Academic Advice and Advocacy

Academic Advisors - Who are we?

We are professional, experienced full time staff members employed to provide help, information and advocacy across a range of academic, administrative and personal issues.

Each year we assist hundreds of students with academic appeals, progress review meetings, grievances, special consideration applications, academic misconduct hearings (for example an allegation of plagiarism), discrimination and harassment matters - as a few examples.
Academic Advisors will listen to your issues and provide unbiased advice on the best way forward, the aim being to facilitate a constructive resolution as quickly as is practicable.

The service is FREE, CONFIDENTIAL and INDEPENDENT of influence from Swinburne staff as guaranteed by the Advocacy Charter.

Academic Issues

Contact details to make an appointment to meet an Academic Advisor on your campus can be found at http://myssaa.com.au/connect/contact-ssaa

Independent Academic Advice & Advocacy

SSAA offers an independent advocacy service for all students. This independence is guaranteed under the SSAA Advocacy Independence Charter. The Charter sets out a number of requirements which apply to Student Academic Advisers when advising and advocating on behalf of a student. One of these is the requirement that the Student Academic Advisers must be completely independent and impartial.

Follow the link below for more information.

Independent Advocacy Charter

When meeting with an advisor:

• Bring your student ID card
• Consider what outcome you are seeking
• Bring any/all correspondence (e.g. emails & letters) relating to your issue

What can we do for you?

• Explain what your options are if you have an issue
• Help you discuss and resolve issues with your teacher/ lecturer about your course
• Help you arrange for a reassessment of your work if you think you have been unfairly treated
• Assist you in drafting an appeal letter
• Assist you in drafting a formal grievance letter
• Assist you in drafting a formal reassessment letter
• Assist you in drafting a Show Cause letter
• Explain Swinburne’s policies and procedures
• Help you understand the processes for complaints and grievances
• Advocate with you at hearings and meetings
• Provide you with information on other services available to you at Swinburne and refer you to outside bodies where appropriate

What we can’t do:

• Make anonymous complaints. Natural justice dictates that people have a right to know the nature of a complaint against them if they are to respond. You may wish to consider a group complaint as an alternative
• Respond belatedly. Swinburne has very strict time lines for resolving grievances. Once this has passed it is very difficult for us to assist
• We cannot assist you with immigration and visa issues, we can refer you to appropriate advice.
• Provide personal counselling or legal advice. We can refer you to free and confidential counselling.

Academic Advice & Advocacy Audit

Students who utilise the advocacy service are invited to make submissions to the Academic Advice and Advocacy Audit Panel about the independence of SSAA's Academic Advisors & Advocates.

You can make a submission at any time if you are concerned about the independence of SSAA's Academic Advisors & Advocates.

If you would like to provide feedback on your experience please click here.

Emails from SSAA

It has come to our attention that emails sent from Swinburne accounts have been blocked by some email providers. Most notably we are having difficulties with Yahoo. SSAA has had a number of emails bounce back over the past week from Yahoo so if you have contacted SSAA, have not had a response and only provided an external email account, please contact us again with your Swinburne Student email address and we will reply as soon as we can.