Charlie Nutt, NACADA Executive Director

2020 is an exciting year for NACADA as we celebrate our association’s 40^th anniversary. NACADA has a rich history of enhancing student success and providing opportunities for networking and learning to a broad constituency of higher education professionals from all types of institutions across the globe. We continue to make a major impact not only on our members’ work, but also on institutions as they work to structure successful academic advising programs.

I have just returned from our very successful winter events, held in New Orleans, where over 400 participants networked, learned from each other, and developed plans for their institutions. The NACADA Academic Advising Assessment Institute, the NACADA Academic Advising Administrators’ Institute, and the NACADA Summit on Academic Advising and Student Success at Historically Black Colleges and Universities each strengthen the advising profession; the connections made by these amazing participants and the outstanding support provided by the faculty at each event will continue to have tremendous impact on the student success at participant institutions. It was a major venture this year to partner with Complete College America (CCA) for the Summit and with the Reinvention Collaborative (RC) for the Administrators’ Institute as these partnerships continue to grow NACADA’s role in higher education.

It is so exciting to continue our 40^th anniversary celebration as we move into our spring region conference season! Each year, nearly 5,000 participants take part in 10 region conferences, and this year’s conferences promise to be as highly successful as ever. It is always a great opportunity to see NACADA leaders and members take such pride in planning, organizing, and coordinating these events as a way for participants to continue to learn and network together to find new and exciting ways to enhance the academic advising experiences of all students. The region conferences also continue to be events that draw new advising colleagues together to learn about NACADA and all the ways that our association can influence how they work as faculty advisors, primary role advisors, academic advising administrators, academic advising researchers, graduate students, and others closely tied to student success initiatives across colleges and universities. For so many of us actively involved in NACADA, it was a region conference where we first made a connection to the profession and the association and made many long time NACADA friends.

Our anniversary celebration will continue through the summer at the 34^th Annual NACADA Academic Advising Summer Institutes and the 8^th Annual NACADA International Conference in Athens, Greece.  The NACADA Summer Institute has a long, rich tradition of providing an in-depth study into the field of academic advising and student success as well as providing the opportunity to work with faculty and fellow participants to develop an action plan to implement on one’s campus. The NACADA International Conference held each summer brings together global colleagues to network and learn how academic advising impacts students across the world. It is clear the summer events will give all of us as NACADA members a great way to celebrate our association’s past, present, and future as we work together for our field and our association.

And the NACADA anniversary celebration will bring us into the 44^th Annual Conference on Academic Advising held this October 2020 for the first time outside of the borders of North America in San Juan, Puerto Rico! What an exciting way and place to close out our anniversary celebration as we work to learn together and to continue to grow our association and its impact on higher education. I look forward to seeing many of you in our 40^th year of celebration!

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. (2020, March). From the executive director: NACADA’s 40^th anniversary celebration. Academic Advising Today, 43(1). [insert url here]