simply select “Who Is My Advisor?”.

This is the first semester that this information has been available over Banner. And, it may also be the first semester that this information is easily available, period.

“I was under the understanding that the students didn't have anywhere to go...to find out who their advisor was,” said Registrar Brandy Cartmell, explaining why the feature was added.

Cartmell said that this new option makes it easy for students to find out who their advisor is.

It’s also good for checking if the right advisor is listed for a student.

If the advisor listed isn't the right one, students should talk to their department's chair to have this information corrected. When a student changes or declares a major, the chair of the department will assign them an advisor. If a single advisor isn’t given for the student, Banner will pull the name of their previous advisor instead.

Future plans include giving students the ability to directly e-mail their advisor simply by clicking on the professor's name from the “Who's your advisor?” page.

That way, the students wouldn’t have to hunt around for their advisors e-mail address or have to open their mail client first.

Speaking of registration, why should students bother with advisors, anyway?

There are three reasons that a student should know who their advisor is.

First, it's required that students talk to their advisors before they register for classes. Otherwise, there will be a hold that will prevent them from registering. This hold will be lifted when the student talks to their advisor.

Secondly, advisors can help students stay on track for graduation.

“If there are things written in the catalog [required for the major] that they miss, the advisor can point it out,” said Cartmell.

Finally, graduation information will be sent to whomever a student has listed as their advisor. If the advisor is wrong, then graduation information will be sent to the wrong people.

Students will soon have a good reason to try this new feature out, as registration for next semester is coming up. Schedules for summer 2003 should be available by March 14, while schedules for fall 2003 will be available no later than March 28.

Registration for both summer and fall semesters begins April 7.