This paper explores the challenges of the registration process in higher education through the vantage point of a retired college administrator re-enrolling as a student. Despite extensive experience and knowledge, the author faced numerous obstacles from application to course registration, illustrating how systemic issues can impede student progress. The author highlights the critical role of academic advising in student retention and success, drawing on research and personal insights to identify a gap between institutional values and practices. This gap underscores the need for higher education institutions to align their operational processes with their commitment to student-centered advising and support. The author’s experience serves as a call to action to improve these processes to better serve all students.
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Fear of failure and procrastination pose considerable barriers to students in higher education. Advisors can make a difference by recognizing the existence of these fears and understanding their consequences. This knowledge enables advisors to empower students to address their fears, promoting both academic and personal success.
Academic success can be hindered by the demands and responsibilities of everyday life. Students are often in the difficult position of deciding how to navigate multiple obligations. Use of the 'Yes, And...Rule" equips advisors to provide perspective and support. The growth oriented approach helps to create a path for students to attend to outside the classroom tasks as well as achieve academic success.
What does advising have to do with the board game Monopoly®? Students seek their academic wealth potential through their academic decisions to build skills, just as someone decides what to do to build wealth in Monopoly®. Empowering students to take control of their game play so they spend more time acquiring wealth and less time stuck in Jail is a powerful influence advisors can have on their success trajectory. Teaching a Get out of Jail Free Card mindset and a Park Place Focus can lead to multiple wins for our students.
NACADA’s Well-Being and Advisor Retention advising community frequently facilitates conversations with academic advisors on crafting sustainable workplace practices to safeguard advisor wellbeing and promote persistence in the advising profession. The authors’ participation in those conversations have led us to two conclusions: 1) advisors should engage in self-advocacy to achieve personalized workplace wellbeing and 2) little research or discussion is available on workplace self-advocacy in academic advising. Academic advising professionals must begin to discuss the importance and implementation of workplace self-advocacy in the advising field. Workplace self-advocacy is a critical skill for academic advisors given the demands of the advising profession and advisors’ positions within university systems. This article, sponsored by the Well-Being and Advisor Retention advising community, promotes conversation on advisor workplace self-advocacy to encourage advisors to engage in research, discussion, and personal reflection on the topic. More academic advisors should engage in workplace self-advocacy to benefit themselves, their students, their institutions, and the advising field.
The role of an academic advisor and some of the demands and challenges are emphasized in this study. There are four advisors in the Computer Science department of the College of Engineering and Computing at George Mason University (GMU). The advisors meet the advising needs of more than 2600 Students each year, some of which display behaviors related to mental illnesses such as depression, autism, anxiety and more. This population has a plethora of resources to support the needs of the student. However, there does not seem to be the same number of resources or training available to the advisor. The importance of professional advising, the need for additional information, and training on how to best work with this population of students is essential. Student issues are documented based on advisor experience, and scenarios are shared. Key questions are asked of the advisors who will read this article. This article expresses the importance for advisors to self-educate and share their own experiences in lieu of the imbalance of training currently available to advisors.
Harford Community College (HCC) Advising, Career, and Transfer Services Department has undergone changes to transfer programming offered to students. In alignment with Community College Research Data and advising literature, the department added several group workshops and increased the presence of transfer admissions representatives on campus to assist students in building transfer student capital and successfully prepare for transfer. The advising literature and data show that academic advisors from Community Colleges are important in helping students successfully prepare for transfer.
Using Shaun Harper’s (2010) anti-deficit achievement framework, academic advisors can center student achievement to facilitate thriving in college students. An anti-deficit approach focuses on strengths but differs from strengths based advising in its active resistance to deficit narratives that persist about marginalized populations. Through acknowledging deficit thinking and deficit-focused policies and practices, advisors can begin to recognize and disrupt deficit-thinking at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systemic levels.
Higher education institutions have been incorporating more academic coaching models into their student success plans in recent years as a supplement to academic advising to improve retention. However, academic coaching still suffers from an identity crisis as there is no universal definition for what coaching entails as the roles differ across institutions, which makes it challenging to find research that provides enough data that can be used to determine the overall effectiveness of academic coaching. At the University of St. Thomas in Houston, a new success coaching program has been launched with the goal of helping students differentiate between the roles of coaches and advisors and working collaboratively with faculty and other campus resources to provide a more holistic approach in serving students.
After over a decade, one professional left his advising position for a new opportunity in the field. These decisions are incredibly challenging because they bring up feelings of guilt for leaving the role and excitement for the latest opportunities ahead. Our identities are, at times, ingrained into campus cultures. Being on one campus for so long can make one feel they may be a lifer. However, when a panic attack made this advisor re-evaluate his overall mental health and well-being, a change of position was one of the solutions on the table to assist in his overall retention in the industry. Gain insights on this practitioner’s journey of shifting jobs during the post-lockdown era in higher education. There are highs and lows in this story, but overall, it is a story of resilience that shows how you can bounce back from an uncomfortable situation.
