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.
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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.
