Building a Culture of Proactive Advising: Lessons from TCU’s Transformation

As mid-semester approaches, advisors often find themselves at a crossroads: some students are thriving, while others quietly struggle. But waiting until grades post or holds appear is often too late.

That’s the mindset behind our recent webinar, “From Reactive to Proactive: Advising Strategies That Drive Student Success,” where Dr. Angela Thompson, Executive Director of Academic Advising at Texas Christian University (TCU), shared practical ways to make advising more intentional and data-informed.

When Dr. Thompson arrived at TCU, advising looked different across every college. It was decentralized and difficult to track. The first step was not new technology, but listening. Her team spoke with advisors, faculty, and students to understand what slowed down outreach and what information they needed sooner.

With that foundation in place, TCU made several key changes that laid the groundwork for proactive advising and used Stellic Care to make the process sustainable.

Advisors across colleges now use shared appointment types and note templates within Stellic, creating consistency across the institution. This structure helps everyone see where students stand, regardless of major or department. Since implementation, advisors have taken more than 7,500 notes, capturing meaningful context and progress for every student interaction.

Students previously had to navigate different methods for scheduling appointments with advisors of various colleges. Today, they use a single Stellic scheduling link that allows them to book the right type of appointment, whether it is a quick check-in or a full planning session. Advisors see those appointments alongside student data, so each meeting begins with context rather than catch-up.

Students have already scheduled over 22,000 appointments using the system, and 38.5% of Stellic usage occurs outside of traditional 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours, showing that students are engaging with advising resources on their own time.

Using Stellic’s dashboard and filters, TCU advisors monitor engagement signals such as students who have not scheduled an appointment in 60 days, new registration holds, or reduced activity in the learning management system. These insights automatically appear in advisors’ daily dashboards, helping them act before small issues grow into major problems.

“We didn’t want to wait until the end of the semester to find out a student was in trouble. If we can see they’re disengaged early, we can intervene while it still matters.”

When advisors reach out, they document outcomes directly in Stellic’s student timeline, where every interaction—outreach, kudos, referral—is tracked in one place. Smart tagging keeps documentation consistent, while reporting tools give leadership a clear view of what approaches work best.

Stellic’s analytics help TCU’s advising leadership review team-wide trends. Leaders can see where follow-up rates are strong, where students need more touchpoints, and where workflows can improve. This visibility makes proactive advising not just an initiative, but an everyday practice built into the advising culture.

For teams looking to follow TCU’s example, Dr. Thompson outlined a repeatable process any institution can adopt:

1. Map your current workflows to identify where advisors are spending time reactively.
2. Standardize appointment and note practices so every student story is visible.
3. Define early warning signals and decide which indicators will always trigger outreach.
4. Automate visibility with dashboards and filters that surface students daily.
5. Close the loop by tracking outcomes and discussing data regularly.
6. Coach to consistency using reporting to identify gaps and celebrate success.

Today’s students face more complexity than ever, and advising teams are managing larger caseloads alongside growing expectations for personalized support. Proactive advising ensures that students receive help when they need it, not only when they ask for it.

By combining thoughtful strategy with platforms that make early insight and outreach simple, institutions like TCU are showing that proactive advising is not just possible—it is transformative.

If you’d like to see how Stellic Care can help your team move from reactive to proactive advising, we’d love to show you how.

Schedule your personalized demo