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.

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