The New Advisor Guidebook

Mastering the Art of Academic Advising

Pat Folsom, Franklin Yoder, Jennifer E. Joslin

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781118823606
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

This is an exciting time to be an academic advisor—a time in which global recognition of the importance of advising is growing, research affirms the critical role advising plays in student success, and institutions of higher education increasingly view advising as integral to their missions and essential for improving the quality of students' educational experiences. It is essential that advisors provide knowledgeable, realistic counsel to the students in their charge. The New Advisor Guidebook helps advisors meet this challenge.

The first and final chapters of the book identify the knowledge and skills advisors must master. These chapters present frameworks for setting and benchmarking self-development goals and for creating self-development plans. Each of the chapters in between focuses on foundational content: the basic terms, concepts, information, and skills advisors must learn in their first year and upon which they will build over the lengths of their careers. These chapters include strategies, questions, guidelines, examples, and case studies that give advisors the tools to apply this content in their work with students, from demonstrations of how student development theories might play out in advising sessions to questions advisors can ask to become aware of their biases and avoid making assumptions about students to a checklist for improving listening, interviewing, and referral skills. The book covers various ways in which advising is delivered: one-to-one, in groups, and online.

The New Advisor Guidebook serves as an introduction to what advisors must know to do their jobs effectively. It pairs with Academic Advising Approaches: Strategies That Teach Students to Make the Most of College, also from NACADA, which presents the delivery strategies successful advisors can use to help students make the most of their college experience.

Part One
Mastering the Art of Advising

Mastering the art of advising is a long-term developmental process for every advisor. Although new advisors sometimes feel overwhelmed and inadequate during their initial years in practice, they need to recognize that mastering all aspects of advising requires years of study, observation, and experience. As they track their progress through the primary tool for setting goals and assessing progress, the New Advisor Development Chart, advisors will see tangible developmental changes that match up with the processes undertaken by their colleagues, including those who have successfully achieved the goals that new hires seek to accomplish. Although no two advisors will follow the exact same path to mastery, the New Advisor Development Chart provides touch points that apply generally to everyone entering the dynamic field of advising.

1
Mastering the Art of Advising: Getting Started

Pat Folsom

Watching a skilled [advisor] help a student is like watching an artist at work. Each makes their craft look easy. The artist applies paint to canvas with a seemingly effortless ease, and the work of art magically appears. [Master] advisors . . . conduct conferences with an equal ease and fluidity.

—Pat Folsom (2007, p. 13)

Master advisors, deftly adapting approaches and strategies within a conversation, teach students to solve problems and make decisions, challenge them to think in new ways, and help them to articulate and create pathways to their educational goals.

Of course, the ease or effortlessness with which advisors and artists practice their craft creates a false impression; both advisor and artist are seamlessly integrating [and thoughtfully applying] multiple components of their respective crafts that took years to learn. For advisors in training or new advisors, observing an experienced advisor can be simultaneously inspiring and overwhelming. New advisors see the advisors that they want to become and recognize that they have a long way to go to master the craft. (Folsom, 2007, p. 13)

Contributors to this revised and updated edition of The New Advisor Guidebook: Mastering the Art of Advising Through the First Year and Beyond (Folsom, 2007) encourage new advisors by examining the constructs underpinning the magic of advising and by providing the tools for advisors to manage their first three years of training and development. Advisors' desire to become excellent practitioners and to master the art of advising drives their motivation to grow professionally. The understanding that mastery matters propels them toward successfully meeting their advising goals.

Mastering the Art of Advising

Excellence in advising matters to the students with whom advisors work and to the institutions they serve. Students report that academic advising is important to them (Noel-Levitz, 2009). Specifically, the advising relationship contributes to their satisfaction and persistence (Folsom & Scobie, 2010; Habley, 2009; Kuh, 2008; Noel-Levitz, 2009). George Kuh (2008), citing results from the 2005 National Survey of Student Engagement, noted that “students who rate their advising as good or excellent . . . are more satisfied with their overall college experience” (p. 73) and that the “quality of academic advising is the single most powerful predictor of satisfaction with the campus environment for students at four-year schools” (p. 73). In addition, a recent study by Kasey Klepfer and Jim Hull (2012) showed that “both four-year and two-year students who reported talking to an academic advisor either ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ had significantly higher persistence rates than those who did not” (p. 11).

According to Kuh (2008), academic advisors play an important role in “promoting development and success” (p. 81), and defined broadly, student success includes “academic achievement, engagement in educationally purposeful activities, satisfaction, acquisition of desired knowledge, skills, and competencies, persistence, and attainment of educational objectives” (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2007, p. 1). Pat Folsom and Nora Scobie (2010) noted that “strong academic advising contributes to and supports every component” of this definition of student success (p. 15). Advisors help students delineate a clear pathway to success (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2005) by assisting “in ways that encourage them to engage in the right kinds of activities, inside and outside the classroom” (Kuh, 2008, p. 69). Advisors also contribute to student satisfaction (Schreiner, 2009) and persistence (Klepfer & Hull, 2012). Furthermore, advisors connect students to sources of academic support, teach them to solve problems, and help them make academic decisions.

In addition to being important to student satisfaction, persistence, and success, the quality of academic advising exerts an important effect on institutions. Specifically, advising “is integral to fulfilling the teaching and learning mission of higher education” (NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising [NACADA], 2006, ¶7) because the “academic advising relationship is where some of the best teaching and learning can occur within the academy” (Hunter, McCalla-Wriggins, & White, 2007, p. 1).

As Folsom and Scobie (2010) explained, “To guide students effectively on clear pathways to success, advisors must be knowledgeable about the institution, its resources, and the student body” (p. 17). To help students develop critical-thinking skills, solve problems, and make important decisions, advisors must develop strong communication and interpersonal skills. Therefore, “to provide advising that elicits high student satisfaction, they must be able to establish positive working relationships with students” (Folsom & Scobie, 2010, p. 17). Furthermore, “to meet their strategic goals, institutions need strong advising by well-trained personnel who understand the mission and goals of the institution” (Folsom & Scobie, 2010, p. 17). To contribute to these levels of student and institutional success, new advisors must seek excellence, and their first step is to gain appreciation of academic advising as an art.

The Art of Advising

The art of teaching. The art of medicine. The art of advising. Webster's (1989) defines art as the “exceptional skill in conducting any human activity.” The term also describes occupations that require the acquisition of a knowledge and skill set “attained by study, practice, or observation” (The American Heritage College Dictionary, 1993). Professionals in teaching, medicine, and advising share these defining occupational characteristics. In addition, those who teach, provide healthcare, and advise must be able to use their knowledge and skills effectively with their students, patients, and advisees. Practitioners will not find a magic formula for establishing successful interpersonal interactions because each class, patient, and advisee presents a unique situation. The art of teaching, medicine, and advising lies in the nuanced application of practitioner knowledge and skills in complex human interactions.

Effective teachers, for example, acquire an extensive knowledge base and skill set. They thoroughly grasp their subject area(s) and student learning theory. They gain information about student development through academic study and learn about the culture, socioeconomic status, and learning styles of their students. Furthermore, they develop strong relational skills that enable them to interact effectively with students and successfully implement teaching and learning strategies. For example, high school instructors of the American Civil War must demonstrate full understanding of the conflict: the causes, battles, important figures, immediate and long-term repercu...