Kyle Ross, NACADA President

The past couple of years have been challenging for everyone. Everyone has experienced collective trauma felt by each of our communities on varying levels due to the inequities and injustices in health care and in society overall. And while everyone is still living through a pandemic, I am optimistic that this next year will bring healing to all of us. I have already felt that myself when I was able to attend the 2021 NACADA Annual Conference in person and could reconnect with friends and colleagues from all over the world again for the first time in two years.

With the healing that I hope everyone finds comes a new era for NACADA that Past President Cecilia Olivares (2020) noted in her Academic Advising Today article published last year. I would like to take this space to highlight NACADA’s newly adopted Vision, Mission, and Strategic Goals that pave the way for the future work of the association.

NACADA Vision

NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising is the leading association globally for the advancement of student success through excellence in academic advising in higher education.

NACADA Mission

NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising provides its members with exemplary and innovative opportunities for professional development and personal growth. As a global community promoting student success through academic advising, our mission revolves around four interconnected and key principles:

• We are inclusive, committed to offering all our members equitable opportunities for professional development and to fostering belongingness in the association.
• We are global, expanding our horizons by bringing together perspectives from around the world and collaborating with other organizations in the field of higher education.
• We promote a scholarly approach to academic advising, by stimulating research and enabling our members to connect theory to practice.
• We constitute a veritable community, based on mutual respect, encouragement, and support, thus providing an inviting and stimulating environment for professional development.

NACADA Strategic Goals

• Identify and remove barriers to accessibility of all opportunities for engagement and professional growth in the association to foster equity and inclusion for all members.
• Develop innovative and expanded opportunities for professional development that are relevant across the global contexts of academic advising.
• Expand and strengthen the network of external partnership globally to advance the vision, mission, and strategic goals of the association.
• Optimize the globalization of the association, including the community of members, network of partnerships, engagement with scholarship, and relevance of professional development opportunities.
• Provide practices that allow members to identify and cultivate their long-term professional development and engagement with the association.
• Foster communities of practice that empower members to advance the scholarship of academic advising.
• Examine and align the structure and infrastructure of the association to best support advancement of the vision, mission, and strategic goals.
• Assess association practices to ensure relevance with the evolving landscape of higher education across the globe.

What’s Next?

With these statements in place, I look forward to the work that the Board of Directors has committed to this year. First, acknowledging that the Race, Ethnicity, and Inclusion Workgroup has catalyzed several transformative steps that will elevate the longstanding efforts in the association around diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, the Board of Directors has agreed that this work cannot stop and must be woven into daily operations. Therefore, the Inclusion and Engagement Training Advisory Board will be formed in the coming months to transition the REI Workgroup into a permanent space in the organization structure. Members who are interested in serving on this new Advisory Board should complete an application that will be open and available soon.

The Board of Directors has received a follow-up report from the Region Review that was completed a couple of years ago that includes detailed recommendations for various groups to consider implementing. As a Board, we hope to be able to disseminate those recommendations once we complete our analysis in the coming months as well. Examples of potential tasks include examining how Regions can be more consistent around what roles comprise their steering committees or exploring if it is time that the Division be restructured to consist of Regions that encompass countries outside of the U.S. and Canada.

This segues well into the third priority of the Board of Directors. Between the new Vision, Mission, and Goals, the recommendations from the REI Workgroup and from the Region Review, and the fact that the organization structure has largely existed as-is for the last 20 years, the Board has agreed that it is time to conduct a holistic review of the organization structure, which will be a multi-year effort and will require extensive feedback from the membership.

And last, the Strategic Goals will need to include Benchmarks that can be achieved in short- and long-term timelines ranging from one to five years. Over the series of columns I will write during my term as President, I will continue to provide updates about these priorities and others that arise over the next year.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to be mindful of their ongoing healing and processing from a difficult couple of years. I know that every bit of time that members dedicate to the association and to advancing academic advising is a tremendous commitment right now. Thank you and be well!

Kyle Ross, President, 2021-2022
NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising
Head Academic Advisor
College of Business
Oregon State University
[email protected] 

Reference

Olivares, C. (2020, December). From the President: A new era of academic advising. Academic Advising Today, 43(4). https://nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Academic-Advising-Today/View-Articles/From-the-President-A-New-Era-of-Academic-Advising.aspx

Cite this article using APA style as: Ross, K. (2021, December). From the president: What’s next for NACADA? Academic Advising Today, 44(4). [insert url here]