“Professional development is the ongoing process of improving one’s skills and knowledge to better perform in their existing role or to attain the skills needed to perform at a high level in a new role” (Meyer, 2023). Professional development - if done with intention - can have many positive impacts on Advising team and the institution as a whole. Investing in Advisors through meaningful development can lead to higher job satisfaction and decrease turnover. In fact, in a recent Gallup survey, 48% of American workers would switch jobs if it offered better skills training opportunities (Gallup, 2021).Professional development can lead to greater self-awareness, encourage confidence, and leadership. It also provides advisors with opportunities to learn new strategies and techniques based on NACADA's Core Competencies, which serve "as the foundational elements for effective advisor training programs and advising practice...(NACADA 2017)." Because of the benefits of professional development, Advisors at the University of Southern Maine have created a committee to continuously coordinate opportunities to develop the necessary knowledge and skills to support the success of our students, as well as, continuing to build community amongst our advising team.
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Whether implementing new and innovative ideas or using time tested practices, the wellness of academic advisors is a community issue, involving not only administrators, but the collaboration with academic advisors. Committed to engaging in trust-based philanthropy prioritizing community voice, the Stupki Foundation offered an advisor wellness grant initiative to NACADA Region 9 members with the primary aim to devise strategies for addressing academic advisor burnout and to provide avenues for those directly involved in this work to craft their own solutions. The grant initiative centered on the idea of “money as medicine” and that providing supportive, flexible funds would be a part of the advisor burnout and retention solution. This article provides key themes that emerged along with initiatives and interventions that can be adapted with or without funding.
Budgetary reductions and constraints; Dealing with technological change; Understanding and implementing assessment strategies; Accommodating students with disabilities; Increased role of advising in retention; Changing student demographics; Institutional recognition for advising; Providing for professional development needs of staff; Encouraging and rewarding faculty participation in advising.
Unlike our grandmothers, most women currently in administrative roles were reared with a social message that 'you can do anything you want.' While that message has brought many exciting opportunities, many women have found that the unpredictable challenges can outweigh the opportunity. This is particularly true if one is 'the first woman' or 'the only woman' in a particular role. Therefore, it becomes essential that women in administration be active mentors to others in our community.
An advising portfolio provides a rich and diverse way to document advising expertise. Portfolio use is increasingly prevalent in higher education. Student portfolios are used to demonstrate that students have met the desired outcomes of a given major or program. Faculty use teaching portfolios to illustrate their mastery when they apply for promotion or tenure. Universities create portfolios for a number of purposes and audiences—such as accreditation or student recruitment. Portfolios provide flexibility; advisors can use both quantitative and qualitative measures and can customize their portfolio to fit their particular advising situation. So using a portfolio to document advising performance puts advisors in the mainstream of assessment activities which are becoming more demanding as well as more sophisticated in their call for accountability.
From a loose affiliation of advising and student affairs professionals to a dynamic professional organization – how did the Kent Academic Support and Advising Association (KASADA) get there? In 1989, about 30 professional advisors got together at Kent State University to talk about forming a university-wide organization for those of us who work directly with students. We sought to establish a network that would help facilitate information sharing and provide a mechanism for diminishing the bureaucracy faced by students. There was also a need to provide professional development opportunities and establish a visible presence on campus.
Suzanne M. Trump (Assistant Dean of Retention and Academic Advising, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia) and Janet Spence (Director, University-Wide Advising Practice, Office of the Provost/Undergraduate Affairs, University of Louisville) share what they gained from the NACADA Administrators’ and Assessment Institutes.
After advising for several years, in 2000 I had the opportunity to attend the NACADA Summer Institute in Lexington, Kentucky as an SI Scholarship recipient. I am not sure that in the telling, I can do justice to the experience and the difference it made in my professional life.
In the fall of 2006, I boldly went where no other “non-faculty” academic advisor at Seward County Community College had gone before; I joined the teaching scholar learning community. Why? One word: CURIOSITY. I wanted to test the catchy academic advising slogan, Advising is Teaching. I kept asking myself, if advising is teaching, then what links the two domains? What tools can we use to showcase these similarities? And how do we obtain buy-in from all stakeholders, especially students? As an academic advisor and a teaching scholar participant, I made it my charge to find this essential element.
As our NACADA continues to grow, it is essential that each of us takes a personal responsibility for our Association’s focus on diversity in our membership and in our leadership, as outlined in our Board of Directors’ strategic goals for the Association. The Diversity Committee has implemented an exciting Emerging Leader Program that has identified the first class of nine future Leaders from underrepresented populations who are being mentored by nine NACADA Association leaders. The next class of Emerging Leaders and Mentors will be selected in May; I encourage you to both apply to be a Leader or Mentor and to nominate other members for Leader or Mentor positions. Our Association’s membership and leadership can grow in diversity only if each of us makes it our personal goal to become involved!
The majority of universities in the United States depend upon faculty members to serve as advisors....The number of methods for integrating advising into more traditional responsibilities is limited only by the imagination of faculty members and the willingness of a department and/or university to accept these activities. Faculty members who find creative methods of advising while doing teaching, scholarship, or service activities will find it considerably easier to “do it all.”
NACADA has been a welcoming support system since I first became a member. I have been encouraged to write articles, present at conferences, serve on committees, accept a nomination for a leadership position and truly professionally explore and enhance myself. This experience has been overwhelmingly positive and surprisingly transcendental. This article will illustrate how NACADA has affected my life. A brief recount of my personal experiences will illustrate how NACADA’s support of the academic advising profession, opportunities for involvement and acceptance of diversity are but a few reasons for my extraordinary experiences.
The NACADA Summer Institute provided a unique opportunity for every advisor to learn more about their role in serving students. Those who clearly defined an advising problem on their campus and developed an Action Plan probably extracted the greatest benefit from the week, but it seemed that even the least-experienced advisors with less-defined action goals left with a road-map for how to improve their own advising practices. Participants also gained a good sense of the principles that inform the way their institutions provide connections for their students.
The NACADA Academic Advising Summer Institute brought together over 100 advising professionals with experts in the field to work on impacting student success at campuses across the nation.... This was not your average conference. This was not a drive-in workshop. This was an institute, an academic experience, and a refreshing start to the consideration of academic advising holistically....We all engaged in learning about advising structures and systems, research and development, and of course, politics and personalities as they pertain to setting an agenda for advising on our campuses....Summer Institute was a shared experience with other colleagues who care about the students we support; it was a professional development experience unlike any other.
NACADA’s commitment to professional development is central to the advancement of career-building within the ranks of academic advising. Currently, there is no systematic understanding of, or advocacy for, career ladders for academic advisors across the range of educational institutions. To begin that discussion, several universities have developed career ladders for advising professionals and advisors within these programs have shared information from their institutions.
NACADA Webinars are popular with NACADA members. Academic advisors have fun when they gather, and we often find great resources in discussing issues and ideas with each other. The Webinar Advisory Board has been discussing how we have “consumed” Webinars. Here are some examples of how campuses are organizing to make the most of Webinar participation.
Two advisors share some 'tried and true' tips for increasing the chances of attending off-campus professional development opportunities on the institution's dime.
While advisors often encourage students to become lifelong learners, they themselves are often so strapped for time that they shortchange their own lifelong learning pursuits. Fortunately, there are cost-effective options that advising administrators can use to promote lifelong learning.
The benefits are infinite for advisors who plan a campus professional development event that addresses their specific needs. With some planning, sharing, and camaraderie great opportunities abound for the entire campus.
The NACADA Annual Conference is my birthday present to myself...It’s a major part of my professional development.
If you haven’t attended a NACADA Summer institute, do it! It is a phenomenal opportunity to learn about academic advising and to connect with people from colleges and universities from across the globe.
Advisors have the freedom to choose to be at one of four levels within our discipline: advising practitioner, emerging professional, advising professional, or advising scholar.
I strongly encourage all academic advisors to attend a NACADA Summer Institute during your career. You will be encouraged and motivated; you will learn new skills and be introduced to comprehensive resources. You will discover a wealth of wisdom, assistance, and knowledge from all you meet.
I am still haunted by the words, uttered by my dean more than half a decade ago: “Build it and let’s see if they come.” The “it” is an advising workshop series, and the “they” are the faculty and staff members who advise our students.
The National Academic Advising Association’s webinars exemplify a cost-effective professional development opportunity in which presenters explore some of the most pressing contemporary concerns in our field.
New Directors of Advising are generally eager to succeed in terms of personal performance and team performance. The authors offer suggestions for negotiating unexpected challenges in a new advising director position.
A candid conversation with Charlie Nutt, who joined the Executive Office of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) in 2002 and has served as the association's Executive Director since 2007. This article originally appeared in K-State College of Education Connections magazine.
Professional associations like NACADA provide a forum for doctoral students to seek out mentors who will not only support but further their careers. Doctoral students within NACADA have connected in a variety of ways to share their journeys through coursework, research, and dissertation completion.
Assessment is an integral part of the puzzle that connects what we do in our role as academic advisors. When we assess our departments, our students, and ourselves at our institutions, we are getting at the crux of the matter and opening ourselves up to a new conversation.
Information comes at us like spaghetti from a fire hose. Email, newsletters, breaking news alerts, a student in the lobby, a colleague on the phone, a project spread across our desk. Advisors are constantly being asked to do more, which means less time for each task. How can all of the incoming ‘stuff’ be managed and still produce results?
Traditionally, graduate students have been advised by faculty within their academic programs. As faculty demands increase in other areas, there has been a shift at some institutions from faculty to professional academic advisors, mostly in master’s degree and professional programs. This is an area in need of attention and research to better train, prepare, and provide resources to assist graduate student professional academic advisors who come from staff positions other than faculty.
What steps can advisors take to prepare them to ascend the campus career ladder? Regardless of their ultimate goal, it is important for advisors to strive to reach the next step in each and every area of their job.
A supervisor’s time must often be divided among competing demands, sometimes to the extent that it becomes difficult to identify priorities and strategies for success. Keeping the three themes of rapport building, technical competency, and leading by example at the center of our focus can promote productivity and healthy working relationships among members of the advising team no matter what the conditions or constraints.
For most of us in the academic advising community, there are never enough professional development dollars; we are always looking for ways to stretch funding and get the most that we can for our shrinking budgets. Identifying professionals on our respective campuses or close by to present professional development programs takes time and expertise, and often our local experts are simply not available. Many campuses look to NACADA Webinars to provide cost effective, timely, and quality professional development programs.
The demands and responsibilities placed on advisors can be overwhelming... Rather than dealing with stress in unhealthy ways, advisors should look at a regular practice of the PEACE approach for stress management.
As registration opens for the 2016 NACADA Region Conferences, advisors from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa provide five tips to help attendees make the most out of their conference experience.
NACADA Assessment Institute attendees leave with tools in their assessment tool box that will serve for years to come.
Working in advising can be tough. Sometimes it’s good to hit the “refresh” button to motivate continued progress in one’s own professional career. At the NACADA Summer Institute, the author found inspiration as well as opportunities for learning and networking. The weeklong experience is something she will never forget.
With the recurring theme in higher education of focusing on student retention, effective academic advising has become critical. At the same time, university departments are competing for more limited institutional resources and monies directly allocated for advising-related support are often limited. In this current climate of reduced resource allocation and increased faculty workloads, there are still many ways that the advising relationship can be sustained and even improved.
As with any profession, academic advising requires training, but institutions often struggle to identify a centralized resource or approach for implementing advisor training. With obstacles of limited financial support, workloads stretched beyond capacity, and autonomous centers with disparate advising structures, advisor training has been a challenge for many institutions. The authors offer their advisor training as a potential model for other institutions.
The authors discuss an initiative developed to fill a gap in professional development opportunities available to the academic advisors at their institution.
Implementing a successful outcomes assessment plan, particularly one that assesses learning and performance across campus units, is a big undertaking. The authors consider ten essential, intangible elements of any successful outcomes assessment endeavor.
The authors contend that it is important to provide high quality online advising services that allow for comprehensive, face-to-face interactions with students, even when those students are off campus. With limited resources and demands on time, it is also critical to design an online advising option that is sustainable long-term.
This article highlights existing concepts on how to develop an advising center at the university level while describing the process one specific college took to advising center creation, giving the reader examples of how suggestions from the literature can be implemented.
Although the blended position is known by various names in different institutions, there is one underlying factor: the incumbents do more than academic advising, while building relationships towards student success.
The author advocates for increasing professional development opportunities related to study abroad.
One of the hardest things advisors face is the notion that they cannot always be the hero. As advisors, we want to help and we want to make things as easy as possible. Yet, there are so many things that are just beyond our control.
The author shares insights gained during her own classroom experience.
The authors finds that a NACADA institute “is nothing like an annual or regional conference.”
The author discusses how she benefited from the Assessment Institute: learning the curriculum, being guided by faculty members, and networking with like-minded colleagues from across the country and abroad.
The road to self-authorship—where an individual’s internal voice emerges and asserts its authority—begins with cognitive dissonance, perhaps even existential crisis, that challenges the individual’s assumptions about the self, social relationships, and the world. This article considers advisors’ role in creating provocative moments.
Change is an inevitable part of higher education today, but as our students’ needs change, advisors will have to adapt to new technology platforms to provide better support. Academic advisors can be dynamic agents of change.
Over the last six years, new cohorts of mentors and protégés (new advisors) have entered the program to aid in their personal and professional development at Temple University.
The author, a relatively new advisor, shares his introductory experience into the NACADA Summer Institute learning community.
The development and implementation of structured paths for professional development and career advancement for academic advisors are becoming progressively more important. In an effort to identify essential skills and characteristics as well as provide guidance to advisors seeking advancement, the advising community at Kansas State University developed a career ladder framework based on the NACADA Core Competencies of Academic Advising.
In the world of improvisational (improv) comedy, advancing is the process of moving a scene forward. In the world of academic advising where student success is a central narrative, it is imperative that advisors help students advance their own scene.
In an era of accountability for students and higher education institutions, it is critical for advisors to consider creative strategies to cultivate meaningful partnerships with faculty colleagues while maintaining a focus on student success, engagement, retention, and graduation. Advisors have a responsibility to provide students with academic guidance but to also collaborate with faculty to promote engagement in high-impact practices that provide the holistic and deep learning opportunities that characterize transformational education.
A new academic advisor describes her experience creating an advising “tribe” at the NACADA Summer Institute.
In a field where connection is vital to the success of the appointment, empathy and support on a daily basis can place stress on the advisor or student success coach over a period of time. Advisors may promote the benefits of self-care for their students, but who takes care of the advisor?
When he first began advising, the author “had only a vague understanding of the advising profession.” He had to find a way to take what he already knew and bring that into a new space.
Academic advising is a term that has not yet been clearly defined in Japanese higher education.
The author is “better equipped with effective tools and resources to enhance the academic advising experience” following her attendance at the 2018 NACADA Assessment Institute.
Black women advisors may experience the field of academic advising quite differently than their male and White peers. Sista circles have played a vital role in lives of Black women for over 150 years, providing a safe supportive space for them to seek help, encouragement, knowledge, and support in issues that impact them.
In today’s 21st century economy, it is no longer enough for advisors to help students choose a major and craft a course schedule. Advisors need to help students create a step-by-step plan for achieving their long-term goals and preparing for unexpected barriers along the way. Thus, career advising is now an important function of academic advising.
U.S. national student demographics and recent campus incidents point to the need for advising administrators to promote diversity through hiring practices and training of advisors and by creating and maintaining inclusive, supportive work environments. There are a number of actions that can be taken to support diversity on our campuses.
The author reflects on what she has learned during a decade as an academic advising supervisor.
Recognizing the value advisors bring to an institution creates a feeling of cooperation, ownership, and commitment.
Two members of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) advising team attended the 2018 Summer Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico and found the six-day institute to be beneficial in increasing their knowledge in all aspects of academic advising.
Students who return to college after a stop out period often have stories of arduous journeys of self-discovery predicated on competing demands of personal and professional life. Listening carefully to these students’ stories can provide advisors with resources to assist them successfully navigate the challenges and obstacles that until now have prevented them from achieving their higher education goals.
Academic advisors come from different lived experiences, educational, and professional backgrounds. Considering the multitude of paths coming into the field, it is essential to work with new advisors to support them through their transition into the advising field and retain them for the future of the field.
While students routinely report that the primary reason they attend college is to get a better job, few start with the end in mind. If academic advisors are to better engage students in career advising curriculum, they must weave it into all advising. This integration is difficult, but possible.
In addition to helping students plan, understand, and make meaning of their best path to graduation, academic advisors consistently contribute to student success beyond the advising appointment. It is vital for academic advisors to clearly communicate the variety of advising-related responsibilities in a way that is easily understood to all constituents across campus.
When an advising system redesign is needed, we cannot close the doors while we get it right. Redesign is an activity both creative and constrained; it must equally embrace the ideal and the real.
The author, a Wesley R. Habley Summer Institute Scholarship recipient, considers the Institute as was one of the most pivotal experiences of her career. She left with great ideas, some of which she has already implemented into her institution’s advising program.
Faculty members fill many roles at the institution, but while they are experts in their field of study, they typically receive little training or preparation to serve as mentor, coach, or advisor to students. A team of primary-role advisors and advising administrators at Penn State developed a foundational on-line course designed to help the faculty advisor understand the advising role.
Onboarding is not the same as training; it refers to the process by which new employees are integrated into an organization and its culture. Using NACADA’s Core Competencies of Academic Advising, results from an onboarding survey, and research into best practices in training and development, the authors revamped the onboarding experience for new advisors at their institution.
The Dyson College Academic Advising Office at Pace University has made significant strides towards a full-on integration of technology and is consequently changing how students expect, and deserve, immediate attention to their requests.
Assessment fosters a shared consensus and culture within the campus community about the purpose of advising. By attending the Assessment Institute, advisors better understand ways to demonstrate direct connections to the priorities and mission of the academy.
In addition to coming back from the NACADA Adminstrators Institute with an Action Plan, the author found that the work she and two colleagues did at the institute spurred valuable conversations within their office and with leaders across campus regarding the importance of investing in academic advising.
Scholarly production and practice-sharing can be a great challenge for advising practitioner-scholars as the demands of advising practice far outweigh the time available for developing research ideas and writing for the purpose of disseminating best practices to the field. Connection with others in the field can also be a barrier. The NACADA Virtual Idea Development Group is one writing support endeavor within the overall NACADA Writing Group initiative that seeks to develop and nurture academic writing skills.
An advising program’s mission statement is the guiding principle that should be at the back of an advisor’s mind as they enter every student interaction. The author describes a five-step process to write mission statements.
The authors examine the lived experiences of an Emerging Leader and his Mentor as they progressed through the NACADA Emerging Leaders Program. Following completion of the program, both continue to serve NACADA in various ways and encourage participation in the Emerging Leaders Program.
As a scholarship recipient for the 2019 NACADA Assessment Institute, the author gained new, applicable knowledge, and her team made great progress in identifying next steps for their assessment work during their time at the Institute.
Since the 2017 NACADA Annual Conference, the NACADA Professional Development Committee (PDC) has worked to promote the Core Competencies and gather feedback from various constituencies. Much of the feedback has focused on how the published Core Competencies help members use the components as a roadmap for their own professional development. In this article, PDC members provide ideas and examples of how members are utilizing the Core Competencies for academic advising training and development.
Integrating academic and career advising is becoming more common. Many colleges offer career courses to help students through self-assessment, career exploration, and decision making as well as to provide students with the tools needed for the job search. Virginia Commonwealth University has implemented strategies to improve academic advising as a way to increase student progress and graduation rates.
The Education and Professional Studies (CEPS) at the University of West Florida adopted a centralized advising model, restructuring how academic advising services were provided to students. This article extends the story by highlighting key considerations resulting from the inception of the advising center.
The restructure of an academic advising program included three areas of focus: a review of like-online institutions, process mapping by a business analyst, and subject-matter expertise from current leadership and academic advisors.
Given the critically important role of good advising, how can universities create an advising platform where advisors can readily share their best practices and access resources? One potential solution involves an Advisor Hub.
As the profession of academic advising continues to evolve, it is important for academic advisors to develop strong leadership skills to advocate for students, their roles on campus, and the academic advising profession.
The author always been drawn to conversations related to continuous improvement, outcomes, and focusing on how data can help inform decisions and drive the story advisors tell about their work. The NACADA Assessment Institute proved to be a perfect fit for learning more about academic advising assessment.
As the academic advising profession continues to transform, we will continue to see more mid-level advisors needing support.
Cite this article using APA style as: Rizvi, K. (2022, March). Brimful development at the NACADA summer institute. Academic Advising Today, 45(1). [insert url here]
Academic advisors help students achieve their goals and earn degrees, but few studies explore advisors’ own educational backgrounds. This paper reports findings from a survey—distributed through the NACADA listserv—on the experiences of 430 advisors with advanced degrees. The survey asked questions about advisors’ educational backgrounds, including types of degrees and majors, the academic activities they participate in (teaching and research), the advantages and drawbacks to having an advanced degree, and how their degrees impact their advising. After a summary of these findings, there are recommendations for how institutions of higher learning could improve advisor satisfaction and strengthen universities.
This essay covers one advising unit's approach to accelerating advisor onboarding and professionalization through the creation of a new advisor reading program. The author frames this contribution through the exemplarity/model framework. By outlining the program and the problem it helps solve for this unit, the piece provides readers with a model to think with (via analogical reasoning) when trying to solve similar problems in their own contexts.
