MRU’s Academic Advising overhaul: What students need to know

Manveet Kaur Waraich, Staff Writer

Mount Royal University (MRU) has implemented sweeping changes to its academic advising structure this fall, redistributing advisors across faculties and closing the central advising office formerly on Main Street. But as students return to campus, many remain unaware of the exact changes, how they affect them personally, and what specifically prompted the restructuring. 

The changes, which took effect Aug. 1, stem from recommendations in the Excellence in Academic Advising Committee (EAAC) report, an internal document provided as a resource for this article, and completed in December 2024. The report followed extensive consultations during winter 2024, including surveys of over 600 students and meetings with advisors, faculty, and staff. 

The old system: A fragmented approach

Previously, MRU’s advising landscape was fragmented across three separate types of advisors who operated largely independently of one another. Some faculties had faculty advisors—professors who received course release time to advise students. 

Others relied on professional advisors embedded within programs. Lastly, a central advising office in D101 served students in open studies, university entrance, and those looking to change programs.

This decentralised model created significant problems for students. According to the consultation data, students faced long wait times, received conflicting information from different advisors, and experienced vastly unequal service depending on their program of study. 

The system was reactive rather than proactive, responding to student requests but rarely anticipating problems before they arose.

“It was really that complicated and that inconsistent,” explained Alena Boczek, director of student success and learning services. “Some advisors would have a very high student caseload—maybe 1500 [students] to one [advisor]—whereas there were some advisors who had maybe 30, 50, 100 to one.”

Worse still, the old system lacked any cohesive vision. Students surveyed in the consultation process expressed a desire for personalised, developmental advising that integrated academic planning with career preparation and personal growth. Instead, they typically encountered transactional interactions focused narrowly on course selection.

The technology supporting advising was equally fractured. Advisors had no centralised system for documenting student interactions. 

Some kept paper notes, others relied on searching through email threads to recall previous conversations, and some kept no records at all. This meant that students meeting with different advisors had to start from scratch each time.

“If I want to know the last time I saw a student or what we have discussed, I search through my email for the last message to the student,” one faculty advisor reported in Appendix B of the report.

Without data, assessments, and studies on how many students actually sought advising or how often, departments couldn’t accurately assess workloads or measure whether advising was helping students succeed. The overall structure was, as the Keeling report concluded, “incoherent and illegible to students.”

Faculty advisors, such as Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies, provided a different model—one focused on mentorship and disciplinary expertise.

“There’s things that go beyond what professional advisors would do. There’s expertise and knowledge about the program, about the integration of various elements of what happens within a degree,” Williams said. “That’s something that the academics, with that subject expertise, can provide more insight on… much closer to mentorship.”

What changed

The new structure embeds professional advisors within each faculty while establishing centralised oversight and control. All advisors now report to managers of academic advising through team leads, though they maintain close relationships with their respective deans and faculty members.

The central advising office has been closed, with its advisors redistributed across the various faculties. Students seeking to change programs now connect directly with advisors in their desired faculty rather than going through a centralised office.

According to Boczek, the changes aim to address student complaints about inconsistent experiences, long wait times, and transactional rather than developmental advising relationships.

“Students could even realize advisors’ workloads based on how long they had to wait to get an appointment,” Boczek said.

The restructuring includes several key components: standardised advisor roles that focus solely on advising—removing other duties, such as practicum coordination—balanced caseloads across faculties, new team lead positions for oversight, and a dedicated training specialist.

Behind closed doors

Despite consultation efforts, key details about the restructuring were not widely communicated before implementation, and much of the relevant information remains difficult to locate. 

The EAAC report itself is not publicly accessible to students, and aside from the email sent on July 23, they received little communication explaining the scope or implications of these changes. Access was granted for the purpose of this article.

“I actually don’t think that the concerns that were raised by many advisors—including not just the academic but professional advisors—the important role differences, I don’t think it was fully understood,” Williams said, noting that feedback from advisors “didn’t seem to register or land.”

The Keeling & Associates report that initially sparked the review in 2021 had consulted only 15 students. Though the EAAC process included over 600 survey responses, no students attended the live consultation sessions offered in winter 2024.

Implementation challenges and looking ahead

The transition hasn’t been seamless. 

During the critical first two weeks of the fall semester, students had to email to book appointments rather than using online booking systems, as advisors weren’t yet trained to handle program-change advising. 

Boczek acknowledged this created “a bit of a bottleneck,” though the issue has since been resolved.

Multiple sources within the advising community have expressed concerns about expanded responsibilities without corresponding pay increases. 

Perhaps most contentious is the uncertain future of faculty advisors. Under Article 14.9 of the MRFA Collective Agreement, some faculty members currently receive course release time, meaning they teach fewer classes, in order to take on additional duties such as academic advising. Chad London, MRU’s provost and vice-president academic, is now reviewing this arrangement.”Faculty members currently receiving reassigned time for advising-related duties will see their roles adjusted with implementation of the proposed operation model,” the EAAC report states.

Williams and other faculty advisors argue that their discipline expertise and ability to provide career mentorship fill a crucial gap that professional advisors can’t replicate. 

“There are elements of what only an academic advisor can do,” Williams said, emphasizing that both professional advisors and many students agreed with this assessment during consultations.

The EAAC report itself acknowledges “anticipated challenges in transitioning to the proposed operational framework,” including ensuring smooth transfer of responsibilities, maintaining strong faculty relationships while embedding advisors, addressing workload disparities, implementing new technology, and shifting from transactional to developmental advising.

Tracking progress

University administration is taking steps to monitor and adjust the implementation. A training, development, and continuous improvement specialist position has been filled on a limited-term basis to develop standardised training for all advisors and create assessment tools to measure advising outcomes.

“Part of her role during her contract is not only the training component, but also developing meaningful assessment,” Boczek said. “Looking at building intentional outcomes that align with that unified vision for academic advising and then actually measuring those outcomes.”

MRU is also implementing Slate, a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) system that will allow advisors to share notes and track student interactions across departments—addressing one of the key technology gaps identified in the reviews. 

Boczek said the university has begun to work with the vendor on what she described as a year-long customization and implementation process.

“Slate is a very… adaptable technology. So you do kind of have to build it to what you need it to have,” she explained. 

Advising is expected to be one of the first to adopt the new system upon its launch in fall 2026.

“That cycle of continuous improvement is incredibly important,” said Boczek in reference to the new structure. 

While the specific assessment methods are still being developed—whether through regular surveys, consultation sessions, or other mechanisms—measuring student experiences and advising effectiveness remains a priority.

According to Boczek, the university received approximately $180,000 in funding to support advisor hiring, plus one-time investments for training development and professional development opportunities, including sending advisors to the National Academic Advising Association conference.

As MRU works through this significant restructuring, both challenges and opportunities lie ahead. The success of the new model will ultimately depend on whether it can deliver on its promise: more consistent, accessible, and developmental advising that supports students holistically—from admission through graduation and beyond.