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Faculty Advising Procedures
Faculty advisors work as one member of a team of three, including the advisor from the UWW office and the student, to design the student's program of study.
The faculty member plays a particularly important role in selecting courses for the student's focus, or major, and typically is a specialist in that area. A student may focus in a traditional academic discipline, such as Sociology, a familiar interdisciplinary field, such as East Asian Studies, or a self-designed field under the supervision of the faculty advisor. Advisors are encouraged to help students create programs to meet their own academic and personal needs while preserving the academic rigor of a demanding liberal arts education. Foci in traditional disciplines need not follow the major requirements of the Skidmore department, but they usually reflect the values of that department and often look ahead to educational experiences that would be expected of the student should she aspire to an advanced degree.
In addition to supervising the student's course selection in the focus, the faculty advisor also oversees the production of the student's final project proposal and final project. Advisors are often asked to serve as one of the three assessors appointed to evaluate the final project.
Each UWW program of study is approved by the UWW Committee, a committee composed of the academic staff of UWW and six elected faculty members. This committee has the authority to add additional course work to the student's program if the program is weak or lacking in some respect. Faculty members of the Committee are elected at large for two-year terms. Each student is required to come in person to the committee to discuss his or her program and final project proposal. In anticipation of the meeting, members of the Committee are sent statements from the student and written comments by the faculty advisor on the student's program.
