How Advisors are Assigned: Advising in the History Department is decentralized, and each professor has between two and three dozen majors as advisees. You are assigned an advisor when you declare the major. If you have a strong preference, it is useful to let one of the staff in the department office know that. If you are unhappy with your assigned advisor, or if you believe that another advisor would be more compatible--for instance because of an area of interest--you can make the change without having to give an explanation to anyone. To change your advisor, consult with one of the staff in the department office, 280 Schaeffer Hall.

What You Can Expect from Your Advisor: Your faculty advisor will respond to any academic matter you bring up. He or she maintains a file of up to date information about your academic progress which is kept in the department office. He or she will assist you in selecting courses, in meeting departmental and collegiate requirements, and in interpreting the graduation analysis forms sent by the Registrar each semester.

While your advisor usually knows a bit about you based on classroom experience, an advisor is not a life counselor and is not the appropriate person to advise you about deeply personal matters. But your advisor is your advocate: he or she will write letters and make telephone calls to try resolve difficulties with other instructors, administrators and, in exceptional cases, with parents, and can often help get you quickly to a counselor or other help, when necessary.

Advisors are also helpful sources of information about other parts of the University and will try to find answers to perplexing questions about resources, regulations and specialized services, but they may also need to refer you to others about non-history degree requirements. Advisors are knowledgeable about the postgraduate study of history in our Department and in other institutions, and they may be able to tell you about the employment prospects of history BAs.

You should see your advisor at least once each semester during the pre-registration period. Needless to say, we give our best opinion on issues beyond the major, but for definitive resolution of non-history matters, we can only advise you where to go to ask.

Helpful Hint—Some faculty may be briefly in the history office during their scheduled office hours making copies or transparencies, looking for the right map or slide, or getting documentation prepared for a student. So if your advisor appears not to be around, it’s always a good idea to check in 280 SH, before you go away in frustration.

Letters of Recommendation: Advisors will, if asked, write letters of recommendation on the basis of their personal knowledge of you and on the basis of the information in your file. Letters of recommendation are, along with your grades and standardized test results, the most powerful evidence that employers, recruiters and graduate or professional schools (law school, medical school for instance) can obtain about your academic accomplishments. Such letters are most effective if written by instructors who know you well as a student and who can be relied on to say favorable things about your skills and promise. Advisors will also help you to consider whom else among your instructors might be asked to write an effective letter.

In general, any instructor who has given you high grades in more than one upper-level history class is a better prospect for a recommendation than your advisor, who in many cases will not have taught you. You need to be realistic in your expectations and not confuse an pleasant instructor’s manner with a willingness to over-praise you: a faculty member who has given you a C grade or less will not tell a graduate admissions committee or prospective employer that you walk on water.

Note that you can ask to see a copy of any letter sent on your behalf. Some instructors, however, prize confidential communications and may refuse to write a recommendation unless you waive your right to examine it.

Keep your papers and exams from past courses! These may be important evidence needed to remind a professor about the quality of your work. Indeed, you should have a portfolio of these materials for all your courses.

Finally, there is a well-established etiquette in asking for letters of recommendation—not just from advisors or history professor—but in general:

• One must ask before listing someone as a reference and one should ask soon enough to allow a reasonable amount of time to have good letters written. A good rule of thumb is to make the preliminary request from a professor about four to six weeks before the letter is due.
• You need to provide documentation to the letter writer. When you ask for the letter make sure you get your advisor or professor to discuss with you what materials will be needed—perhaps a paper from the course you took with him or her, a complete transcript, or a draft of the personal essay for your application to graduate school. Do not expect that she/he can remember.
• You will need to deliver to him or her the necessary forms with stamped and addressed envelopes for each place to which a letter needs to be sent. Bring the materials all at once rather than piecemeal. If there will be more than one application, it is best to provide all the applications in one batch.
• Your efficiency in providing all the materials to the professor in one package--so that all the letters can be written at once--will be appreciated. Indeed, when this is done well, it is often commented on as a positive quality in letters that get written for successful candidates.

A Note on Consulting with Faculty, Visitors, and Graduate Students: Undergraduates sometimes feel more comfortable conversing with graduate instructors than with professors because they are closer to them in age and experience. For a number of reasons, though, you should try to overcome feelings of shyness and make the personal acquaintance of your professors. Professors have more experience, know more about their special fields, and are more likely to write effective letters of recommendation than graduate instructors. Professors and graduate instructors alike, however, lament the fact that students too often fail to take advantage of office hours. Contrary to a deeply, rooted student myth, instructors do not regard discussions outside the classroom as illegitimate efforts to bolster grades. On the contrary, most instructors will relish the chance to discuss historical matters in greater depth.

A list of regular faculty and a list of visitors to the department is available in the main office, 280 SH. Skim through it to find out about the research specialties of the department, or to get a sense of how someone will teach a course you’re thinking of taking, as you are beginning to think about an honors’ thesis, to find out about special opportunities for courses offered by visitors who are not usually part of the department, or simply to get an impression of the remarkable accomplishments of its faculty that make the University of Iowa History Department such as outstanding department in this institution.