Call it another successful graduate of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The college's General Curriculum Center is moving on.
It's not gone far. Relocated from its home on Fifth Street to a new Campus Center for Advising and Academic Services located in the Illini Union Bookstore Building's fifth floor, the staff now enjoys more space, opportunities for program expansion, and heightened visibility. General Curriculum, LAS's non-degree granting unit serving undeclared students, is becoming a newly-designated Division of General Studies (DGS) under the Office of the Provost. This means LAS says goodbye to a valued student academic affairs unit as it takes on a campuswide identity.
A few days before the July 2007 move, Julian Parrott, director and assistant dean of GCC, sat in his cramped office in the converted house off Fifth and Chalmers streets. The building looked a bit weary with slightly warped siding and air conditioners rattling in the windows. GCC has occupied the space for about 40 years.
The office was a classic example of how one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. During the past 10 years, GCC has bloomed inside and outside the building. LAS intentionally phased in a full-time, professional academic advising staff of 11 advisors who, in turn, developed new programs, created outreach activities, and earned national awards for their efforts in helping thousands of Illinois students choose and chart an academic path.
Staff worked in quarters so tight that students sometimes waited for appointments in a stairwell. Sensitive matters had to be discussed at a whisper so they wouldn't be overheard. Still, Parrott says, advisors did their job so well that GCC students were among the best-informed students on campus in understanding their individual goals and selecting appropriate degree programs.
Campus administrators, however, recognized that it was time for a change. Parrott says they were beginning to hear students and parents complain that the facilities reflected poorly on the campus and the Center's clientele. LAS, having carefully nurtured GCC's evolution, solicited additional campus resources to underwrite new facilities and expanded services to all Illinois undergraduates in transition. This led to a careful consideration by the campus of the unit's future potential and the need for a new institutional identity for the unit.
The new location provides each advisor with a private office-a basic necessity not possible at the house on Fifth Street-and the center will have a computer lab and a more comfortable waiting room. Parrott believes the extra space will allow staff to do their jobs even better, while reinforcing to students how much they are valued in a diverse and gifted undergraduate community.
Parrott also sounds wistful. Something about being in the old office-they also called it cozy and home-like-fostered strong and comfortable relationships among the staff and with their student advisees.
"We are determined to preserve that kind of friendliness and openness when we move," Parrott says.
Mackenzie Barron, LAS alumnus and first-year graduate student in U of I's Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, speaks fondly of the former GCC. The program helped her find her way after she dropped her biology major, and she received her undergraduate degree in three-and-a-half years despite being undeclared for three semesters.
"I had a lot of interests and they helped me pare them down to something specific," she says.
Upon hearing news of the program's move, she worried that it would be less accessible to LAS students, but she was pleased that it would be more visible to the rest of the University.
The move has drawbacks. Students enrolling in DGS in fall 2008 and beyond will no longer be considered LAS students. When it comes time to declare a major, DGS students will need to apply for inter-campus transfer to LAS rather than simply choose a major within LAS. One consequence might be that underperforming students might lack the grades to transfer out of DGS into LAS as soon as they might like.
Parrott studied grade data, however, and found that only about 20, or about 0.6 percent, of the roughly 3,500 undeclared students at any one time would have that problem. Intensive counseling could help resolve the issue, he says.
The move also creates a sense of loss at LAS, particularly within LAS administration and the home unit of General Curriculum staff. Mary Macmanus Ramsbottom, associate dean and unit head for LAS student academic affairs, predicted the bond between LAS and DGS will remain strong. Historically, about two-thirds of undeclared students eventually choose an LAS major. And strong professional partnerships have been cultivated over the years among the LAS college, departmental, and undeclared academic advisors.
"It's a perfectly natural thing for liberal arts and sciences students to be undeclared," she says. "Undeclared is an official designation that's chosen by some of our best and brightest students. It's generally an issue of them having so many talents and interests it's hard for them to choose."
The people in charge of guiding these students, she adds, are finally getting the kind of home they deserve.
