When I speak to those outside the organization about my NACADA family, I often get questions about how we became so close: what is it about these people I see only a few times a year that makes me identify them as some of my closest friends, my colleagues, my confidants for more than just advising related questions?
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It is important that NACADA continues to grow in influence and involvement in higher education across the world in order for the future of the association to have impact across higher education for student success. This involves intentionally selected partnerships and collaborations with many institutions across the world as well as with other influential higher education associations and entities.
To be an expert on the culture of all students that advisors advise and teach is unrealistic. However, getting to know each student in terms of their personal stories and backgrounds is doable. This is particularly important as the student population in higher education continues to diversify.
Black women advisors may experience the field of academic advising quite differently than their male and White peers. Sista circles have played a vital role in lives of Black women for over 150 years, providing a safe supportive space for them to seek help, encouragement, knowledge, and support in issues that impact them.
When not addressed, shame can be a saboteur silently leading students away from an institution.
As a primary point of contact between universities and students, academic advisors are often asked to integrate data-driven tools into their practice but only rarely do the concerns of advisors guide the creation of new approaches to institutional data. By bringing the advising perspective to analyses of student data, new opportunities can be found to support student pathways with helpful information.
During the summer, the staff of Academic and Career Development at IUPUI works closely with other institutional offices to offer two-day orientation programs for incoming first-year students.
In today’s 21st century economy, it is no longer enough for advisors to help students choose a major and craft a course schedule. Advisors need to help students create a step-by-step plan for achieving their long-term goals and preparing for unexpected barriers along the way. Thus, career advising is now an important function of academic advising.
U.S. national student demographics and recent campus incidents point to the need for advising administrators to promote diversity through hiring practices and training of advisors and by creating and maintaining inclusive, supportive work environments. There are a number of actions that can be taken to support diversity on our campuses.
The author reflects on what she has learned during a decade as an academic advising supervisor.
The culture within an office whose team provides service to others can set the tone for communicating positively in each situation, whether it is with a student, colleague, or a stakeholder.
Recognizing the value advisors bring to an institution creates a feeling of cooperation, ownership, and commitment.
Two members of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) advising team attended the 2018 Summer Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico and found the six-day institute to be beneficial in increasing their knowledge in all aspects of academic advising.
Complete editions of AAT are provided to facilitate one-touch capability, but readers are encouraged to view the individual articles and provide feedback to authors.
NACADA President Karen Archambault encourages us to reflect and revel in the student success that we support.
While Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory encompasses the entire lifespan, his eight conflicts can be readily applied to an undergraduate college student's lifespan, offering a unique paradigm through which to view the student-university relationship. Advisors, particularly, play a critical role in helping students overcome each conflict/crisis.
Students who return to college after a stop out period often have stories of arduous journeys of self-discovery predicated on competing demands of personal and professional life. Listening carefully to these students’ stories can provide advisors with resources to assist them successfully navigate the challenges and obstacles that until now have prevented them from achieving their higher education goals.
Students sometimes find themselves trapped in a state of existence where they feel their voice is silenced and they experience a sense of helplessness. Academic advisors may find that employing the six stages of the Public Achievement model can empower students who find themselves in this “Sunken Place.”
Safe Conversations is an educational program that focuses on dialogue promoting a new way of talking and listening to one another. When applied appropriately, connection and safety occur which promotes respectful and healthy relationships.
Academic advisors come from different lived experiences, educational, and professional backgrounds. Considering the multitude of paths coming into the field, it is essential to work with new advisors to support them through their transition into the advising field and retain them for the future of the field.
While students routinely report that the primary reason they attend college is to get a better job, few start with the end in mind. If academic advisors are to better engage students in career advising curriculum, they must weave it into all advising. This integration is difficult, but possible.
Just as we expect our students to fulfill the promise they made to the institution by working hard toward graduation, we as an institution must strive to fulfill the promise we make to every student that, regardless of the difficulties they face academically or personally, we will help them reach graduation and develop into mature, intellectually curious and capable adults.
Occasionally, students enter their advising session with personal baggage to share with their advisor that detours the conversation away from the normal advising issues. Knowledge of psychological first aid (PFA) give advisors tools to support students who are striving to overcome a traumatically challenging situation before making a referral to another support resource on or off campus.
In addition to helping students plan, understand, and make meaning of their best path to graduation, academic advisors consistently contribute to student success beyond the advising appointment. It is vital for academic advisors to clearly communicate the variety of advising-related responsibilities in a way that is easily understood to all constituents across campus.
When an advising system redesign is needed, we cannot close the doors while we get it right. Redesign is an activity both creative and constrained; it must equally embrace the ideal and the real.
When blackness, queerness, and nonconformity intersect, the burdens students carry can be profound. Studies have shown a connection between queerness and discrimination, harassment, and victimization on U.S. college campuses. Academic advisors cannot underestimate how these incidents impact the lives and academics of BQGN students. The author offers methods that can be utilized to assist these students.
A paternalistic act is one in which an individual or institution interferes with another individual, without that individual’s consent, under the justification that such an act is for the affected individual’s own good. The author offers a conceptual analysis of paternalism and an ethical analysis of its place within academic advising.
The author, a Wesley R. Habley Summer Institute Scholarship recipient, considers the Institute as was one of the most pivotal experiences of her career. She left with great ideas, some of which she has already implemented into her institution’s advising program.
This year, NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising, celebrates its 40th Anniversary. Executive Director Charlie Nutt discusses some important themes that we are celebrating in our Past, our Present, and our Future.
Since the first class in 2007, ELP graduates have contributed to nearly every aspect of the association. This article celebrates the efficacy of ELP through reflections of leaders who have been elected as President, Vice-President, and Members of the Board of Directors, along with the first ELP Advisory Board Chair.
Research suggests that mental health and academic performance are positively correlated. Advisors are not expected to provide mental health counseling to students, but they would be remiss to ignore the impact of psychological issues and mental health on students’ experience, performance, and success. While treating students for mental health concerns may be beyond advisors’ scope, there are some ways in which they can address the issues.
Nontraditional student enrollment continues to make up a large portion of undergraduate student populations on both traditional college campuses and in the distance-learning sector. Institutions that wish to retain and help their adult learners be successful will need to be aware of the nontraditonals’ time and effort limitations and provide ways to support them academically to facilitate completion.
Faculty members fill many roles at the institution, but while they are experts in their field of study, they typically receive little training or preparation to serve as mentor, coach, or advisor to students. A team of primary-role advisors and advising administrators at Penn State developed a foundational on-line course designed to help the faculty advisor understand the advising role.
Onboarding is not the same as training; it refers to the process by which new employees are integrated into an organization and its culture. Using NACADA’s Core Competencies of Academic Advising, results from an onboarding survey, and research into best practices in training and development, the authors revamped the onboarding experience for new advisors at their institution.
The high-involvement intervention model encourages developmental advising by providing students with an opportunity to gain knowledge and maintain ownership of their decisions and experiences, while at the same time allowing advisors to become an integral part of student success and development.
The author’s experience as a first generation female undergraduate of color highlights the complexities of marginalized identities as one experiences the administrative life of a student affairs professional.
HBCUs have been leaders in producing and leading African American students toward health professions. Advisors must recognize HBCUs like a catalyst for change and bastion of future health professionals that need to be cultivated and mentored.
Establishing a Director of Student Academic Success position provided an opportunity to rethink outreach at the author’s institution. The goal was to remove as many barriers as possible, which resulted in distinct changes.
The authors contend that with the increasing focus on data-driven decision making, advisors must strengthen their scholarly backgrounds to effectively engage in the administrative landscape and ensure advising efficacy and support.
The Dyson College Academic Advising Office at Pace University has made significant strides towards a full-on integration of technology and is consequently changing how students expect, and deserve, immediate attention to their requests.
By accessing available student data store in institution’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, the athletics department at Nicholls State University was able to share with the coaching staff important and time sensitive information at critical and relevant points in the semester. In an effort to replicate the athletics department success, an initiative began to implement this strategy within an academic college, where data points were accessed and then reported to department chairs and faculty advisors to provide relevant data for a more intrusive advising approach with students who appear on these lists.
When academic advisors collaborate with institutional research professionals on their campuses for such an endeavor, it is important to move beyond the data which is readily available to institutional researchers to find sufficient data points for academic advisors to determine where to focus their student mentoring efforts.
With the student at the center of The University of Texas at Tyler’s efforts, Persistence and Retention Teams have been implemented to streamline employee communication to diminish the silo effect and find resolutions to student issues as efficiently as possible.
Assessment fosters a shared consensus and culture within the campus community about the purpose of advising. By attending the Assessment Institute, advisors better understand ways to demonstrate direct connections to the priorities and mission of the academy.
In addition to coming back from the NACADA Adminstrators Institute with an Action Plan, the author found that the work she and two colleagues did at the institute spurred valuable conversations within their office and with leaders across campus regarding the importance of investing in academic advising.
I know NACADA is wholly committed to seeing those who may be more likely to be overlooked… As an association, we work to serve each and every one of our members, and therefore to support the success of all students in higher education… If nothing else, I wish for my NACADA presidency to be remembered for radical transparency and an ethic of care.
Scholarly production and practice-sharing can be a great challenge for advising practitioner-scholars as the demands of advising practice far outweigh the time available for developing research ideas and writing for the purpose of disseminating best practices to the field. Connection with others in the field can also be a barrier. The NACADA Virtual Idea Development Group is one writing support endeavor within the overall NACADA Writing Group initiative that seeks to develop and nurture academic writing skills.
As members of NACADA, advisors work toward promoting “the role of effective academic advising in student success” and fostering “inclusive practices within the Association that respect the principle of equity and the diversity of advising professionals across the vast array of intersections of identity” (NACADA, 2018). The charge to utilize advising as a tool for student success while focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion means advisors need to be aware of how they are supporting and fighting for marginalized students and colleagues. Allies support those who are marginalized, seek to make changes so that others can get the credit they are due, and are constantly learning.
Shifting the mindset from treating traditional undergraduate students as adolescents to recognizing them as emerging adults can allow advisors to build genuine and meaningful relationships with their advisees. Utilizing Knowles (1988) six principles of andragogy, not as a checklist but as a mindset, allows advisors to build meaningful, genuine, and authentic relationships.
For decades, higher ed institutions have been pondering how to improve retention and degree completion rates. And yet, in spite of all kinds of programs and centers and initiatives, few have really moved the needle much in the right direction. In the search for the easy answer to a complex question: How can we help our students persist?, institutions have overlooked the fact that we have been asking the wrong question all along. The revision should read: How can we help our student persist? And we need to ask it thousands of times.
Two of the greatest barriers to implementing high-quality early intervention programs are the challenges of generating faculty buy-in and determining a reliable set of predictors. Advisors may be uniquely qualified to serve as intervention agents due to the relationships they form with students, often beginning at orientation.
Online advising may be one way to retain doctoral students. The College of Saint Mary’s Graduate Advising Space, based on NACADA’s Core Values, provides much more than the answer to “What class do I take next?”
Every year, the government of The United Arab Emirates grants numerous scholarships to distinguished Emirati students. The author discusses the role of advisors to these students and discusses the challenges they face.
An advising program’s mission statement is the guiding principle that should be at the back of an advisor’s mind as they enter every student interaction. The author describes a five-step process to write mission statements.
The authors examine the lived experiences of an Emerging Leader and his Mentor as they progressed through the NACADA Emerging Leaders Program. Following completion of the program, both continue to serve NACADA in various ways and encourage participation in the Emerging Leaders Program.
As a scholarship recipient for the 2019 NACADA Assessment Institute, the author gained new, applicable knowledge, and her team made great progress in identifying next steps for their assessment work during their time at the Institute.
