I am a new faculty advisor. Tell me everything I need to know.

I just completed my first “unconference” sessions here at the NACADA (National Academic Advising Association) Region 1 conference, and I enjoyed having the chance to participate in two unique sessions. I have been reading about “unconferences” and “edcamps” in the blogo/twittersphere, but have not attended one before. I will have to write more about the process of the unconference another time and prepare for my next opportunities to attend and/or organize a similar event. It is definitely worth learning about this innovative format if you have not heard of it or attended one before. The NACADA region 1 conference is a traditional conference with presentations and poster sessions, but the organizers chose to set aside two session blocks for an unconference. Over the past two days, attendees were encouraged to submit session topics by writing them on slips of paper and putting them in a box. The organizers made a quick schedule of room assignments this afternoon, and held a 15-minute introduction to unconferences before letting us loose to choose a room and participate.

My topic was one of the chosen sessions, titled “I am a new faculty advisor. Tell me everything I need to know.” The title essentially describes my purpose in coming to the NACADA conference this week. I also have to acknowledge that because my husband is an academic advisor at another university, I was tagging along with him. I chose to attend the conference rather than hang out in a Montreal Starbucks and grade papers for three days, because I really want and need to learn more about my role as a faculty advisor. The conference is targeted primarily to professional academic advisors, but many sessions include discussions related to faculty advising as well. I am an assistant professor in my second year in a tenure-track  position, and advising is a part of my workload.

I came up with my unconference title after sneaking a peek at the other slips in the box, one of which was titled “30 minutes with a faculty advisor: Everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask.” This session was facilitated by an associate professor with a strong involvement in academic advising at her institution, who just received tenure on Monday (congratulations Libby!) so I decided to attend her session and learn everything I could. She stayed around for my unconference session, and we were joined by two other participants as well.

So, what did I learn in the unconference? And in my other “regular” conference sessions so far? I am still processing through all of this new information and fortunately I will have my husband to confer with about the experience at home. I am starting to compile my take-away points and I have gotten a pretty good to-do list started. Before I got to Montreal, my advising to-do list only had one thing on it: email my advisees to meet with me, because it’s time to start planning for registration. I have been told that even taking that much initiative sets me apart from many other faculty members. Nonetheless, now that I have spent a day and a half at NACADA, here is my new to-do list:

1. Meet your colleagues in person and put a face with the name/email address. At my institution, we are small enough where that has happened organically in some cases, but there are some mystery faculty and staff members who I should just go find and say hello in person.
2. Use group advising to supplement individual advising. This has been on my mind for a while and was recommended by our director of academic advising. It’s taken a few semesters of having the same conversation 30 times in a row for me to realize that yes, I want to do this.
3. Be yourself… but learn how to be firm and develop your crap detection skills. As a former teacher and counselor of young children with emotional and behavior challenges, I am coming into higher education with a different background than most faculty members. I need to continue developing my style of advising and realize that this is a new setting and a new population, but I still need to do what feels true to me as an educator and a person.
4. Learn how to help students make the perfect schedule. This sounds like something I could get very good at, given my skills and personality. Some faculty advisors remain hands-off with this aspect of the work, but I might actually enjoy it, once I am able to learn the system better. For me, that will mean learning the old general education requirements, AND the new model that has been created. Good thing the old one is almost gone!
5. Lure advisees to meet with you by sending an attention-grabbing email. I do still need to send that email this weekend, as spring break comes to a close. I’m not sure whether to take the alarmist approach and induce a bit of fear to induce attendance, or entice students to come see me with promises of rewarding and valuable dialogue… or both?
6. Communicate with the student’s other advisor(s) and close any gaps. Most of my students have two faculty advisors—me from the education department, and another from their other major department. Then there is often a third advisor from the academic advising center involved. We rarely talk or email with each other. That seems like a poor system and if I can figure out how to improve that communication, I will.
7. Find out what is expected of you in the area of advising for tenure and promotion. One of the reasons I am motivated to provide high quality advising—I will admit—is the fact that my institution values advising as an important part of how faculty are evaluated for tenure and promotion. Based on what I am learning today, that message goes a long way towards promoting high-quality faculty advising. My to-do item is to find out exactly what the tenure committee is looking for and how this can be measured, documented, etc.
8. Hold some of your student advising meetings at the academic advising center, rather than your office. I like this idea--this allows students to see faculty and professional advisors in the same physical space. Psychologically, I think that does make a difference and can promote collaboration and consistency.
9. Take advantage of resources from NACADA  – this is their professional field of expertise! I am so pleased that I decided to come this week. I knew through my husband that this is a good professional organization with useful publications, conferences, and online resources, but now I am seeing it for myself and I will make use of what they have to offer.
10. Participate in another unconference. This has to go on the to-do list… I am very intrigued by the constructivist, grassroots, spontaneous, participatory, power-to-the-people nature of this format. I imagine that each one is unique, and luckily they exist for my academic discipline of K-12 education, so I will need to seek out an unconference or edcamp again soon.

If any readers would like to add something to my to-do list for faculty advising, please leave a comment or reply via Twitter. What else would you recommend?