Catherine Buyarski, Director
University College Advising Center

INTRODUCTION

The professional portfolio is a powerful tool that honors personal and professional history, celebrates present accomplishments, and encourages one's hopes and dreams. Just as an advisor encourages growth and development in students, they must do the same for themselves and the portfolio becomes the map for their professional journey. The portfolio tells the on-going story of an advisor's efforts, abilities, achievements and contributions to education, the institution, and students.

Implemented in spring 2000, the IUPUI University College Advisor Portfolio is a means through which professional advisors can document their accomplishments, set goals, and create professional development plans. The portfolio should include materials and samples of work as well as reflective remarks. It is a living document that provides advisors with an awareness of their professional activities as well as why and how they conduct them. Goals of the Advisor Portfolio are:

1. To allow each advisor to document and accomplishments and contributions to students, University College, IUPUI, the Indianapolis community, and the education profession;

2. To define expectations for advisor performance and reinforce the priorities of University College and the Advising Center;

3. To encourage professional reflection and goal-setting; and

4. To allow for assessment of advisor needs to provide input into University College planning.

The advisor portfolio documents the individual and/or collective work of an advisor(s). As such, all efforts will be made to secure an advisor(s) permission before sharing any programs or ideas that may benefit the profession, IUPUI, or University College. When information is shared the recipient is expected to give appropriate credit to the original source.

Advisor portfolios may be considered in performance assessment, but will not be used as the sole evaluation tool.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

Complete each section according to the description offered. The primary focus should be on a narrative description of your work coupled with reflection on its success or areas for improvement. When appropriate, please provide examples and supporting documentation or evidence of your work. Keep in mind that the portfolio is not an archive for everything you have done throughout the year, rather it should showcase the scope and quality of your performance as an advisor through representative samples of your work. The position description enclosed with this portfolio packet should serve as both a starting point and reference for what to include in your portfolio.

This portfolio should be updated continuously and will be submitted annually for review. In order to differentiate material from each year, please indicate the year of submission on the bottom right hand corner of each page.

I. PERSONAL INFORMATION

This section provides important background on you and your professional career.

Resume: Include a current resume that minimally includes your educational background and work experiences.

Description of Career: A personal narrative that outlines your professional experience and how it has led you to a position/career in academic advising. In addition, please include your career goals for the future.

Statement of Advising Philosophy: A descriptive statement of your advising philosophy that is a reflection on your approach to advising which may be coupled with what you have read or learned from professional conferences and literature on academic advising and student success. The statement should be a formal description of your approach to academic advising.

II. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE AND ADVISING CENTER

This section should include a description and supporting evidence of work conducted as part University College and the Advising Center. Please include any materials that you have developed to assist you in accomplishing your work, as well as information on their effectiveness. As an introduction to each subcategory in this section, please write a brief statement of how your work relates to your philosophy of advising.

Advising: Any work completed related to the academic progress of students, excluding learning communities (see next section). This may include materials developed to assist in advising, programmatic efforts, presentations, and contact with students or creative ways in which you use existing materials to assist students. Please include a description of the types of students you serve.

Walk-Ins: Because we identified walk-ins as a top priority for the University College Advising Center, please include information on your work with walk-ins. How are walk-ins different than appointments? What different approaches or strategies do you utilize to address the needs of walk-ins?

Special Cases: Please document unique circumstances where you were required to employ special tact, judgment, and professional skill that extended beyond your ordinary call of duty. Each special case should include pertinent information that demonstrates the methods you applied that assured a positive resolution to each situation. Please relate the methods you utilized to your Statement of Advising Philosophy.

Learning Communities: Any work completed in conjunction with the advisor's role in the Learning Community. Examples include instructional team development and meetings, syllabi, classroom presentations, and contact with students in the learning community course(s).

Best Professional Practices: Any activities that foster the professionalism of University College and the Advising Center. This may include work to foster a sense of professional community, support of your colleagues, and any efforts to "go above and beyond" the expectations of advisors.

III. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SERVICE

Please include information on your involvement in professional development activities (in academic advising or other fields) on the campus, local, state, regional, and national levels in each of the areas listed below. In addition, please provide a brief statement of how each of the activities in which you participated contributed to your professional growth.

Professional Organizations: Active participation in local, state, regional, and national professional workshops, seminars, and associations including any conference presentations.

Professional Service: Service to the advising and education profession including participation state, regional or national committees and projects or offices held.

Professional Networks: Development and maintenance of a network of working relationships with other academic institutions and organizations as well as campus academic and administrative colleagues.

Research and Publications: Research and/or publications through which you have acquired and disseminated substantive knowledge of policies, programs, and practices that contribute to the existing body of knowledge on advising related issues.

Professional Literature: Professional reading you have done over the past year including journal subscriptions or periodicals and books read.

Education: Continuing education including any coursework completed and/or plans to earn an additional degree or licensure.

IV. UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY SERVICE

This section should begin with a brief description of the driving forces that are behind your choice of professional and community service (i.e., values, beliefs, personal or professional development).

University Service Inside University College: Collaborative/volunteer ways in which you have served the UCOL community in any of its many programs, student affiliations, committees, and offices. , and outside of your work related time and official job capacity.

Outside University College: Collaborative/volunteer ways in which you have served the university community at large.

Community Service: Collaborative/volunteer ways in which you have served the greater Indianapolis area and the state, thereby serving as a positive role model and good citizen. Examples of service may include community programs, committees, boards, civic responsibility, and social action, religious, political or service organizations.

V. FEEDBACK AND EVALUATIONS

Please include any documentation of feedback or evaluation that you have received during the past year. This may include evaluations from the Advising Center or Learning Communities as well as letters from students or colleagues.

VI. ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CHALLENGES

This section is based upon the descriptions you have provided in the previous portions of the portfolio. Here you will focus on the accomplishments of which you are particularly proud or that have had the most impact on IUPUI, University College or our students. In addition, you will reflect on aspects of your work that you find particularly challenging.

Accomplishments: From small to large, please indicate ways in which you have contributed to students' lives, the Advising Center, University College, IUPUI, the community, and your professional life. All accomplishments have a profound impact and a ripple effect that is continuous; this area highlights things that of which you are proud and feel good including any honors and awards you have received.

Challenges: In reviewing the past year, what do you see as some of the areas that have challenged you the most, created new opportunities for learning and creativity, changed yourself or how you do things or perhaps have even stumped you? This may include something you didn't understand, a student that difficult to work with, a task that seemed hard to accomplish, or a new responsibility.

Challenges that You Have Overcome in the Past Year: Review your challenges from the previous year. What new skills or strategies for success in your work have you developed? How was that development fostered?

VII. PRIORITY GOALS AND OBJECTIVES FOR THE NEXT ACADEMIC YEAR:

Please write two goals in each of the following four areas. Remember that well-written goals are concrete and measurable. After each goal include anything you may need from University College to support your achievement of that goal (e.g., time, travel money, information on professional workshops, more training in a certain area).

Goals to Support the Advising Center and University College Mission and Philosophy
Goals Stemming From Current Projects
Goals To Assist in Overcoming Challenges
Professional Development/Continuing Education/Personal Growth

VIII. SUPPLEMENTARY COMMENTS

Please include any additional information to expand upon any topic not sufficiently covered in the sections preceding to describe new directions or goals of your work as an advisor, or to make comments that you wish to bring to the attention of the Director of Advising.