Reader Learning Outcomes
From studying this chapter, advisors will use knowledge gained on the history of advising to
- identify several influences on the development of academic advising in the United States,
- select participation opportunities that may influence future change, and
- explain implicit and explicit structures of the institutional system and their relationship to the local and global history of academic advising.
Over the past two centuries, academic advising has emerged as an increasingly important component of higher education. Attention to the purposes, guiding principles, and outcomes of advising has increased, and as the field matures, practitioners increasingly view advising as a profession. In line with this movement, master academic advisors must gain an understanding of the ways the history of advising affects their daily interactions with students and the role of practice within higher education. Further, those who wish to effect change need to know the structures and roles that create obstacles to and opportunities for innovation. This chapter provides an overview of the history of the academic advising field with particular focus on areas with lasting ramifications on status and practice.
Scholars have divided the history of academic advising into four eras:
- Prior to 1870, academic advising was a largely unrecognized activity.
- Between 1870 and 1970, the role of academic advising was recognized, but remained largely unexamined by both practitioners and other stakeholders.
- Between 1970 and 2003, academic advising gained greater recognition and examination by practitioners (Frost, 2000; Kuhn, 2008).
- From 2003 to present, academic advising practitioners attempt to intentionally clarify and convey the role of advising, including that of advising as a profession (Cate & Miller, 2015).
A current focus of advising scholarship is on illuminating the distinctive role of advising in higher education and elevating it in the eyes of others, such as higher education administrators, students, and the general public (Schulenberg & Lindhorst, 2008; Shaffer, Zalewski, & Leveille, 2010). The historical development of the field sheds light on the reasons that those in higher education, including those who advise students, do not consistently value the practice or the expertise of advisors. It also points toward opportunities for change.
Structuration theory informs this discussion. It places social structures (defined roles, institutions, rules, etc.) in a dual role (Giddens, 1984). Social structures shape human practices by defining the goals that can and cannot be accomplished by an actor in a particular social role. Despite the boundaries, actors create and reproduce social structures (Giddens, 1984) that both constrain and enable human action. Further, they effect changes to systems both unintentionally and intentionally:
Human agents [are] “knowledgeable” and “enabled” [implying] that those agents are capable of putting their structurally formed capacities to work in creative or innovative ways. And, if enough people or even a few people who are powerful enough act in innovative ways, their action may have the consequence of transforming the very structures that gave them the capacity to act. (Sewell, 1992, p. 4)
The recent discussion of academic advising as a profession reflects social structures that both enable and constrain academic advisors. As a result, those in positions to innovate benefit from an understanding of the history of academic advising.
The history of academic advising within higher education as viewed from a structuration perspective reveals three influential trends:
- The social and professional roles higher education played for individuals expanded and grew complicated. Increased access to higher education, evolution of the social needs for an educated citizenry, and changes in credentialing for the professions are connected to both an increase in curricular complexity and the enrollment of an expanding and increasingly diverse student body.
- As academic disciplines emerged and the role of knowledge generation gained importance in the funding model for higher education institutions, faculty members became decidedly specialized in their disciplines (Raskin, 1979). At the same time, stakeholders recognized the need for specialization in helping students. Efforts to meet the need for specialized skills and knowledge led to the creation of a student personnel cadre (Cook, 2009), many with backgrounds in psychological theory and method.
- Particularly since 2000, practitioners and other stakeholders have paid increasing attention to the examination of academic advising philosophy, practice, and evaluation (Frost, 2000; Kuhn, 2008; Schulenberg & Lindhorst, 2010). Changes in the particular theoretical perspectives and perceived roles of academic advising as well as the differential implementation of academic advising among higher education institutions contributed to the current shape and status of academic advising.
These historical trends inform past and present views of academic advising, create the boundaries for current practices and structures, and suggest areas critical to future directions and professionalization of the field. We encourage readers to gain familiarity with the historical accounts of advising by Frost (2000), Grites (1979), Kuhn (2008), as well as Schulenberg and Lindhorst (2010), as this chapter omits details articulated by other authors.
The First Advising Era (1620 to 1870): Academic Advising Is Unrecognized
Frost (2000) and Kuhn (2008) characterized the First Advising Era (1620–1870) as a period when academic advising was undefined within American higher education. By the turn of the 19th century, higher education had transformed dramatically, creating the need for students to make academic decisions with the aid of an academic advisor. The previous 200 years of higher education perpetuated the structures and roles from which academic advising emerged.
Prior to the American Revolution, nine colleges existed in the colonies, and they enrolled few students, predominantly from wealthy classes (Rudolph, 1990). These earliest institutions unified church and state, creating institutions for elite education and socialization for those destined for political and social leadership, primarily as ministers. By 1750, college affiliation had become a mark of prestige, providing formal socialization of males likely to hold positions of power and providing families a network of social connections that reinforced the existing social hierarchy (Rudolph, 1990; Thelin, 2004; Vine, 1976). Few individuals attended college, and fewer graduated. Colleges played little or no role in credentialing for any professional field (Thelin, 2004); rather, colleges provided young teenage boys an education in manhood through strict intellectual and physical discipline as role modeled and enforced by teachers (Thelin, 2004; Vine, 1976). In particular, institutional leaders meant to prevent the effeminization of society, which they feared would be a consequence of allowing the children of the social and political elite to spend their adolescence with coddling mothers (Vine, 1976).
During this time, relationships between students and teachers were extremely formal and hierarchical. They mainly revolved around disciplinary issues (Thelin, 2004). Students lived and learned in austere environments. As the authoritarian figures, faculty members wielded power over students, who frequently challenged faculty authority with outbursts of riotous behavior. During this era, students and faculty members remained structurally separated, and the notion of a nurturing relationship between a faculty member and a student was antithetical to the role of higher education in socializing elite boys.
Following the American Revolution, the purposes of higher education institutions shifted from educating the clergy toward “educating citizens for a new republic” (Frost, 2000, p. 5). During this period, the enlightenment ideal of an educated citizenry prevailed: Persons put the welfare of the country ahead of individual interests. The colonial universities shed their historical ties to particular religious denominations and aligned control with the state (Thelin, 2004). A broader population of students was educated in subjects in keeping with enlightenment values: applied sciences (e.g., agriculture), professions (e.g., medicine, civics), and modern languages (particularly French). Immediately following the Revolution and into the 19th century, “The American college was conceived of as a social investment” (Thelin, 2004, p. 58). By the end of the 19th century, however, the civic purpose had diminished.
As the public displaced the public servant in the conduct of civil affairs, the college was denied some of its sense of purpose. As Americans lost their sense of society and substituted for it a reckless individualism, there was less demand on the colleges to produce dedicated leaders…. In time colleges would be more concerned about the expectations of their students than about the expectations of society. (Thelin, 2004, pp. 59-60)
From 1783 to 1899, more than 450 colleges were founded and enrollments increased a hundredfold (Geiger, 2000). The western frontier was growing, in part because church denominations sought to offer religious-sponsored education to local residents and in part because of the need for educated individuals on the frontier (Rudolph, 1990; Thelin, 2004). Through this expansion of institutional mission and increase in number of institutions, a wider range of individuals gained access to college. In particular, the number of colleges for women and Blacks, as well as institutions specifically geared toward the emerging sciences of engineering and agriculture (e.g., land grant institutions), increased dramatically (Geiger, 2000). These changes in mission and college-attendance patterns laid the foundation for aspects of American higher education still relevant today. Much more research on the development of academic advising at these emerging institutions ...
