Help for the non-theorist in you

Academic advising theory is usually something that sends many advisors running for the hills (unfortunately so). I don't know if that is due to long suppressed memories from graduate school or the fact that the material can be quite dense (seriously, have you seen how thik some of those books are?). Have no fear, however because Hilleary (who herself has proclaimed "I'm not a theory head") is here to help. Advisors who want to brush up on their theory for practice should definitely consider giving this session a look.

If I tweeted you, “I see you’re doing a session at #nacadaR2. Cool! What’s it about?”, how would you reply via Twitter?

Examining how theories have changed through time and how we can use that information to move forward with advising theory.

Why did you decide to do a presentation on this topic?

Theory is something that I've been interested in since I became an advisor. There's been an explosion in theoretical literature in the past several years and I think it's important to understand how those theories have come to academic advising. In keeping with the conference theme, we're looking back at theory to move our understanding forward and to see how that understanding is critical to our practice and scholarship.

Why do you think this is important for NACADA Region 2?

If you look at the theory explosion, NACADA Region 2 has had some important contributors. Peter Hagen (our conference keynote) and Marc Lowenstein are a couple that come to mind. I think our region has been on the forefront of the movement so what better place to look at the historical context of these theories than at our regional conference.

What’s the most important idea you hope attendees leave your session with?

My ultimate goal is that each person walks away having learned something new that might help them to think about the bigger picture in a different way. The more people we have doing that, the better off we will be.

What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

I'm excited to hear about what other people are doing. I always come back from a conference feeling energized and invigorated by what others are doing. I'm also excited to reconnect with old friends and meet new colleagues to expand my circle of resources.

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Session Title: Historical Foundations of current theoretical paradigms within advising
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 9:45 AM
Abstract: Academic advising has traditionally been dominated by the developmental paradigm first introduced by Crookston in 1972. More recently, the number of theoretical paradigms has exploded within academic advising scholarship and practice to include learning-centered, postmodern, hermeneutics, and self-authorship. To understand and appreciate this theoretical diversity within advising, it is important to examine the historical foundations of each theory and the connections between seemingly opposing views. This presentation will include a survey of theorists (Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, Kegan, and Aristotle) who have been integral to the development of popular theories applied to advising and outline how our theoretical history can influence the future of advising theory.

Hilleary Himes is the Senior Undergraduate Studies Adviser, Coordinator of FTCAP Operations and Undergraduate Studies Programs Coordinator for College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University. She’s been an active member of the advising community for 3 years. You can reach her at hxs220@psu.edu.

Preview of the keynote

Late last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to chat with Peter Hagen, our keynote speaker. In addition to being an all-around great guy and self-described advising radical, Peter's understanding and knowledge of advising history and theory is inspiring. Maybe, if I bump into him at the conference, a little of that knowledge will transfer to me. If not, I'm sure to learn much during the keynote. By the way, did you know that he also plays guitar? A man of many talents.

Tell us a little bit about your keynote.

I’m planning to focus on the conference theme and talk about some of the ways we can draw on the past to guide us for the future. I’ll be starting off with a look at the Phaedrus, one of Plato’s dialogues, that centers on the core values of education. It’s also the first recorded instance of an academic advising interaction! Moving from the rather remote past to the 19th century, I next plan to focus on Thomas Jefferson as an educator. A polymath himself, education was something he regarded as of crucial importance for Virginia and for the new nation. Finally, I plan to focus on our own pasts—specifically our own educations—and how they might guide our future advising.

Where did the inspiration for this topic come from?

Well, the conference is being held in Charlottesville; Jefferson regarded himself as the “father of the University of Virginia”; it just seemed like a natural connection. Plus I wanted to do something with the conference theme. And Art Esposito inspired me by telling me about an Akan word, “sankofa,” that refers to taking what is useful from the past. So I’m titling the speech “’Sankofa,’ or, Back to the Future.”

What do you hope is the main idea conference attendees take from your keynote?

Even though we advisers are under many different types of pressure in our work lives—the pressure to keep up with the onrush of technology and the pressure to do more with less (to name just two)—we can’t lose sight of the things that make higher education worth having, the things that endure, the things that we want to teach our advisees.

Now, I also see that you’re presenting on hermeneutics. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Hermeneutics is a branch of philosophy that originally came about in order to study how texts could be interpreted. Well, as academic advisers, we send and receive texts all the time, except that usually they are verbal and not written. Another way of saying this is that advisers spend most of their days listening to and telling stories. Students tell us their stories and also how they might wish for the story to unfold in the next chapter. We advisers, in turn, often provide students with narratives of our own educational journeys. The correct interpretation of these texts, these narratives, is of crucial importance to the well-being and the education of students and for advisers to be assured that they are conveying effectual advice.

Why do you believe this topic is important for Region 2?

I believe it is important for any adviser to focus not only on the information to be conveyed, but also on the best way to convey it. We need to be attuned to how we interpret and how we are interpreted by our students.

What are you most looking forward to at the regional conference?

Region 2 rocks! In many ways we set the tone for NACADA nationally. I look forward to the exciting ideas that are shared between colleagues at Region 2. It’s a great way to recharge one’s batteries.

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Session Title: Keynote Address with Peter Hagen
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 12:30

Session Title: Narrative, Metaphor, Hermeneutics, and the Education of an Adviser
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 9:45
Abstract: Regardless of your educational background, theoretical approach to advising, style of practicing advising, and the modality in which that advising takes place, you are always doing what you do through discourse. As advisers, our home is in the realm of language. We use language to enhance, acculturate, develop, educate, or inform the identity—the self—who sits before us. Thus, the more we can come to know about language and identity, the better we will be as advisers. This presentation will center on some of the anchoring concepts of language and identity: narrative, metaphor, and interpretation. I will argue that these concepts should be thought of as necessary parts of the education of any adviser.

Peter L. Hagen serves as Director of the Center for Academic Advising at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. He was the founding Chair of the National Academic Advising Association’s Theory and Philosophy of Academic Advising Commission, served as Guest Editor of the NACADA Journal for its Fall 2005 issue, and was a member of the task force that wrote “The Concept of Academic Advising,” now widely adopted by the NACADA membership. For NACADA he currently serves on the Journal’s Editorial Board, the Publications Review Board, and recently concluded his term as the Chair of the Research Committee. He won the 2007 Virginia Gordon Award for Service to the Field of Advising. He served as lead editor for a monograph, Scholarly Inquiry in Academic Advising, published by NACADA in March 2010.

Assessment's not a dirty word

How many of you moan, groan, or sigh when you hear "assessment"? For a long time, assessment was something we did when someone told us to and we did it to find out what was wrong. But guess what? Assessment can tell us what we're doing right, too! And it doesn't have to be scary, labor-intensive, or negative. Assessment means finding out how we're doing what we do and what we can do better (because, as educators, we're always striving for better, right?), and Jeffrey and Rachael will be at NACADA to show you how.

If I tweeted you, “I see you’re doing a session at #nacada11r2. Cool! What’s it about?”, how would you reply via Twitter?

Our presentation is about effective assessment of best practices. How to easily set up assessment and ask the right questions.

Why did you decide to do a presentation on this topic?

Assessment is something I’m a proponent of. Nothing in the way of assessment was done in our office for a long time, but now that we do regular assessment, we all agree that it's valuable. I know it's difficult during  our day-to-day grind to think about assessment and reflect about whether what you’re doing works the way you think it does. By giving people a easy way to do assessment, I hope we can get other NACADA members doing assessment regularly and using it positively.

Why do you think this is important for NACADA Region 2?

Assessment can be a good thing and it works best when it's done at the office or division level. It can be disheartening when campus-wide surveys don't provide detailed office-specific feedback, or if the data never never even gets passed down to specific offices. Assessment that provides data relevant to your daily work can reaffirm what you’re doing, leading to good performance reviews, and give you the support you need to go to supervisors to request new resources or pitch new ideas. We used student feedback to propose-and get-more walk-in hours in the office.

What’s the most important idea you hope attendees leave your session with?

Assessment isn’t scary and it doesn't have to take a lot of time. If you do it the right way you can use data to plan your next steps as an office, and ensure that your strategic plans match the needs of your students. At the end of this sessions, you'll have a step-by-step guide to developing valuable, usable assessments.

What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

I love conferences. They're a great place to go and get tons of relevant of info, support,  and new ideas that you can’t get any other way. I'm looking forward to collaborating and bouncing ideas around.

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Session Title: Asking the Right Questions: How to Create Effective Assessments of Your Advising Practices
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 3:45
Abstract: It is necessary to assess our advising practices so that we can confirm what does work and identify what doesn’t. Unfortunately, we’re often left with too little time and not enough knowledge to execute effective assessments that measure our practices instead of just student satisfaction. We will introduce you to low-cost, web based survey tools and walk you through the steps to begin to think critically about your learning outcomes, as well as how to structure internal assessments to capture that data. We encourage you to share your assessment practices too as we all continue to develop better methods for serving our institutions and encouraging the development of our students.

Rachael Switalski is the Associate Director of Student Services in  the Office of Dean of College of Engineering at Drexel University. You can contact Racheal at RachaelS@drexel.edu.
Jeffrey Birou is an academic advisor in the College of Engineering Undergraduate Advising Center. You can contact Jeffrey at jbirou@drexel.edu

Let's Technology Share

If you've been keeping up with the conference blog (and I hope you have), it should come as no surprise that I'm advising technology nerd. So, I'm pretty excited that Kelly wants to have a group discussion about technology use in advising with the advisors from Region 2. It sounds like her session should be a great learning experience for all involved. I can't wait to see what everyone is up to.

If I tweeted you, “I see you’re doing a session at #nacadaR2. Cool! What’s it about?”, how would you reply via Twitter?

It’s about learning how other universities are using computer platforms to reach out to and communicate with undeclared students.

Why did you decide to do a presentation on this topic?

I wanted to explore how academic advisors are using computer platforms to work with students. When I've gone to conferences in the past, it seems like the sessions only focused on one computer platform. I don't remember seeing the various platforms talked about in a unified way so I thought it would be a lot of fun to get a group of advisors together to talk about these different platforms and see how they're being used.

Why do you think this is important for NACADA Region 2?

The theme of the conference is looking back to move forward. My presentation will explore how we’ve used computer programs in past, how we are using them now and how we’ll use them in the future to meet the objectives of advising programs.

What’s the most important idea you hope attendees leave your session with?

I hope attendees gain an understanding of the availability of computer platforms and a framework for using these platforms in the best ways, both now and in the future. I also hope attendees see that because of the computer platforms, the future of advising will be exciting and ever changing.

What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

I hope to learn more about how advising programs are developing and preparing to meet the needs of our students and what people anticipate the future needs of our students will be. Also, I want to learn about new advising techniques and strategies.

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Session Title: How Can Faculty Advisors to Undeclared Majors Use Facebook, Youtube, Banner, and Other Popular Computer Communication Applications to Improve Retention Rates of Undeclared Students?
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 2:30 PM
Abstract: How can academic advisors for undeclared students continue to work effectively with millennial-generation students during this time of economic downturn when resources are dwindling while expectations for programs to meet specific outcomes are increasing? This roundtable presentation will focus on how computer communication applications are currently being used in Academic Advising Programs and how they can be used in the future to better serve the millennial generation. Specifically, the discussion will concentrate on improving retention rates by improving how we facilitate social interactions in cyberspace, teach students about academic policies and keep them up-to-date on curriculum and policy changes. Come share how your university is currently using communication applications to reach students, listen to what other universities are doing, and synthesize best practices to draw conclusions about what can be done in the future!

Kelly McKenzie is the Academic Advisor for undeclared students at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. She’s been an active member of the advising community for 3 years. You can reach her at kmckenzie@po-box.esu.edu.

Those sought after "soft" skills

I'm new to arts advising.  Prior to starting at West Chester University, I had been an education advisor for almost 6 years, so I knew transitioning to music, art and theatre would be a change for me.  I also knew that I'd need some help.  So I immediately turned to NACADA and was lucky enough to find an article in Academic Advising Today about advising arts majors by Shaun McCracken.  Now, a few months later, I find myself in the wonderful position to learn even more from her experiences advising arts students during her upcoming Region 2 session.  I wonder if Shaun knows I've put her on my office speed dial?

If I tweeted you, “I see you’re doing a session at #nacadaR2. Cool! What’s it about?”, how would you reply via Twitter?

Hey #nacadar2, you’re about to learn how to advise the fine arts student in the STEM world.

Why did you decide to do a presentation on this topic?

There's so much focus on practical fields such as business, pre-health and science these days that we don't often focus on how practical the arts training is.  My degrees are in the arts and I rely on that training each day to work with my students.  For example, in theatre you learn about mirroring behavior and I find that sometimes I can use this training in working with my advisees.  It helps me get into their heads and understand their psychological sphere.

Why do you think this is important for NACADA Region 2?

The Virginia governor has placed a lot of emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) funding and many of the schools in Region 2 have STEM programs that are highly regarded.  However, many of those same schools also have arts programs that are highly regarded.  This gives us an incredible opportunity to combine those together to create STEAM and improve the state of education in our region.

What’s the most important idea you hope attendees leave your session with?

Arts training resonates across disciplines and, as advisors, we are uniquely situated to help students understand the importance of these disciplines in their life connections.

What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

I can't wait to talk to other advisors in my discipline and other disciplines.  That exchange of ideas is what gets the spark going and leads to innovation; you really have to bounce ideas off one another for improvement of those ideas.  The more I talk to other people, the better of an advisor I become.

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Session Title: Beyond "Soft" Skills: Arts Advising for the 21st Century
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 9:45 AM
Abstract: Students often face pressure from parents to find a “practical” degree and are often guided away from their true passion—leading to decreased academic performance. The Arts Advising Program at VCU encourages students to look at the skills they are learning in their Arts classes in new ways, enabling them to transfer their “artistic” skills into the business world and beyond. This presentation will highlight the “soft” skills that students learn in the Visual/Performing Arts employers are looking for. Participants will learn new ways of viewing artistic skills so they may help the student-artist become more forward-thinking in regard to their career skills.

Shaun McCracken is an Academic Advisor in the University College at Virginia Commonwealth University. She’s been an active member of the advising community for 7 years. You can reach her at smmccracken@vcu.edu.

Supporting our transfers

When I started college years ago, I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist more than anything.  I went to a university with a top rated marine biology program.  Well, reality quickly set in when I realized I wouldn't just be spending all day at the beach and, being an impulsive youth, I transferred to another institution.  Luckily, I had friends there to help me navigate my new home or I might have been lost as I was not considered a freshman.  If only Corri and K.C had been around at my institution then. They could have assisted with my transfer-mation and I might not have been the recipient of so many instances of "prank the new guy" my first week.  Hmmm...maybe I should have found better friends? ;0)

If I tweeted you, “I see you’re doing a session at #nacadaR2. Cool! What’s it about?”, how would you reply via Twitter?

An innovative way 2 greet transfers 2 ur campus community. Walk away w/ training ideas 4 peer mentors along w/ fun & creative ideas 4 transfer orientation & welcome week.

Why did you decide to do a presentation on this topic?

I think transferring is becoming more and more prevalent in higher education and, oftentimes, they're in the shadow of incoming freshmen. We think that transfer students are important. They deserve their own proper transitional program to help acclimate them to the college they're attending and help ensure they're getting the information they need to be successful. We feel like we have a good program at Lynchburg College and wanted to shed a light on it.

Why do you think this is important for NACADA Region 2?

With the growing number of articulation agreements (in Virginia at least), we think it's important to increase everyone's awareness of this population. Many schools do not have a peer mentor program coupled with their transfer orientation program and that connection with a current student help build our transfer retention rates to almost 90%.

What’s the most important idea you hope attendees leave your session with?

Building relationships with your new transfer students is key to their success. I think sometimes we forget that they are new incoming students who are not familiar with campus procedures and don't have the large incoming class of peers to connect with as freshmen do. We'll be providing participants with some materials to help them begin to build those transfer student relationships.

What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

Sometimes, the annual conference is so large, you can get overwhelmed so we're excited to meet other people in our area to form relationships and see what they're doing. We hope we'll get some fresh ideas for new programs to bring back to Lynchburg College.

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Session Title: Transfer-mation: a transfer orientation program that works
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 8:30 AM
Abstract: Data indicates that transfers are less successful than native students. Can a transfer orientation program give transfers what they need to transform into successfully engaged students? Lynchburg College developed a successful transfer orientation program. Since its adoption, transfer retention increased from 78% to 89%. This presentation introduces participants to steps Lynchburg College to elements of this program’s success. The presenters, including the program coordinator, a former transfer peer mentor and a present transfer peer mentor, discuss orientation mission, goals and activities, the role of peer advising in transfer orientations and data supporting program success providing time for questions and participant input. Participants will receive peer mentor job descriptions and expectations and concrete examples of successful transfer orientation activities with supporting handouts along with a bibliography of resources.

Corri Pfister is the Transfer Student Success Coordinator at Lynchburg College. She’s been an active member of the advising community for 4 years. You can reach her at pfister.c@lynchburg.edu.

K.C. Mendez is a Graduate Assistant for Support Services and a student in the Master of Education in Educational Leadership program at Lynchburg College. He was previously a transfer student Link Leader.

Mathematical Community Building

Earlier this week, Nicolette and I chatted about her upcoming conference session The Calculus Community Program: Combining Academic Support and Community Building Strategies to Foster Student Success. Had there been a program like this when I was a student, I might have stayed in my first math class a little longer instead of withdrawing and saving it until senior year. Even with my rusty math skills, Nicolette was able to help me solve one simple equation:

academic advisor(engaged students + community building)=student success

If I tweeted you, “I see you’re doing a session at #nacadaR2. Cool! What’s it about?” how would you reply via Twitter? 

It’s a fun & interactive support program created for students who share a common acad risk factor. It was created by twisting together concepts of acad success & prof development.

Why did you decide to do a presentation on this topic?

I'm passionate about and interested in this topic, which I think is the first key to a successful presentation. I recently created and implemented this program. GPA data illustrated a need for this program, and evaluation data illustrates program successes and areas for improvement, giving me a data driven reason to share. All of this information is easily transferrable so advisors can apply it to their new or existing support programs.

Why do you think this is important for NACADA Region 2?

NACADA Region 2 is “looking back to move forward”, coming together for the Region 2 conference to ask: What will advising evolve into over the next 30-40 years? My presentation represents what I think the future of advising is, creating support for the whole student through an academic community focused on not only academic success, but personal and professional success.

What’s the most important idea you hope attendees leave your session with?

Sometimes, when you’re teaching students about academic success strategies, it can feel prescriptive and repetitive. I want advisors to feel refreshed and the students empowered by what they’re learning so I’ve changed the way I present this information and incorporated professional development strategies such as networking, relationship building and leadership development. This holistic and proactive approach builds confidence and community, keys to academic success.

What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

Learning new advising strategies and networking with my Region 2 colleagues, giving my presentation and enjoying Charlottesville.

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Session Title: The Calculus Community Program: Combining Academic Support and Community Building Strategies to Foster Student Success
Day & Time: Thursday, April 7 @ 9:45 AM
Abstract: The Calculus Community program strives to create community, foster academic success, and educate students about their academic risk factors. Presentation attendees will discover the successes and challenges of the program, and be encouraged to share personal insights on the creation and implementation of support programs. This session will review the Calculus Community learning outcomes and quantitative and qualitative data. The importance of interpersonal relationships and student leadership development in the context of academic success will also be discussed. Attend this session to discover how to add a new twist to current programs or identify and meet a need by creating a new program. This session is appropriate for individuals with a wide range of advising and programming experience.

Nicolette Hall is an Academic Advisor in Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. She’s been an active member of the advising community for almost 2 years. You can reach her at nmh35@pitt.edu.

Guiding new professionals

I had the opportunity to chat with Lisa, Morgan and Cat about their upcoming pre-conference and conference session Looking Forward: From Graduate Student to First-Year Advisor. After learning more about the conference-long experience they have planned, I have to say, I’m pretty excited about what they hope graduate students will gain from the experience.

If I tweeted you, “I see you’re doing a session at #nacadaR2. Cool! What’s it about?” how would you reply via Twitter?

Advising 4 newbies! A crash course in theory, roles, caseloads, skills & more! Discussions, case studies & action plans to help guide thru the conference & beyond!

Why did you decide to do a presentation on this topic?

Two of us (Cat & Morgan) attended several NACADA conferences as graduate students and felt there was a need for sessions on preparing graduate students for a career in advising and how to make the most of the conference experience. We hope this presentation will provide graduate students with more structure during the conference leading to a better overall conference experience. We presented a similar session at the NACADA annual conference in Orlando and received a lot of positive feedback. Also, we think it fits in with Region 2’s mentoring program . Our region is committed to the success of emerging professionals and graduate students and desires to have more graduate students participate in the conference and NACADA in general. We hope this will help with that.

Why do you think your topic is important to Region 2?

When you look at how many institutions of higher education we have in the region, there is a lot of potential growth for new advising professionals. And as we said earlier, this session directly supports the mission of the Region 2 mentoring program and to actually have a training session at a conference is pretty cool, we think.

What’s the most important idea you hope attendees leave your session with?

We hope they [the attendees] can walk away with an action plan, a big semester-by-semester plan on what their next steps should be. We’d love it if they came back from the conference and talked about it with their peers like they do the NASPA and ACPA conferences.

What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

Networking and meeting more people in our region. At the annual conference in Orlando, we tried to get away from our own region’s programming to see what the rest of the country was up to so we’re looking forward to learning more about what’s going on in our region.

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Session Title: Looking Forward: From Graduate Student to First-Year Advisor
Day & Time: Wednesday, April 6, 1:00 to 5:00 PM (PC4)
Abstract: How can graduate students prepare for their first advising position? In this group discussion-heavy program, topics will include advising opportunities in graduate school, the many specialties of advising and making the most of your first year as a professional advisor. Ideal for graduate students or brand new advisors, this three part series will begin with a pre-conference workshop and will follow with two concurrent sessions during Thursday and Friday. The pre-conference workshop will familiarize individuals with advising, discuss utilizing graduate school to prepare for a successful first year advising, and create a plan to use the NACADA conference as a professional development experience. Two follow-up sessions during the conference will provide a conference-long opportunity for discussion and reflection, guiding participants in developing action plans for future professional growth.
 
A promotional flyer is available to share with any graduate students who may be interested.

Lisa Hall is the Coordinator for Transfer Advising and Articulation in University College at Old Dominion University. She’s been an active member of the advising community for almost 10 years. You can reach her at lhall@odu.edu.

Morgan Morrison is a Student Success Advisor for the College of Arts & Letters at Old Dominion University. She’s been an active member of the advising community for 3 years. You can reach her at mcmorris@odu.edu.

Catherine Butler is a College Advisor for Health Science Advising Center at Old Dominion University. She’s been an active member of the advising community for almost 1 year. You can reach her at cbbutler@odu.edu.