Navigate user of the month: June 2020

How has your department/unit benefited from using Navigate?
Biological Sciences has benefited from using Navigate for communicating about students throughout the university. We have many students that double major, add minors and also transfer to other majors. We have benefited greatly by using Navigate during online Orientation this year to help personalize the appointments and keeping our documentation consistent yet thorough since we are meeting with such a large number of students. Using Navigate has allowed us to provide 1:1 appointments with our incoming students providing all of them with the same care and attention to be successful.

What feature in Navigate do you utilize the most?
The feature I use the most is the referral feature and appointment summary - including showing students how they can access their reports after our appointment. This helps students keep track of what was covered in the appointment and provides transparent communication between the advisor and student. The student list has been useful for online orientation to be able to follow-up with students that have not met with an advisor before the fall semester begins. I am always learning new aspects of Navigate and the mentors on campus that have helped me have been the most influential on my consistent use of this advising tool.

What would you tell other advisors who are thinking of using Navigate?
I am always surprised when advisors on campus do not use Navigate since it is such an excellent, easy tool to implement into advising. From an assessment perspective it provides critical information that can be easily downloaded and analyzed for reporting. It is a useful tool for a department concerned about their students that may change majors or need additional support while at Virginia Tech. Most importantly it has helped create stronger relationships with my students by being transparent with the information I enter that they can access later. Students get overwhelmed with information, especially in their first year. Having a resource at their fingertips that is consistently available is essential to their success and enables the advisor-student relationship to be more impactful.