NACADA Session Notes

NACADA 2008 NATIONAL CONFERENCE NOTES OCTOBER 2008

B. Joseph White (President of University of Illinois) Plenary Session

* Stretch, Support, & Connect
* "Pit Stop" on the fast-track analogy- Races are won in the pit. You need a good team of people to change your tires, fill up your gas tank. Advising relationship is similar because we are the professionals who change tires and fill up gas tanks.

* Develop a personal relationship
E.g., Mannie Jackson- CEO of Fortune 500 company without a business major
"Find something and someone you can be passionate about. Enjoy the journey."

* Suicide Prevention
Required 4 mandatory sessions or else expelled
Student under contract with the university to be in good health when enrolled
(Interesting concept and would like to look @ more research on it)

* Advising for Resilience
Tell students how you have overcome obstacles/discouragement
Space between the stimulus and the response is the time for the choice

Session #1: Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me: Delivering News Students Don't Want to Hear

Resist the temptation to empathize with a student.
Own the bad news; don't blame (Staff members are working towards the institutional mission)
Give students news before the meeting via email so that meeting can be positive.
Send same email to everyone (and mention that in the email). (Don’t want students to fill singled-out.)
Accept responsibility for mistakes
FERPA Reverse Institution (More research on this; interesting)
Index cards on every student so you can refer to it for a positive message when needed. (Stealing this!!)
If you refer a student to someone else on your campus, do 2 things: 1.) Let that person know that the student is coming and 2) tell the student what they need to do when they get there
Teachable Moments- NOT always your job but students are your job and everything that comes with that
Keep in mind skill level and challenge level (not the same)
Alternate paths. "Why Philosophy is great as critical thinker, debater, rise to the top of resume pile because you are different and interesting”
When a student returns to your office after giving them bad news to try to find a way around the system: "What has changed since the last time we spoke?"
"This answer is not going to change."
If student wants to go above your head that's fine, but let the person know who they are going to see that you have "told this student that the answer is not going to change."
If you don't have a counseling background, don't try to be a counselor.
Collaborate with colleagues to organize a communication pattern if an issue with a student arises (via instant messenger etc)
Make sure that follow-ups are doable. Give students concrete assignments for their bad news... (e.g. Go to career services, meet a faculty mentor, run a degree audit). Thinking about it is nebulous to students; they absolutely must do!!!
End the meeting on a good note. *Have candy on your desk... take note @ beginning of the session to wrap up on a good note.
Understand that the dissonance in advising comes from the experience that the student receives & the expectation that they originally had
When confronted with parents who want to press the issue: "Can I speak to your child like you wish you could speak to them?" Ask the student why their grades are so low... what were they thinking. Etc.
(Analogy of medical students learning to give bad news to patients)

Session #2: When Dreams & Realities Collide: Helping Under prepared and Low-Achieving Students Face Academic Challenges

Sarah Keeley- Millennial article
Millennial have high expectations, are looking for definite plans, speed is more important than the end goals, sense of superiority, job ticket

No Child Left Behind has impacted higher education (walk away program)
Parental Involvement- Part of the decision making structure; they want accountability and assurance
Money provides pressure to get through quickly
**High SES parents more likely to intervene in advising relationship
Miller & Murry- Advising academically under prepared students
Student Success Model- Motivation, Purpose, and Commitment

Chickering's Vectors of Development
Path to Success
* Collaboration
* New techniques in choosing classes (sit in on a lecture during the previous semester)
* Review history. Define needs
Commitment to time
Create balance
Engaging the University experience

"Sense of Belonging"
Engagement, - Face book have friend in facee book send message to you about the experience

4 options for change- Student Success Model
* Change reaction
* Change reality
* Remain on same path
* Change path

On motivation: You have motivation if you came in today.
Ask the difficult questions

Make student accountable to you!
Write statement or description of himself or herself as a student (no quantitative qualitative data). Who you want to be as a student a year from now? We don’t want to be critical of our own behavior.
Teach them to turn off the world. List of places where cell phones won’t interrupt study on campus.
Record what you are doing and what works and what doesn’t.


Presentation tip: Gifts to correspond to presentation. Use business cards for the drawing.

Session # 3: 50 Ways to be a Better Advisor

1. Turn off your computer an hour a day
2. Go to class with a student.
3. Model collegial behavior for your students.
4. Do your part to destroy gender stereotypes
5. Use metaphors to convey your point
6. Avoid using clichés
7. Take a 20-minute vacation
8. Find reasons to appreciate your coworkers
9. Don’t worry! Worry is a misuse of the imagination
10. Tell a student about a job or class you had that you were very bad at.
11. Start your day writing a thank you note to someone
12. Eliminate tasks that contribute the least to your unit’s goals
13. Cope with, don’t ignore, competing priorities
14. Focus on essential activities
15. Work smarter, not harder
16. Make time for life outside of work
17. Beware of a false sense of activity
18. Keep situations in proper perspective
19. Assemble all available facts before making decisions
20. Weigh alternative decisions before taking action
21. Designate time to answer emails instead of having it up all day
22. If people don’t realize it’s not done, DON’T DO IT!
23. Tell students what they need to hear, not what they want to hear
24. The best training comes from your students
25. Use complaints to provide valuable feedback
26. Use voice and body o effectively provide support
27. Assume that no one can//will keep a secret
28. Pay more attention to people than issues
29. Never say, “I’m just an advisor” or “it’s not my job.”
30. Make it a rule not to start out a meeting or a conversation with an apology
31. Make sure to always give credit where it’s due, including yourself.
32. Teach students to fish
33. Personal enrichment is a necessary part of your career
34. Be loyal to your career, your interests, and yourself
35. Handle competitive situations with confidence and tact (I appreciate your feedback. Thank you!)
36. Welcome professional challenges
37. Never appear stressed in front of a student. Take a deep breath and ask yourself, “In the course of human events, how important is this?”
38. Your convenience and happiness are not part of the mission statement
39. Credibility is more important than you think, and easier to lose than you think
40. Never apologize for an idea that didn’t work, but always admit a mistake
41. Flexible people never get bent out of shape
42. Acknowledge your mortality.
43. Never confuse a memo with reality.
44. Don’t tell people their ideas are bad, unless you have a better one
45. Every appointment is a big thing for a student, whether it is for you, or not
46. Never go to more than 2 meetings a day or you will never get anything done
47. Laugh when it’s funny
48. Develop a high tolerance for ambiguity- you’ll be more satisfied.
49. Good ideas get lost like good pens- write them down
50. “Maybe” or “It depends” will work for every question
51. There are 2 ways to exert one’s strength: Pushing down or pulling up
52. YOU CAN’T CHANGE STUPID!
53. Smile while on the phone or while writing an email.
54. Use a student’s name more than once during an appointment
55. Photo of each student for his or her file.
56. Sometimes the dog really does eat the homework…
57. “Success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal.”
58. EMBRACE THE CHAOS
59. Follow the grain in your own wood
60. Life is choices; always choose to do what your will remember 10 years from now.
61. Change is good
62. It’s never too late to be who you might have been
63. Only the mediocre are always at their best
64. When dream turn to dust: Vacuum.

Session #4: Advising 2.0: Engaging Students with Collaborative Tools Online

ACE- Academic, Career, Explorer
Utilized the OReilly definition of 2.0
Made Ace a student in their system so that he could have a Face Book account etc.
Peer 2 Peer advice rather than advisor to student
UTSC- Approximately 10000-12000 students
Used volunteer and work-study students in order to get everything done (marketing, tech, answering etc) 3 students appox. 12 hours per week of work
Flickr photos didn’t have much traffic- changed the argument because they said that in order for a click to register the student must actually click on the larger image or else there is no tracking done
Made all of their videos in house using garage band and Imovie
Use of Delicious: Stated that students were not using (keep in mind they are in Canada) using less with students and more with staff, not utilizing in the same way that I am proposing
Google analytics for monitoring of site traffic
Wiki- stands for “What I Know Is” Hawaiian for “fact”
Utilized Student Voice Technology (Developed @ UB)

Session #5: Changing and Evolving Workplaces: Implications for Advising Students

Learning Agility
Planned happenstance
Other ways 2 win

Strengths Quest
What do you contribute to an organization?

College learning for the 21st century (Bibliography on PowerPoint looked interesting)

Session #6: What Should Harry Do? Student Development Theory in the World of Hogwarts

Theories, like statistics, can be misleading.
An investment in student’s own education assists with retention
Are we over programming first year students?
“Body of work which supports what I am doing.” USE THEORY TO FUND THINGS

Session #7: Teaching Students to Fish: Infusing Critical Thinking Strategies to Help Students Advise Themselves

Fast food advising- Why it’s bad for everyone!
Prescriptive Vs Collaborative Advisement
Prescriptive- I speak you listen, Advisor above student, Student passive
Collaborative- Discussion, Reciprocal Relationship, Student active

Personal Responsibility
Give Student a degree planner and have them create a plan for @ least one year (maybe beyond)

Before mandatory advisement: Send an advising grid and link to the General Education requirements & catalog. Have them come to the appointment with @ least 1 tentative plan. If they don’t have this, they will need to reschedule.

Session #8: Advising Theory & The Big Moral Picture

Advising does not equal teaching!
Tainted origin argument
Difference in Ends Argument
“Values are caught, not taught.”

A person engaging in academic advising has a moral obligation to perform their profession well.

Harms We Could Do:
FERPA
Conflict of Interest
Impartiality
Life changing decisions
Unwanted/Unnecessary major changes
Harassment
Stealing
Technology
Good member of the academic community
Degree postponing omission

PERFORMING THE JOB WELL
“Providing advice so that the student moves forward in a possible future that it is
“better” than the possible future without contact with the advisor.”

Academic advising equals engaging with students in a relationship to influence their academic progression. (Neutral statement- No Moral Claim)

Differentiate between fact and opinion when working with students

Session # 9: Constructional Student Mentoring

Used with probation and suspension students
Student mentoring grant- Grants for other programs?

Pathological Vs Constructional Approaches
Pathological: Decrease the problem behavior, students need a helping hand, eliminate undesirables, find difficult to cope

Constructional: Increase the alternative behaviors, students are capable of helping themselves, produce the desirables, individuals want to grow

CONSTRUCTIONAL APPROACH
Where are you now?
Where do you want to go?
What steps get you there?
What will keep you going?

Directed Choice: Is Tuesday or Friday better for you? When looking at a transcript, always stat out with the strengths of the record.




Funny quote: I am very much like a ferret... I get easily distracted... hahahaha