Students enter Howard University with the intentions of graduating in four years, but for some students that dream may not come to fruition. One major reason for this inability to matriculate in four years is the miscommunication between the students and administration.
This is especially true in the John H. Johnson School of Communications. With only two advisers overseeing thousands of communications students, there is bound to be conflict as well as misinterpretation of important information.
Students, as well as advisers, stay in what seems like a constant state of confusion when it comes to major and minor course schemes, overrides and graduation applications.
Brandon Brown, senior public relations major, thinks the advisers are being stretched too thin and are unable to effectively fulfill their responsibilities to the students.
"I don't think they stressed enough during freshman year how beneficial it is to stay in touch with your advisor," Brown said. Although Brown is currently a senior, he will not be graduating this spring; instead, he will be graduating in the fall of 2011.
"They don't take the time to emphasize things such as prerequisites," Brown stated
vehemently. "I think the advisers become so overwhelmed with students that after awhile they just stop caring completely."
Brown failed to realize that the class Reporting and Writing was a prerequisite for certain classes in his major until it was too late. Although he is now on the right track, he still credits much of his misfortune to miscommunication with administrators.
The School of Communications is not the only school on Howard's campus that suffers from administrative problems. The College of Arts and Sciences, which is the largest school on campus, also deals with an unsatisfactory advisory system.
For many COAS students, simply seeing their advisor can be difficult, especially during the first week of school. Students spilled into the halls of Locke this past week, anxiously awaiting their turn to be advised.
Despite the conflicts between administration and the students in the School of
Communications and COAS, one school that seems to have no administrative flaws is the College of Engineering, Architecture and Computer Sciences.
The Chair of the Department of Systems and Computer Science, Legand L. Burge III, Ph.D., said that there is not much miscommunication between the students and administration in his department. The Computer Science department is very structured and multiple people handle the task of advising.
"We have a director of undergraduate studies who deals with all freshmen and transfers, and people are also assigned to an advisor based on their last name. I'm the final response on advisement decisions," said Burge. "Everyone has a hand in the process."
Burge said that less than 2 percent of people in his department do not graduate on time.
For the ones that do not, it's not due to lack of communication between the student and administration, but rather a situation where the student failed to accomplish what was required of him or her.
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