Academic Advising
Exploring past, present, future
Maura Reynolds
Hope College
In medieval times, a preceptor
shared his knowledge
with his students
In 1841, Kenyon College (Ohio)
uses the term “advisor”
In the 1880s,
a system of faculty advisors was
established at Johns Hopkins.
“Advising is a process with a
long and dignified history in
colleges and universities…
it is a most cordially hated
activity by the majority of
college teachers.”
Personnel and Guidance Journal, 1953
In the 1960s,
two new delivery systems
were introduced
 Centralized
advising centers
 Peer & professional advisors
In 1972,
Terry O’Banion outlined
five dimensions of advising
life goals
vocational goals
program choices
course choices
scheduling options
In 1977,
300 people attended
a national meeting
about academic advising.
Over the next 2 years,
NACADA was established.
In 1970s and 1980s,
developmental advising:
 Became
the dominant paradigm
 Extended advising beyond
scheduling
 Drew on student development
theory
 Emphasized shared responsibility
Learning-Centered
Advising
•
•
•
•
•
d
Academically focused
Student focused
Mission focused
Advisors = facilitators
Students = active
2006
“Academic advising is
integral to fulfilling the
teaching and learning
mission of higher
education.”
NACADA Concept of Academic Advising
Preamble, 2006
“An excellent advisor does
the same for the student’s
entire curriculum that the
excellent teacher does for
one course.”
Marc Lowenstein,
2005
“Perhaps the most urgent reform on
most campuses in improving
general education involves
academic advising.
To have programs and courses
become coherent and significant to
students requires adequate
advising.”
Task Force on General Education
Association of American Colleges
1988
Advising focuses on enhancing
students’ efforts to make sense
of their education
as a whole,
not as a series of isolated
experiences or items on a
checklist.
Learning-centered advising raises
questions like
 What
should students learn through
advising?
 How might they learn these things?
 Why is this learning important—for
students and our institutions?
learning-centered advising aims to
 help
students make connections
among courses and experiences
and integrate their learning
 help students articulate the skills
they are developing
 help students identify realistic
goals & pathways to reach them
learning-centered advising aims to
 foster
students’ self-assessment
 help students understand the
relevance of their education to
their lives
 help students make sense of their
experiences & make good
decisions about them
What excellent teachers do:
• Actively engage students in learning
• Teach students how to evaluate
information
• Give feedback, encouragement,
reinforcement
• Show knowledge, interest,
enthusiasm
Advisors ask What,
Why, and How Questions
• How are you changing as a result of your
education?
• What are your goals for your education?
• Why do you want to major in English, in
accounting, in political science?
• How can you make the most of your time in
college?
• What skills are you developing? What skills do
you need to develop, and how will you do this?
“At key points…
an academic advisor asked
questions or posed a
challenge, that forced students
to think about the relationship
of their academic work to their
personal lives.”
Richard Light, Making the Most of College
In recent years… colleges and
universities have been working
to become more intentional
both about the purposes of
education and about the practices that help
today’s students succeed in college.
Peer Review, Toward Intentionality and Integration, Fall 2008, Carol Geary Schneider
“It’s hard to imagine any
academic function more
important to student success
and institutional productivity
than advising.”
George Kuh, The student learning agenda NACADA Journal,1997
Students who met with their
academic advisors at least
twice during the academic year
engaged more frequently in
educationally purposeful
activities.
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) 2007
Students who rated advising as
“good” or “excellent”
 were more likely to interact
with faculty
 considered their environment
more supportive overall
 gained more from college in
most areas
NSSE, 2005
“Effective retention programs
have come to understand that
academic advising is at the very
core of successful institutional
efforts to educate and retain
students.”
Vincent Tinto, 1993
Advising is a tag-team activity
Academic
departments
First-year
seminar
Career and
life planning
Academic
Advising
New student
orientation
Registration
and records
Learning
communities
Admissions
and testing
Institutions need to
Create a shared vision of student
success, embedded in the mission and
culture
 Set high expectations for students, in
and out of the classroom, and balance
challenge and support
 Establish policies, practices, resources
to support student success.

Advisors should play important roles in these initiatives!
Four questions to consider when
organizing or reorganizing
advising
 Who
is advised?
 Who advises?
 Where is advising done?
 How are advising responsibilities
divided?
Advising is more important than
ever—issues now and in the future
Cost of higher education
 Changing regulations
 State of economy and job market
 Expectations of students and families
 Pressure to retain and graduate “on time”
 Increasing demands; decreasing resources
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Peer/group advising/career planning
Advising special populations (rising
potentials, first-years, undecideds)
Engaging students with technology and
social media
Developing advising handbooks
Developing a mission statement
Ethical aspects of advising
Applying development theories
Assessment-retention-development