NACADA Conference

Returned on Friday from the NACADA Region 2 conference with some interesting learning experiences under my belt. If nothing else, I learned that my university is way ahead of the curve. We are doing everything right and have far exceeded many others.

One of the most interesting things that came out of the conference was the notion of advisor speak. Sometimes our students don't understand the language we use when we communicate with them. Words like "matriculating" confuse them because they aren't used to this advisor speak. I thought that this was a novel concept and will make a conscious effort in the future to only utilize language which my students will definitely understand. I also thought it was interesting that the presenter emailed her students copies of everything which she said to them. First, this creates a great deal of extra work but secondly it might also be perceived as a liability. I think I will do some more research on this and ask some colleagues before making a final judgment on it but it seems like this is the type of feedback students are craving.

Another topic we discussed was the "push" and "pull" model of academic advisement. The "push" is the past where we used to lecture students about what they needed to do and gave them few options. Today we are "pulling" and attempting to glean from our students what they believe their best course of action is. I rather like the pull model since it doesn't bog students down with information that doesn't pertain to them, but on the other hand it doesn't hurt anyone to have some extra knowledge in a subject that they don't particularly care for. More food for thought...

I got to take part in the meet a mentor program at the conference. I thought that this might have been the most beneficial part of the entire conference and would like to see future conferences include more interaction between mentors and mentees. It really gave me a chance to see where I could go. We also discussed some commonalities that we had and how local politics are playing a role in our everyday jobs. Interesting.

Finally, every summer at orientation we do the Holland Party game (which I don't particularly care for), but one of the ideas from the conference was to make it a real party with food and light music so that students don't feel so scrutinized by whoever is overseeing the party.

Overall, I thought the conference went really well but attending the National Conference will probably be more beneficial. I am looking forward to October!