Campus News

Great Falls College advisors lauded for going extra mile for students

Great Falls College's advising team loves knocking down hurdles to graduation.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- The personal touch is what sets the Great Falls College MSU Advising and Career Center apart, according to an accreditation report from Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

“Great Falls College is to be commended for the quality of their advising program,” the report said. “They have required advising prior to registration each semester. The approach is holistic, and advisors connect students to other student success resources … as needed.”

It is high praise and much appreciated for Troy Stoddard, Great Falls College’s advising director, to see the hard work of his department get noticed for its quality. However, it doesn’t compare with the satisfaction of seeing a student he has advised walk across the stage with a diploma.

“Just seeing them accomplish their goal, whether that’s transferring, completing a degree, getting that job, especially when you know they have had challenges they had to overcome, that’s a good feeling,” he said.  

And Elyssa Wassmann, an academic advisor, echoes that sentiment.

“My favorite part is when you work with students and get them in all of the pre-reqs and you can see them block by block move on and then apply to whatever program they want, and you see them get in,” she said. “That’s the best part of it, watching them see their hard work pay off.”

Great Falls College was moving toward a more individualized approach when Stoddard was hired to lead the department in 2015, and he said it’s been rewarding to see that work pay off with a more student-focused approach.

“Our model is we have full-time professional advisors, and it’s very much a personalized approach,” he said. “We meet with each student individually to help them create plans. We help them identify barriers and help them problem-solve to overcome those barriers, so everything is very personalized and focused on the students and their needs and their goals.”

He said the individual treatment is imperative at Great Falls College because such a large number of students are first-generation college students and many are nontraditional students who may be intimidated by the process of applying, registering and signing up for classes.

“Just in general, our students have a lot of things outside of school that they are still navigating,” Stoddard said. “How do you navigate these other obligations, working full-time, having children, military obligations. School is not their only commitment, and it can’t realistically be the No. 1 priority and how do you navigate that? In education, it’s almost always assumed that school is your No. 1 priority and for many of our students, it just can’t be.”

Wassmann, who was the health sciences administrative assistant at Great Falls College before becoming an advisor in October 2020, said she got a taste of advising in her previous role as she worked with students who were looking to apply into health science programs at the school, but her new role allows her to build even deeper, more meaningful relationships.

“I really enjoy getting to know them at the beginning of the process and helping usher them through the whole way,” she said.

Stoddard said it’s a big advantage for students and the college to have full-time professional advisors as opposed to faculty advisors. He said students get the experience of someone who is well-versed on the overall big picture, and faculty members aren’t spread as thin, but he is quick to point out that his office frequently draws faculty into the advising process when talking about things like job prospects or electives students may want to take to appeal to a certain employer or industry.

“It’s so nice to have faculty you can send them to,” Wassmann said. “They can reinforce what you already told them but also give the students that career outlook and what the job market looks like. They are the experts. This way students feel they are on the right track academically and professionally.”

Stoddard said full-time advisors also can be much more helpful when students change their minds and decide they want to change programs. He encounters this a lot. 

“When students change their goals, that’s a lot harder for faculty to navigate because they are a lot more specialized,” he said.

“Having centralized advising is a best practice in higher education, and our advising center is the best, said Mary Kay Bonilla, Great Falls College’s chief student affairs officer and human resources officer. “They genuinely care about and guide each student on their path here at Great Falls College and beyond.”

To visit an advisor at Great Falls College, call 406-771-5100 or email advising@gfcmsu.edu.