Wendy Troxel, Director // NACADA Center for Research at Kansas State University

Greetings! In this edition of NACADA Research Quarterly we celebrate scholarly award winners, grant recipients, completed dissertations, and new publications dedicated to the scholarship of advising. We’re also prepping for the 2020 NACADA Annual Conference, to be held virtually October 5-8. The online format will provide more opportunities than ever before to access multiple sessions as they happen (no travel time in the convention center!) and enjoy the flexibility of “on demand” content.

And yes! The NACADA Research Café will be open for collaborative conversations and informative, research-focused activities.

In fact, the Annual Conference Advisory Board, the NACADA Research Committee, and the NACADA Center for Research at KSU are excited to announce that a new “Scholarly Papers” session type will be launched at the 2021 NACADA Annual Conference!

This type of session includes 2 or 3 “scholarly paper presentations” around a common area of focus, with a discussant who moderates the session, having already read the manuscripts. The author (or authors) for each paper is permitted a maximum of 15 minutes to describe the study or theoretical/philosophical analysis to the audience. After the papers have been presented, the discussant summarizes them and provides a critical analysis of the manuscripts, offering helpful feedback toward a next draft of the manuscript and a synthesis of the papers connected to theme of the session. Finally, the audience members have the opportunity to ask questions of the authors.

Following the session, the discussant forwards the feedback to each of the authors. The authors now have helpful feedback not only from the discussant, but also from the audience members who participated during the session.

There will be more information about the proposal process (authors submit a proposal with the intention of submitting the manuscript about one month prior to the conference), as well as the opportunity to view a number of sample sessions, both during this year’s annual conference and over the next few months.

Thank you for all you do as Scholarly Advisors!

Practicing Hospitality in Writing Groups
Rhonda Dean-Kyncl, NACADA Coordinator of Writer Support

There’s still time to SIGN UP for one of NACADA’s Virtual Writing Groups, or create your own writing group on your campus, comprised of colleagues across your college or university. Either way, being part of a living, learning community will deepen your knowledge of and engagement with our profession. We need your voice. And look for this column next time when we talk about: Suspending Your Inner Critic.

From the editorial teams of the NACADA Journal and the NACADA Review

Academic advisors who advise students are in the best position to contribute to the scholarship of academic advising. You are doing the work; you are supporting students. Moreover, our field benefits from the voices of the practitioners. You observe and experience phenomena in your advising practice that are worth exploring and sharing with others who do this work too. That is why the voice of the practitioner matters in the literature of academic advising. 

The common perception seems to be that one must have a terminal degree or a research degree to be able to conduct research and contribute knowledge. In fact, there is no minimum credential required to add knowledge through scholarship. This means that if you want to study a phenomenon in academic advising, you can—and should! In fact, you may already be on a research path.  

If you are conducting assessments in your center, gathering internal data for reports, surveying students after advising meetings, evaluating programs, or doing similar activities, you have already adopted the stance of a scholar-practitioner. You are already building your research-related skills. There is not a big leap from internal assessment, evaluation, and research to scholarly research and writing. Of course, there are some components such as human subjects protection and Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval (if relevant), but as you are analyzing advising outcomes and metrics in your own work, you might discover something worth sharing with others outside of your institution.

An impactful way for our field to advance is to learn from our advising practice and our students’ experiences and to share what we have learned with others  The NACADA Journal and NACADA Review are outlets for your work, along with NACADA’s other publication venues. The audience for these publications includes your colleagues who welcome new knowledge about advising and may incorporate it into their practice. 

Contributing to the scholarship of academic advising and engaging critically with the research related to practice done by peers, is what it means to be a scholarly advisor. It is an important role all academic advisors play to help improve the academic advising and learning experiences of our students.

Emily McIntosh, UKAT Research Committee

In an effort to champion a research culture within UK advising systems, we are pleased to announce a Special Edition of Frontiers in Education: Leadership in Education series, titled,  “Academic Advising and Tutoring for Student Success in Higher Education: International Perspectives.” The editorial board comprises Dr. Emily McIntosh (Middlesex University, London & UKAT; Dr. Wendy Troxel (NACADA); Oscar Van Den Wijngaard (LVSA, UKAT & Maastricht); Professor Liz Thomas (Independent HE) and Dr David Grey (UKAT CEO).  There is a recognised lack of international literature on advising and tutoring in Higher Education (HE), particularly in the UK context. Advising and tutoring is of great importance internationally and, in that regard, global research can help to build a credible evidence base for our practice and to acknowledge the centrality of high quality advising and tutoring to teaching, learning and student success. Recently, Effective Personal Tutoring in Higher Education was published (Lochtie, McIntosh, Stork & Walker, 2018), which was the first UK monograph on the topic in twelve years, promoting a more evidence-based approach to practice and situating advising and tutoring within the wider, international literature on student retention and success. Nevertheless, there are still a number of gaps in our knowledge and many fruitful avenues for future research in this area, all of which can help to acknowledge and articulate the ongoing importance of advising and tutoring to fostering independence of thought and enthusiasm for lifelong learning. We can also learn much by embracing international approaches to research and best practice in advising. The aim of this collection of articles is to address the need to further stimulate discussion in this field whilst addressing some of the most pressing gaps in the current literature, promoting further international research in this area and connecting several disparate HE policymaking agendas. The collection considers the impact of high-quality advising and tutoring practices and is intent on advancing evidence that advising and tutoring is fundamental to helping universities achieve their strategic ambitions for student success. This special issue features a number of edited contributions from research articles, review articles, reflective essays, opinion pieces and evaluative case studies. Articles already available can be found at: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/9684/academic-advising-and-tutoring-for-student-success-in-higher-education-international-perspectives#articles

For more information about UKAT see: https://www.ukat.uk/