Volume XLIX | Issue 6 GothicTimes.net April 2019 Illustration by Junior Mejias. Can I get some help over here? How NJCU lets students down with poor advisement by Monica Sarmiento | Editor-in-Chief graduate next semester… 32 percent; for six-years, it was 39 in four-year public institutions in fall hopefully,” is something that percent. This means that less than half 2012 was 65.7 percent. “I I started saying last fall when of the freshmen that enroll at NJCU NJCU has also been struggling to people asked how much I had left of actually graduate within six years, and attract transfer students in recent years, school. It’s a phrase I’ve heard a lot only about one-ninth of the first-time, chalking it up to other universities like of my editors and classmates say over full-time freshman population actually Rutgers-Newark, Kean, Montclair, and the years, some with better luck than graduate on time. St. Peter’s being able to recruit transfers others. Why do so many NJCU students According to the National Center “aggressively through admissions approach graduation with the same fear of Education Statistics, the national six- presence on the two-year campus, tour and worry they’d have regarding health year graduation rate for first-time, full- buses for prospective students, and test results? time undergraduate students getting memorandum of understanding (MOU) The four-year overall graduation a bachelor’s degree was 60 percent. agreements,” according to a November rate for first-time, full-time freshmen The National Student Clearinghouse 2018 University Update from President students at NJCU was 11 percent in 2019 report found that the national Sue Henderson. Our new enrollment of 2018. For five-year graduates, it was completion rate for students that started Continued on page 2 2 | Op/Ed GothicTimes.net April 2019 Continued from page 1 information regarding my degree. gen eds and I was finishing up my minor During my second semester here, I was that semester. Then, the department transfer students dropped from 816 told by a department chair that all of my advisor canceled my scheduled meeting students in 2017 to 753 in 2018. transfer credits were put to use after we with them because they saw that I The 39 percent graduation sat and went through each one to make discussed my degree progress with that rate–the highest it’s been at NJCU–is sure they transferred over to my degree. faculty member and assumed all of just one factor to worry about, as both It wasn’t until last fall, my fifth semester my questions were answered. Another undergraduate and graduate retention at NJCU, that I found out that they department chair and advisor didn’t and enrollment rates have fallen. In didn’t actually put all of those credits even answer my emails when I reached 2018, we had 6,237 undergraduates on my digital file and that my degree out to them for assistance. enrolled, a drop from 6,508 in 2017. progress was still showing that I had It wasn’t until I reached out to As a result, the university has lost $4 classes unfulfilled. I had to meet with Sarah Vandermark, the assistant provost million in revenue. The university a department advisor to go through the for Student Success that oversees budgeted for any possible issues with whole process again, and if the physical advisement, with a detailed account enrollment, but still had to make up for paper copy from that of my run-around with advisors, around $2 million as of November. meeting with the department chairs and faculty that I Many NJCU students are first- finally started getting replies, meetings generation college students, coming rescheduled and even personal requests from underrepresented, lower-income for appointments to make sure that I immigrant families. The university touts was on track. Vandermark reached out itself as an institution that recognizes the to me to tell me that she’d look into struggles and hardships their students my problems but never followed up to have faced to get where they are today, see if I was helped. I finally managed yet makes it difficult for these same to get my situation sorted out after so students to finish college with a degree many semesters of confusion, despite in four to six years. the fact that I did my best to stay on How advisement (or lack thereof) top of my own degree progress over the has affected me years. I finally received my graduation My experience with advisement clearance earlier this month, meaning at NJCU has been exhausting, to put I’ll be able to finish college in four it politely. Without the incredibly years as I’d originally planned. But helpful professors and faculty that I’ve then I remember how this is not and has become close to during my time here, not been the case for so many NJCU I would’ve been navigating through students. college following dead-end advice over One professor, who asked to and over again. remain anonymous, sympathized with Advisement issues stem from my and other students’ experience. They when I first transferred to NJCU in pointed out the lack of a comprehensive July 2016. I was told repeatedly by an department chair wasn’t in my folder database that lists a student’s transfer advisor making my schedule for the in their office, I wouldn’t have had any courses and credits that correlate upcoming fall that because all of the proof that those credits were supposedly with NJCU required courses. ”I think foundation courses I needed were at transferred two years before. That there is a lot of room for bad advice capacity, I would only be able to get department chair is no longer here. at NJCU. And sometimes faculty do a B.A. in Graphic Design if I wanted I began preparing to go over my not think very ambitiously for their to stay on course to graduate on time. credits one more time last fall to make students… they will give students They convinced me to do a Media Arts sure I was set to apply for graduation career advice and advisement for quick minor since I expressed interest in the in January and enroll in classes for goals that do not amount to much as a department, and I don’t regret that at all. my final semester. I was told by one college experience.” But my naivety and not thinking to seek faculty member not to rely on the More twists for transfer students more advice or solutions during my degree navigator in GothicNet because Crystal Simon, a Business major and sophomore year is something I’ve just it wasn’t entirely accurate. They also events editor for The Gothic Times, had to deal with and, sometimes, regret. told me that I was missing general received her Associates Degree from That wasn’t the last time I education courses and credits for my was given bad or even outright wrong minor, but I was actually on track with Continued on page 3 3 | Op/Ed | News GothicTimes.net April 2019 Continued from page 2 Associates already to get her gen eds can only do so much. We can't do the properly waived this time. job of advisers and ours simultaneously. Raritan Valley Community College Michi Suazo, the Gothic Times I work on campus, staying in the office before transferring to NJCU. During the features editor, is an English major with as late as 9 p.m. to edit articles and work process of transferring, Simon had to a concentration in Creative Writing on papers and I’m juggling classes. It’s show that she got her degree in order to hoping to graduate next Fall. "It’s just unnecessary stress. I feel like a receive a scholarship at NJCU. disgraceful to so many students who customer who has to go to the storage Earlier this month Simon met spend so much time giving back to room to check if the thing I need is in with advisement to create her schedule NJCU,” said Suazo. stock because there’s no sales associate for this upcoming fall. They were going “I’ve been a student here since to talk to or the sales associates don’t to sign her up for gen ed courses but 2015 and not a single professor or know. It is exhausting for me as a first- because she transferred in, the gen adviser has told me on the first day not generation college student,” Suazo said. ed requirements are supposed to be to trust GothicNet for checking your “It's like they just want to keep waived. She found out that her credits degree progress. I relied on GothicNet us here longer to keep paying as they were transferred on paper, but no one to register for required classes that I raise prices for tuition and who knows implemented them onto her degree needed, but what I didn’t know was what else. This simply cannot continue. progress on GothicNet. “Then, they told that most of the classes I needed as a A reformation needs to happen.” Suazo me they needed me to send them my creative writing concentration were only added that, to his knowledge, he was degree even though they should’ve seen available in the fall semesters.” Suazo never formally assigned an adviser in it in order to give me my scholarship,” has also had to take more literature his department and just this month was Simon said.