Charlie Nutt, NACADA Executive Director

As we prepare for the start of a new academic year and for NACADA’s 34th Annual Conference in Orlando, it is a great opportunity to reflect on the past year in our association and in higher education. This has been a year filled with opportunities and challenges as we have faced continued cuts in funding, more students enrolling in higher education, and a global focus on student persistence to graduation and completion.

This has been a busy and very productive year for the Association. We have continued to demonstrate our global focus as evidenced through the new tag line for NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising. We have adopted the new logo you see in this AAT issue and are exploring opportunities to support NACADA allied associations in several international countries. We also continue our growth with our Canadian colleagues as allied associations in Canada continue to grow and prosper. In addition, I am pleased to announce that both Region 6 and Region 8 will hold their regional conferences in Canada in 2011. Beginning with this AAT issue, we will have at least one article from our international members on academic issues from a global perspective. It is exciting to see NACADA expand its influence in the global community.

In addition to our global focus, just a few of NACADA’s other accomplishments this year have been:

• The publication of a new pocket guide entitled The Role of Academic Advising in Student Retention and Persistence.
• In spite of severe winter storms across the country, we had record attendance at our winter events in February, including our Seminar on Student Retention, Administrators’ Institute, and Assessment Institute.
• Our 10 Region Conferences this spring had a record attendance of 2963 participating.
• We held two Research Symposiums and two Technology Seminars in conjunction with Regions 2, 3, 4, and 8 this year, and all had sold out capacity.
• Our Season 4 Webcast Series “Reaching and Retaining Students” had a record enrollment with nearly every webcast of the Spring semester being sold out; Webcasts reached over 475 institutions and had a viewing audience of over 12,000.  NACADA’s webcasts continue to be the most cost effective in the webcast industry and all NACADA webcast presenters are advisors and academic advising administrators working in the field on college and universities campuses.
• The 2nd Volume of NACADA’s Scenes for Reflection and Learning DVD has been produced; this addition to the advisor development series will be on sale at our Annual Conference in Orlando.
• The 2nd Edition of NACADA’s monograph Comprehensive Advisor Training and Development: Practices That Deliver has been completed and will debut at our Annual Conference in Orlando.
• Over 300 participants from institutions around the globe attended our two Academic Advising Summer Institutes this summer.
• We expanded our support of graduate students within the field by offering scholarships for graduate students to attend not only our Region Conferences but also our Annual Conference in Orlando and our Research Symposiums in 2011.
• We expanded the number of NACADA scholarships for participants attending the NACADA Academic Advising Summer Institutes, Academic Advising Administrators’ Institute, and Assessment of Academic Advising Institute.
• The Kansas State University online Graduate Certificate and Masters in Advising degree program, in which NACADA has been involved from their inception, continue to grow and expand each semester. The first full-time faculty member within the program was hired for this fall semester.

One may ask why, in these tough financial times, have NACADA’s programs and publications grown and expanded during the past year? I feel strongly that it is because institutions are very carefully evaluating professional development opportunities and supporting only the best with their limited resources; many institutions have determined that NACADA provides the highest quality in professional development events and publications.

I look forward to seeing you all in Orlando in October – our registration numbers indicate that we may hit another landmark number of participants for our Annual Conference. See you in Orlando!

Charlie Nutt, Executive Director
NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising
(785) 532-5717
[email protected]

Cite this article using APA style as: Nutt, C. (2010, September). From the executive director: A year filled with opportunities and challenges. Academic Advising Today, 33(3). Retrieved from [insert url here]