Students air gripes to camera

Video confessionals!

Like a reality show!

Right here on UNLV's campus!

Also, free food!

And so they come, droves of college students, to air gripes and to share tips and to grab a goodie bag and a Chipotle coupon and to be on their way, off to psychology or kinesiology or some other "ology" that will one day lead to graduation.

Which is the point of all of this: graduation.

There's lots of data out there in academic circles that say students are more likely to stick around, and so more likely to graduate, get a job, make some money, contribute to the economy, and on and on if they get help with things like signing up for classes and navigating aid forms and other stuff that could confuse an 18-year-old kid fresh out of high school.

Which is where academic advising comes in.

Academic advising is one of those necessary pieces of machinery that folks generally don't complain about unless it's broken beyond repair, like a carburetor.

Which means it can get clogged up, slowly, over years of neglect, if the mechanics aren't paying attention.

The folks at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas are paying attention. The academic advising bosses figured that the best way to find out what they're doing right, or wrong, was to ask students.

But how to go about it? Walk around with a clipboard? An online survey? Forced Q&A sessions?

No, no, no.

Video confessionals, just like on "The Real World," "Big Brother," or "Project Runway."

Reality shows are big with young people. So, UNLV officials figured that staging a reality showlike event would get them involved.

It worked beyond their expectations.

In two days last week, during four-hour sessions each day, 128 students volunteered to spend a few minutes in a room with a video camera and air their gripes about the university's academic advisers.

"You get your frustrations out, or your issues out, in a confessional," said Gayle Juneau, executive director of academic advising. "This is a way for advising to meet students where they are."

Brendon Ross was one of the students.

"It's almost like thinking out loud," said Ross, 22, a junior psychology major.

He told the camera that advisers should be more personable. That's what students want.

Mike Bennes, 22, a freshman in secondary education, told the camera that the advisers need to be more aggressive in offering help. Students, too, need to ask for it.

He felt rushed through the whole advising process, he said. It's as much his fault as anyone else's, in that he didn't ask a whole lot of questions. This led to confusion.

"The problem is," he said, "I'm still not familiar with the lingo" of being in college.

"Next time around, I'm going to take my own advice."

Audrey Garcia, 23, a senior psychology major, said she's been getting by without much help from advisers. And that's OK, she said.

"If there wasn't free food," she said, "I probably wouldn't be here."

Indeed, the first day of the event, set up down a lonely hallway in the university's student union, 98 people showed up. That was when the advisers were giving away Chipotle coupons, luring students from the food court.

They had only 100 coupons.

And so the second day, traffic dropped off. Only 30 more people showed up for coupons that were good for food downstairs. Not bad, but it ain't Chipotle.

Valarie Morgan, one of the academic advisers who helped organize the event, said the goal was to get students involved. Doing that can be notoriously difficult.

The "Real World"-ish idea came from their student advisers committee, she said. The information from the videos will be compiled and distributed to the entire corps of university advisers.

Juneau, the director, said it's typical for a student to change his or her major three to five times during a college career.

That sort of thing can lead to confusion, even frustration, with the college experience. Students might not know what classes to take in their new major, or how to go about getting in touch with professors.

"Advisers," Juneau said, "can point them in the right direction."

They can help establish a connection between students and professors. They can help them navigate problems just about anywhere at the university.

"Every bit of research that I've ever seen speaks to the fact that students remain in school when they're connected to their major from the beginning," she said.

Which explains why, beginning next year, UNLV will join other universities and make academic advising mandatory for new students.

They hope to better prepare students for the real world.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.