Calendar of ACM events

ACM conferences & workshops

Visiting faculty positions on off-campus study programs

Faculty development opportunities

Faculty Career Enhancement Project (FaCE)

Committee on Minority Concerns

Committee on the Status of Women

National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE)

Engaging Today's Students with the Liberal Arts

Advising Workshop

February 17-19, 2006

From the very beginning of the Engagement Project, it has been clear that effective academic advising is an essential part of a good liberal arts education. It helps undergraduates develop a coherent academic career and draw connections between their classes. Many faculty members sense, however, that they are not as effective at advising as they wish they were, perhaps through inexperience or lack of resources. The project is encouraging colleges to offer training and resources for their faculty advisors.

This workshop was designed as a model for on-campus programs. Each college sent faculty members and administrators responsible for advising, with the idea that they might organize a similar workshop on their campuses. The project will offer the colleges grants to support those programs.

The workshop had almost forty participants from thirteen colleges. In his keynote remarks, an associate dean shared personal stories of being both an advisee and an advisor, and the benefits of good advising for both education and life. A director of academic advising discussed recent scholarship on advising practice, looking at advising as teaching and learning, placing it directly within a college's liberal arts mission. Another advising director asked participants to look closely at their colleges' mission statements as resources for advising. A panel of students discussed their experiences as advisees, including the strengths and weaknesses of their faculty advisors. The participants looked at three case studies, identifying the issues the cases presented to academic advisors. A panel described the needs of students at different points in the academic careers, and the corresponding goals of academic advising for those stages. Finally, the participants met as college teams to begin planning for discussions of academic advising on their campuses.

Participants went away from the workshop with ideas to strengthen their advising work. They welcomed the focus on advising as teaching, an approach sure to appeal to faculty members. They are also now aware of resources for academic advising at other consortial colleges; on-campus activities are likely to involve experts from sister institutions.

Workshop schedule

Saturday, February 18
8:30 Breakfast and mingling
While the workshop's main goal was developing faculty as academic advisors, we also hoped to build connections among the participants. This breakfast gave participants a chance to know their colleagues

9:00 Opening session
Formal research and anecdotal experience tell us that good advising is the key to a successful liberal arts education. But faculty often feel unprepared to do effective advising. To begin our discussion about preparing faculty, Bradley Bateman (Associate Dean and Professor of Economics, Grinnell) talked about his own experiences with students and faculty involving academic advising.

10:15 Break

10:30 Academic advising as pedagogy
While larger institutions view advising as an administrative task, liberal arts colleges are increasingly seeing it as teaching and learning, an essential part of a student's academic experience. Martha Hemwall (Dean of Student Academic Services, Lawrence) discussed this development and its implications for faculty and students.

12:00 Lunch

1:15 The college's mission and expectations of advising
Academic advising should be rooted in the college's mission and its understanding of the liberal arts. Participants brought copies of their college's mission statements and--if available--statement of advising philosophy. Joyce Stern (Associate Dean & Director of Academic Advising, Grinnell) lead a comparison of these statements.

2:30 Student views of academic advising
Academic advising is a two-way relationship--student engagement is essential for effective advising. Julie Stockenberg (Director, First-Year and Sophomore Studies and Advising, Colorado) chaired a panel of Colorado College students reflecting on their experiences with academic advising.

3:30 Break

4:00 Case studies
This was a chance to think about some important questions involving academic advising. Participants worked in groups of four or five, discussing two case studies. Susan Minger (Director of Academic Advising, Cornell) thenl lead a large group debriefing of the cases.

5:30 Break

6:00 Reception and dinner

Sunday, February 19
8:30 Breakfast and mingling
Participants continued yesterday's discussions over a cooked breakfast.

9:00 Breakouts: Advising students at different stages of their careers
Advising students varies, depending on where they are in their academic careers. Three experienced advisors opened this session by reflecting on the issues involved in advising a particular cohort--first year students, sophomores, and students in their majors. Here are questions they considered:

• What issues is this group dealing with? ·
• What needs does this group have?
• What techniques work with this group?
• What obstacles does this group present to good advising?

After the panel, workshop participants discussed these stages in greater depth. Participants were randomly assigned into six small groups; each group was assigned a leader. Here are questions they discussed:

• How do students change over their academic careers?
• How should advising change as students change?
• What do faculty need to know to advise students at different stages in their college careers?

10:15 Break

10:30 Campus teams
This was a chance for teams from each campus to begin planning an advising workshop for its faculty, based on ideas from this weekend's workshop.

11:00 Conclusions
The entire group met together to share ideas about on-campus workshops and discuss any final questions, chaired by Daniel Sack (Program Officer, ACM).

Return to: Engagement Project