Integrating
Career and Academic Advising
- Resource
Web links to integrated of career and academic advising centers
are resources supporting this issue
- Overview of issues surrounding the integration
of career and academic advising
- Read More About It! Bibliography
of resources dealing with this issue
-
Career
Advisors: A New Breed
Dorothy
Burton Nelson, Director
Career and Academic Planning Center
Southeastern Louisiana University
Three
out of four students entering the university for the first time
have no clear career/occupational goals, and only 8 percent of
declared students have an understanding of their majors (Virginia
Gordon 1995). First-time freshmen need and expect a roadmap for
successfully resolving indecision, a roadmap typically provided
through contact with an academic advisor. John Gardner (1995)
notes that "advising will be more connected to an early, intrusive
career planning process to heighten the probability of a more
appropriate major selection earlier in the baccalaureate experience
." (p. 165). Advising is a form of teaching, and all effective
teaching (thus advising) begins with the identification of student
learning outcomes. Helping a student clarify and set career goals
becomes a paramount task in the academic advising process. Knowing
when to give information, and understanding what kind and how
much information is needed, requires expertise and attention from
an advisor. Advising is a personal experience; academic programs
are impersonal. The advising process serves as the venue for personalizing
the academic program, as it provides for curricular adaptations,
pacing, and, possibly, a more relaxed definition of progression
and retention (Glennon & Vowell, 1995).
Content
of the advising sessions can be considered bi-faceted: 1) educational/academic
planning, and 2) career/life planning. Students often lack awareness
of the relevance and impact of college decisions on their futures,
and miss opportunities for identifying with key faculty and staff
for developing career salience (formulating identity/role within
one's field of study). Neither facet
can afford oversight. Studies have shown the impact on persistence
and satisfaction from having at least one meaningful faculty/staff
advisor in the university (Astin, 1993; Crockett, 1978; Gardner,
1983; Noel, 1985; Rendon, 1995; Tinto, 1987).
Guiding
students through the decision-making process requires skillful
interviewing on the advisor's part. Individualized, student-focused
advising is often diminished due to time constraints and limited
knowledge of underlying theory. In these cases course scheduling
becomes the hallmark of the advising session. To increase opportunities
for incorporating career and life planning into the advising session,
prescriptive information could be delivered in group settings
prior to registration activity, reserving the remainder of the
semester for individually addressing student concerns.
The
first year of college is a time for students to explore, mature,
and lay the foundation for a lifetime of making sound, rational
choices. Matching college majors with occupations and professional
opportunities is most often addressed in the office of a c areer
counselor while the selection of courses necessary for the completion
of the degree, to get the job, and engage in professional activities,
is most often addressed in the office of the academic advisor.
Career planning and academic advising overlap and intertwine,
requiring choreographed decision-making. For convenience, efficiency,
and seamless operations, units often integrate the two services,
training personnel for transitioning between the related topics
during any given advising session. The trained, more versatile
advisor expedites systematic, rational decision-making (Damminger,
2001; Gordon & Habley, 2000).
Chickering
and Reisser (1993) suggest that there are several developmental
tasks that must be resolved before adequate career and academic
choices can be made:
Again, to eek out time for such
quality interactions, delivery of general (prescriptive) information
can be disseminated through group sessions whenever possible.
The
challenges for expanding the scope of advising are almost as varied
as the student issues. First and foremost, advisors must understand
the importance of their knowledge of both career development and
student development theory. They must view their work as meaningful
and value their own set of job duties (thus, demonstrating their
own levels of career salience). Secondary are several logistical
challenges that include 1) securing funds from internal and external
sources (grant writing) for additional staff, materials and equipment,
2) advisor selection and training, 3) the reduction of case loads
for increased time and availability of advisors, 4) identification
of meaningful student learning outcomes, 5) clear definition of
procedures for the use of intrusive, prescriptive and developmental
approaches, as warranted by the situation (and profile of the
advisee), and finally 6) program assessment. The nuts and bolts
of program expansion can impede progress when advisors lose sight
of the purpose. A good general mission statement for comprehensive
advising is to educate and graduate
qualified individuals with the skills needed to enter suitable
employment and contribute to the economic development of surrounding
communities and beyond ,
may keep advisors focused and appreciative
of the small gains.
The
resources needed for advisor training and development for career
advising do not significantly differ from the resources necessary
for more traditional advising practices that focus on course selection
and scheduling. Incorporation of the theoretical underpinnings
of career and life planning may be the only real difference. The
resources listed in Appendix A are by no means exhaustive.
Networking among advisors becomes a platform for the discovery
and sharing of new ideas and resources. Successful programs have
successful advisors who typically seek out other successful programs
and successful advisors for the advancement of the theory and
practice of comprehensive advising.
Programs
of study take on new meaning through the ensuing conversations
between advisor and advisee that concern career and life planning.
As Glennon and Vowell (1995) stressed in their concluding editorial
statements in the monograph Academic Advising as a Comprehensive
Campus Process ,
It
is far more important that the advisee evolve his or her own plan
of action than it is to adopt any plan that an academic advisor
attempts to impose on that individual.They (advisors) must help
students set goals, examine options, choose a course of action,
and evaluate the results of that choice. (p. 141)
For
advisors who have been trained in traditional advising approaches,
making the leap into career advising may require additional reading
and preparation, but will add new dimensions for assisting students.
The first step in expanding advising practice, involves a paradigm
realignment of student needs; we must shift from information focus
to student focus, from focus on the immediate time frame to connections
in the future, and from curriculum completion to career salience.
Advising programs, services, and resources are merely window dressing
without the psychological positioning of the advisor. The real
difference is made when a student enters his or her advisor's
office and says "I'm not sure what I want to do with my life",
and the journey begins as the advisor responds "what an exciting
opportunity, let's talk about that."
Appendix
A
Resources
for Career Advising
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