Faculty of Education and Social Work
Academic Advising and Cultural
Competency
An existential-phenomenological approach to
student wellbeing
Dr Remy Low
Faculty of Education and Social Work
This presentation
1. Academic advising
2. Cultural competency
3. Aboriginal spirituality
4. The phenomenological attitude
5. An existential model
6. Case studies
7. Concluding reflections
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Academic advising
What is academic advising?
› “refers to situations in which an institutional representative gives insight or direction
about an academic, social, or personal matter” (Kuhn 2008, p.3)
› “Academic advising, based in the teaching and learning mission of higher education, is
a series of intentional interactions with a curriculum, a pedagogy, and a set of student
learning outcomes. Academic advising synthesizes and contextualizes students’
educational experiences within the frameworks of their aspirations, abilities and lives to
extend learning beyond campus boundaries and timeframes.” (NACADA, 2006)
- minority students in the United States perceive academic advising by faculty members as the
most important of seven support services, including career planning or placement, minority
student programs, counselling, housing or residential life, student activities, and student affairs or
dean's offices. (Burrell & Trombley, 1983)
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Cultural competency
What is cultural competency?
› “Cultural competence is the ability to participate ethically and effectively in
personal and professional intercultural settings. It requires being aware
of one’s own cultural values and world view and their implications for
making respectful, reflective and reasoned choices, including the
capacity to imagine and collaborate across cultural boundaries.
Cultural competence is, ultimately, about valuing diversity for the richness
and creativity it brings to society.” (NCCC)
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Aboriginal spirituality
The foundation of practice
› “Spirituality includes Indigenous Australian knowledges that have informed
ways of being, and thus wellbeing, since before the time of colonisation, ways
that have been subsequently demeaned and devalued. Colonial processes
have wrought changes to this knowledge base and now Indigenous Australian
knowledges stand in a very particular relationship of critical dialogue with
those introduced knowledges that have oppressed them. Spirituality is the
philosophical basis of a culturally derived and wholistic concept of
personhood, what it means to be a person, the nature of relationships to
others and to the natural and material world, and thus represents strengths
and difficulties facing those who seek to assist Aboriginal Australians to
become well.” (Grieves, 2009, p.v)
› “The starting point for wellbeing is always cultural in that it is defined,
understood and experienced within a social, natural and material
environment, which is understood and acted on in terms of the cultural
understandings that a people have developed to enable them to interact
within their world” (Grieves, 2009, p.2).
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Aboriginal spirituality
The foundation of practice
› “It is thus a fundamental principle that an understanding of Aboriginal
wellbeing needs to take into account the different ontologies (understandings
of what it means to be) and epistemologies (as ways of knowing) that
characterise the experience of colonised peoples.” (Grieves, 2009, p.2)
› “The tendency for many people from the dominant society, confronted with
differences in attitudes or behaviour that is strange or odd, is to demean
people from other cultures in some way, or to construct them as exotic and
therefore worthy of further inquiry. This is due to the fact that most people are
brought up as ethnocentric... this makes it difficult to even appreciate how
different difference can be. Your commonsense may not be commonsense at
all for another person. Ethnocentrism influences how we think, observe,
interpret and understand. It can influence how we diagnose, how we treat, and
how we evaluate outcomes. We need to suspend our judgments of
difference to understand others in their own terms.” (Grieves, 2009, p.40)
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Adopting a phenomenological attitude
3 basic rules in practice
1. Epoché (or “bracketing”): We temporarily suspend our assumptions
about the world and our preconceptions (see Van Deurzen, 2012, p.9;
also Spinelli, 1989, p.17)
2. Description: Instead of naming and labelling, we take the time to listen
and (re)describe the experiences of our students slowly and carefully
(see Van Deurzen, 2012, p.9; also Ihde, 1986, p.34)
3. Horizontalisation: We avoid placing any initial hierarchies of significance
or importance upon descriptions, and instead treat every element of the
description as having equal value or significance (see Spinelli, 1989,
p.18; also Van Deurzen, 2012, p.9)
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An existential model
Lifeworlds
› “Aboriginal Spirituality derives from a philosophy that establishes the
wholistic notion of the interconnectedness of the elements of the earth and
the universe, animate and inanimate, whereby people, the plants and
animals, landforms and celestial bodies are interrelated.” (Grieves, 2009,
p.7)
› “We are complex bio-socio-psycho-spiritual organisms, joined to the world
around us in everything we are and do.” (Van Deurzen, 2010)
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An existential model
Lifeworlds
Spiritual
Social
Personal
Physical
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Culturally competent academic advising
An existential-phenomenological approach
Case studies:
- “Neven”
- “Ken”
- “Nancy”
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Concluding reflections
What are the limits of this approach in the context of higher education?
› Time
› Centralisation of processes
› Prevailing practices based on a particular ontological and epistemological
premise
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References
Burrell, L.F., & Trombley, T.B. (1983). Academic Advising with Minority Students on
Predominantly White Campuses. Journal of College Student Personnel, 24(2), 121-26
Grieves, V. (2008). Aboriginal Spirituality: A Baseline for Indigenous Knowledges Development
in Australia. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 28(2), 363-398.
Grieves, V. (2009). Aboriginal spirituality: Aboriginal philosophy, the basis of Aboriginal social
and emotional wellbeing. Casuarina: Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health.
Ihde, D. (1986). Experimental Phenomenology: An Introduction. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press.
Kuhn, T.L. (2008). Historical Foundations of Academic Advising. In V.N. Gordon, W.R. Habley,
& T.J. Grites (Eds.), Academic advising: A comprehensive handbook (pp.3-17). San Francisco:
John Wiley & Sons.
National Academic Advising Association [NACADA]. (2006). NACADA concept of academic
advising. Retrieved from http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Clearinghouse/ViewArticles/Concept-of-Academic-Advising-a598.aspx
Van Deurzen, E. (2010). Everyday mysteries: A handbook of existential psychotherapy.
London: Routledge.
Van Deurzen, E. Van. (2011). Existential counselling and psychotherapy in practice. Thousand
Oaks: Sage.
Spinelli, E. (1989). The Interpreted World. London: Sage.
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