The Faculty Advising Fellow program began in 2016 and was modeled after an existing program at Georgia Tech University, and was initiated as a mechanism to improve academic advising across the university. In the first year, a Faculty Advising Fellow was selected for the six largest departments: Biological Sciences, Criminal Justice, Health Science, Kinesiology, Psychology, Sociology, and Social Services which collectively served 5,500 students. Since then, the program has expanded to include additional departments: Art, Computer Science, Engineering, Ethnic Studies, History, Kinesiology.
Faculty Advising Fellows (FAFs) stay current on critical advising-related information through partaking of relevant professional development opportunities, attendance at regular Faculty Advising Council Meetings (attended by both faculty and staff advisors) and monthly Faculty Advising Fellow meetings, and networking with other advisors. FAFs share the knowledge acquired from these experiences back to their colleges and departments, using it to mentor their faculty colleagues and to support students' academic and personal growth needs through a combination of proactive and developmental advising styles. In addition, FAFs represent their departments and the FAF program when collaborating with other advising units within the university.
The mission of the CSUEB Faculty Advising Fellow Program is to train faculty to offer high quality, accurate developmental and holistic advising to our students with the goals of increasing student success, retention, and rates of degree completion while minimizing equity gaps.