Author: Teri Farr

Greetings fellow NACADA members! I hope your spring semester or quarter is going well and things are beginning to get back to some normalcy after a few years of unknowns. I know in our office we are seeing more and more students face to face while still offering an option of meeting via Zoom. While spring is technically a month away, I can feel it in the air. Here in central Illinois, we always know spring is around the corner when it’s not pitch dark when we leave work! The days are getting a bit longer and we welcome slightly warmer temps. And then bam, we get snow in March! That is life in central Illinois.

Another sign of spring for us is planning for Regional Conferences! I am so excited and honored to represent the NACADA Board of Directors at the combined Region 8, 9, and 10 conference in late February in Las Vegas and then in late April I will travel to my home Region 5 conference in Windsor, Canada! To me, the very heart of our organization often lies in the regions. Often smaller scale and for some, easier to access, the regional conference is where we meet some of the very newest advisors to the profession. It is truly heartwarming to me when I am surrounded by so many advisors that are often experiencing a NACADA event for the first time. I will never forget my first NACADA experiences. Some of my happiest and fulfilling professional memories happened at a NACADA regional event.

I hope you can take some time this spring away from your daily work responsibilities and attend your regional conference. I believe a day or two of professional development and connecting with colleagues and friends is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. I hear that attendance projection is really roaring back at the regions, and for that NACADA is grateful for our members. Clearly our membership knows the value of the regional experience, and I couldn’t agree more!

Finally, an update from the Board and Council—the NACADA Board and Council members are busy working on taking the strategic goals that were approved last October and putting them into action. Many of the strategic goals were born out of the region review work and have now been adopted and infused into the next phase of the strategic goals work. This work is intricate, time consuming, but ever so important, and I am grateful to my Board of Director and Council colleagues, along with the various stakeholders, for the heavy lift of getting these initiatives into place. There are exciting times ahead for NACADA, and I’m forever proud and grateful to be involved.

With that, happy almost spring from my desk to yours!

Teri Farr

NACADA President, 2022–2023