Advancing Academic Advising Project

Overview

The Advancing Academic Advising Project (3AP) is a campus-wide collaboration to create a best-in-class academic advising system. The project is sponsored by Professor Bill Gough, UTM's Interim Vice-Principal, Academic and led by Brian Ingoldsby, Senior Project Manager in the UTM Campus Project Management Office.

Goals for the project include:

1. Identifying a goal state for UTM's academic advising program;
2. Developing recommendations and an implementation plan for achieving that goal state;
3. Significantly involving UTM community stakeholders to support enhancement activities.

The first phase of the project, focused on identifying a goal state for UTM’s academic advising program and recommendations for advancing to that state, began in the fall of 2023 and culminated in the 3AP Recommendations Sub-Project Final Report being delivered to university leadership in the summer of 2024.

Phase II of the project, focused on recommendation implementation, launched in the fall of 2024 and is currently underway.
 

Learn more: 
 

Executive Steering Committee

Anuar Rodrigues
Executive Director, Strategy

Tim Fricker
Interim Dean of Student Affairs and Assistant Principal

William Gough
Interim Vice-Principal, 
Academic & Dean

Phase One: Identifying a Goal State

Project Team & Activities

• Brian Ingoldsby, Senior Projects Manager, Project Management Office
• Felicity Morgan, Director, Career Centre, UTM Career Centre
• Jessica Silver, Director, Student Engagement, Centre for Student Engagement
• Pascal Michelucci, Professor, Department of Language Studies
• Sandra Ngan, Senior Projects Manager, Project Management Office
• Sharon Marjadsingh, Academic Advisor and Program Administrator, Department of Historical Studies
• Svitlana Frunchak, Assistant Registrar, Academic Advising Services, Office of the Registrar
• Olha Fihol, Assistant Registrar, Registrarial Services, Office of the Registrar

Project Team activities focused on: engaging in extensive community consultation; leading the Project’s seven (7) working groups (involving over 65 community members); facilitating communication and change management activities; and investing in group learning and development.  

Working Groups 

In alignment with the goal of engaging and leveraging the expertise of UTM community members to the greatest extent possible, the Advancing Academic Advising Project (3AP) organized over 65 community members into 7 working groups, each responsible for reviewing and making recommendations related to a particular aspect of UTM’s academic advising program. 

The seven working group areas included:

Phase Two - Recommendations Implementation

Recommendation implementation activities completed, currently underway, or soon-to-be underway, as of the Fall 2025 semester, include:

• Increasing academic advising capacity in the Office of the Registrar (Priority Recommendation 1).
• Organizing a team of faculty and staff to further explore UTM’s academic advising model and develop plans as to the best path forward for the division (Priority Recommendation 2).
• Refreshing UTM’s Academic Advising Community of Practice (AACoP), to support its ability to provide academic advisors: community; voice; role-specific training; and professional development opportunities (Priority Recommendation 4a).
• Formalizing connection opportunities for the leaders of academic advising and other student support units, to increase inter-unit activities and support holistic advising (Priority Recommendation 4b).
• Implementing the Student Advising Service (Salesforce) product, to provide advising staff with access to comprehensive student advising records and enhanced referral functionality and students a single hub for accessing academic advising (Priority Recommendation 7a).
• Streamlining academic advising-related communication, including on a new advising website (Priority Recommendation 8).
• Exploring developing consistent branding/signage that will make it easier for students to locate advisor offices (Priority Recommendation 9).
• Designing and implementing proactive and holistic academic advising pilots that leverage predictive analytics to identify students who would benefit from additional support (Priority Recommendation 10b, 10c & 10d).

Advising Pilots 

In alignment with recommendations to provide increased proactive and holistic advising, increase our “early alert” capabilities, and provide enhanced support to students experiencing POSt challenges, pilots completed, underway, and planned include: 

Project Communications

• Project Launch Communication_Nov2023.pdf (155.21 KB)
• 3AP Community Update - March 2024.pdf (587.8 KB)
• October 17 Community Update.pdf (168.59 KB)
• Final Report Release Communication_Jan 2025.pdf (159.39 KB)
• 3AP September 2025 Community Update.pdf (290.64 KB)

Related Resources

• Provostial Review of Undergraduate Academic Advising Supports