Higher education professionals routinely encounter situations that warrant ethical decision-making. Often, team members find themselves navigating ethical dilemmas without the proper training. This results in team members experiencing a lack of confidence in addressing ethical situations, employing inconsistent approaches and compromising the quality and integrity within a team. It is imperative that leaders foster a culture that promotes ethical decision-making. This article shares how supervisors and administrators can educate and empower team members to foster the development of ethical decision-making skills. Strategies to create a foundation to effectively instill ethical decision-making within teams are provided. Pearls of wisdom that supervisors and administrators can share with team members are highlighted.
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In the shared responsibility of academic advising, we are attuned to pay close attention to students' nonverbal cues. Less often discussed, however, are strategies for the academic advisor in improving their own understanding of the ways in which conscious and unconscious gestures may subtly buoy or inhibit trust-building in an advising relationship. Using Schlossberg's (1989) Marginality and Mattering as a theoretical framework, two specific forms of nonverbal communications "the 5 gestures lines and energy states" will be explored and how appropriately determining and expressing nonverbal emotion affects the student experience.
In the advent of recent, new technologies shaping the world, it’s important to consider how the advising community can best use technology to leverage student resources and implement strategies that meet institutional goals or metrics. Many institutions are already compiling important data to create individualized support systems and interventions to increase student success and support institutional goals. This shift to data gathering and analysis can drastically alter the individualized support students can receive and will allow for more meaningful interactions between the advisor and advisee during sessions. Most importantly, this work highlights collaboration within institutions and a shared responsibility for student success.
Advising STEM community college transfer students takes some specific considerations to bring up in advising meetings. Looking at the demographics of who attends community colleges in the United States in 2023, community college student mental health, and specific STEM transfer success ideas will help advisors know some areas to focus on in their transfer appointments for community college STEM students. This is the start of the conversation of how to make the STEM transfer process smoother and more clear for community college students in the United States.
This article focuses on the challenges faced by second-year college students, often overlooked in academia. It provides strategies for academic advisors to support these students effectively. Emphasizing the importance of advisors guiding sophomores through reflection and goal-setting. The article also advocates for flexibility, and intentionality, as well as proposing unified resources to enhance accessibility and reduce student confusion. In this article, advisors are recognized as pivotal in empowering students during this crucial phase of their educational journey.
Academic advisors have the unique opportunity to assist new students as they transition to higher education. Thus, it is important for an academic advisor to be equipped with an abundance of resources in their toolbox pertaining to student success. This article shares some examples of topics and action items advisors can share with new students to help them on their road to success.
The “cafeteria model” of course selection and academic planning has long been a tradition in higher education and can complicate the advising experience. The cafeteria model is meant to offer students choice, but it can also lead to excess credit accumulation, longer time to completion, and negative outcomes for students. Harrisburg Area Community College has demonstrated positive outcomes by deconstructing the cafeteria model in favor of a more focused and intentional model of educational planning that builds relationships - student-to-advisor as well as colleague-to-colleague.
The goal of this paper is to learn about the professional competencies of academic advisors with doctorates. To gather information, an IRB-approved survey was distributed through the NACADA listserv and collected responses from 430 advisors, including 73 with doctorates. Responses illustrated that advisors with doctoral degrees surpass the standards for academic advising detailed in NACADA’s core competencies. And yet, survey results also revealed hesitancy and misconceptions around hiring advisors with doctorates.
Quality faculty advising is often noted as vital and critical to student success. However, most institutions are not assessing the quality of faculty advising. In fact, when faculty advising is assessed it is often limited, including only quantitative surveys of student satisfaction. Moreover, when assessment occurs it is not typically intended to improve faculty advising and it is not typically used in formal reviews of faculty performance (e.g., tenure). Meaningful and comprehensive assessment is key to quality advising that supports student success. This brief review of the research literature on assessment of faculty advising, identified areas for improvement in practice and policy. Institutions of higher education, professional associations, unions, and accrediting bodies all play a role in improving and/or maintaining quality faculty advising through setting expectations for advising and outlining best practice for assessment.
The NACADA Pillar Documents and the NACADA EAA 9 Conditions of Excellence are frameworks that set benchmarks for institutional academic advising practices. Together, these guidelines and standards contribute to the professionalization and improvement of academic advising in higher education. This article compares these frameworks and places them within the Educational Advisory Board’s (EAB) Student Needs Hierarchy to demonstrate the contribution of academic advising to students’ overall success and well-being.
