Would you like to connect students with a faculty “mentor” in their area in addition to the standard concentration advisor of record? Below are a couple of ways that ASK could facilitate a multi-level advising system from a technical perspective.

There are at least two ways to support an advisor + mentor framework in ASK:

OPTION 1. A student-driven approach using the "Shared declarations" feature.

Students may "share" their declarations with any faculty member. To do this, the student navigates to Degree Progress > Declarations > Shared Users, where they can search for a user to share their declarations with. A faculty member can see any declarations that have been shared with them by navigating to Degree Progress > Declarations > Shared Declarations. This feature could also be used by thesis advisors. The responsibility is on each student to share their declaration with potential mentors.

Student view:     

Faculty view: 

OPTION 2. Faculty/staff can grant “read-only” access or create a declaration approvals workflow

Only one faculty member may be authorized to give final approval on a concentration declaration and thus each concentrator may only have one assigned advisor at a time. However, under Degree Progress > Declarations > Concentrations > Options someone with “declaration manager” access (often a staff member or director of undergraduate studies) can select one of two options: 

• Grant Read-Only Access to particular users: For instance, all designated “mentors” could be granted “read-only” access, which would allow them to see all the concentration declarations even if they have no assigned concentration advisees.  
  
  
• OR Establish a Multi-approver workflow: Another option might be to create a tiered system that allows a declaration to be first, approved by the concentration advisor, and then reviewed and approved by the director of undergraduate studies or another faculty member in the role of “committee chair.” In concentrations where students have a core advisor (sometimes the director of undergraduate studies) and a secondary “faculty mentor” by area of interest or sub-field, the concentration may choose to list the “mentor” as the assigned advisor; the director of undergraduate studies, or “committee chair” would approve the declaration and any subsequent changes, and both would have access to the declaration. 

In the case below, one concentration has the concentration advisor approve first, then the committee chair reviews all advisors' approved declarations. You can remove the concentration advisor and just leave the DUS to approve all declarations.