Global Cooperation in Academic Advising: Is the World Flat?

 We have been hearing for years that "the world is flat" and that global collaboration will be the key to the 21st century's success. Does this trend bleed over to higher education? Academic advising? I started out exploring these questions and was surprised at how little I found. 

Here are 2 quick reviews of 2 of the resources I found:

Collaboration Center: Center for Interactive Learning & Collaboration

At first I thought that this was going to be the most promising resource to use for fostering collaboration among students and/or academic advisors. However, it really turned out to be more of a collection of ads for vendors which offer software to facilitate collaboration. The official sounding title is somewhat deceiving....

Taking IT Global: Inspire. Inform. Involve. 

This site gives a a voice to students who want to speak out on issues affecting the globe. Most anything one can think of is covered within these pages; global warming to access to health care. Of particular interest, to me of course, was the educational technology page. Students from all over the world are joining together in efforts to bring forth new educational technologies and sharing ideas about what their partciular schools are doing in the present. 

Neither of these websites directly address the question of how global communication could impact academic advising...My first thought was that NACADA already hosts some type of international conference, but I don't know very much about it. Perhaps a future post will detail more about this and what types of innovations are taking place. 

Perhaps we (or NACADA) could create some kinda of forum that would enable academic advisors from around the globe to communicate more seamlessly. Services which assist with the creation of podcasts (e.g., gabcast, podomatic) or even synchronous tools such as Skype might enable us to conduct this conversation. In the past, speaking at length with those in our field who are continents away would be next to impossible to achieve without running up an extensive travel bill. We need to embrace this technology and make it do everything that it can. The most difficult part is taking the tool and finding a way to apply it to our everyday lives or careers. 

Does anyone have any resources on academic advising on a global scale? How about in regard to higher education in general?

Is 18 Too Young? Lowering the Drinking Age to Prevent Alcohol Abuse

One of the issues that we as advisors often see are students who are having difficulty with their academic coursework due to issues involving alcohol. Sometimes this can be excessive "partying" while at other times it can revolve around alcoholism.

The following segment on CBS's 60 Minutes got me thinking about the issue in more depth. Take a look...


Watch CBS Videos Online

I can see both sides of the argument but I am not going to be a fence-sitter on this very important issue. I tend to side with Middlebury's president in saying that the drinking age should be lowered but with this "liscensing" program in effect. President McCardell goes into much detail on his website Choose Responsibility and I would suggest my readers take some time to really look it over before making a decision. MADD provides their counterpoints as well on their website.

Many institutions are starting to set up "Good Samaritian Policies" to make reporting of underage drinking incidents more likely. Other programs, like AlcoholEDU, attempt to educate incoming students about responsible alcohol consumption as well as ways to enjoy campus life that do not include drinking. We know that students are going to drink, let's be sure that they understand how to do it responsibly. There is some thrill involved when students think they are "getting away" with something and if that were eliminated I truly believe we would see a decline in alcohol posionings.

Come the fall I am going to discuss the topic with my freshmen students and see what their opinions are. Since they are 18, it will be interesting to hear if they think it would cause them to drink more or less. Perhaps they believe that its a good law and should remain...I can't wait to find out.

More Resources on this Topic

College Drinking: Reframing a Social Problem

Communication Etiquette

Inspired by a blog post that was shared with me by a colleague, I came up with this worksheet that I hope to hand out to students who come into my office to meet with me, who are students in my UB 101 and for those who send inappropriate or unprofessional emails my way.


Communication Etiquette

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Colleges and Univers Education communication etique

I would love comments or feedback regarding the documents...any changes I should make to it... you know!