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Academic advisors tell and listen to stories every day...narrative theory—found mainly in literature, film studies, anthropology, and nursing—recommends itself as an example of how theory from outside academic advising may help us better explain academic advising and make us better practitioners.
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.”
As we look at the current landscape of theories, philosophies, and approaches to advising...I urge advisors to consider the ways in which the disciplines shape the advising discourse and how that might shape the development or selection of an advising model consistent with that disciplinary discourse...Rather than seeking one model of advising across your institution, consider how the major disciplines can help promote a rich array of advising conversations.
When we share the same basic understanding of the underlying theory, it is easier to collaborate on developing strategies, techniques and resources. Although we do not yet have a unified theory of advising, we propose that constructivism offers an archetypal philosophy that influences all practice and theory.
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.
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 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.
