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Qualities of a Good Advisor

The Coaching Continuum

An Advising Model for Undecided Students

Reminders for Effective Advising

 

 
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Chapter 1 - Principles of Advising

Principles Of Good Practice
In Academic Advising

Based upon my 27 years as a college teacher, administrator, and advisor of both undergraduate and graduate students, I offer the following as recommendations for the kinds of behaviors that constitute affective academic advising. My thoughts on this subject have been significantly influenced by the work of my colleagues in the National Association for Academic Advising, and I express my indebtedness to them and to the legions of students who have given me feedback about my own behaviors as an academic advisor. – John N. Gardner, Director, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience, University of South Carolina.

1. Remember first and foremost that academic advising is a relationship. It is not just a means to an end.

2. Remember that academic advising is teaching—the most powerful form of one-to-one teaching in which you can engage.

3. Show signs of respect to your advisees. For example, extend to them the same kind of greetings you would any other human being—a handshake plus an acknowledgement. Advisors who show respect to their students tend to give them undivided attention and lots of eye contact, don’t take phone calls in the middle of conversations, and treat them with the same respect as any other person for whom they work. You do work for your advisees!

4. Practice active listening. Listening is affirmative and lets the speaker know he/she is significant to you.

5. Know when you are over your head in dealing with an advisee’s problem. Refer as necessary to other qualified professionals on your campus. Referring doesn’t indicate any weakness on your part or lack of knowledge. It is the professionally responsible thing to do.

6. Give accurate information. If you don’t know the answer, say so. Either send the student to someone who does know the answer or make a commitment to get the information yourself.

7. Be available during your published office hours and at the times you have made appointments. Students need to know you are predictable and reliable.

8. Remember that what really counts is what is best for the student, not necessarily what is best for the department or institution. Although it might be preferable from the perspective of a department or institution for a student to remain enrolled, if it is in the best interest of the student to make a change, he/she must come first.

9. Make positive predictions for your students. Students, like other human beings, will work hard to fulfill the predictions significant persons in their lives make of them. This is known as the “Pygmalion Effect.”

10. Give careful consideration to the arrangement of your office furniture and environment where you conduct your advisement sessions. Don’t make your desk a physical barrier between you and the student. Have as much open space as possible between you and the advisee when you are conversing so that you have symbolically removed barriers to communication.

11. Avoid making decisions for your advisees even when they may request or intimate that is what they would like you to do. Remember the maxim of transactional analysis: rescuers are victims. Offer your advisees good solid information, perspectives, and reactions, but don’t make decisions for them. Remember that the goal is their independence and not dependence on you.

12. Urge your advisees to use additional student support services. Students who avail themselves of campus resources have higher retention rates. If necessary, make your advisee an appointment to use one of these services and/or walk him/her to that particular office. Show them the way, set things up, and help take the first step.

13. Urge your advisees to join a group and to spend more time on campus. Joiners are stayers.

14. Urge your students to take advantage of all opportunities for extended orientation, including especially an orientation course, if one is available. Students who participate in orientation courses have higher retention and graduation rates than students who do not.

15. Link your own process of good academic advising with a career planning process. Introduce your students to the campus career-planning center. Strongly urge your advisees to obtain occupational testing and the other services such as a center would provide.

16. Let your advisees know they “matter” to you.

17. Use your power wisely. Remember that in your role as an academic advisor, you are exercising enormous power, perhaps even more so than physicians, lawyer, or politicians. You can have a profoundly positive influence on your student’s selection of courses, degree options, careers, and ways of life.


Qualities of a Good Advisor

  • Is caring
  • Is a good Listener
  • Knows what he/she is doing
  • Knows when and who to ask for information
  • Presents alternatives to students
  • Lets students make decisions
  • Is aware of and responsive to cultural diversity
  • Is patient
  • Is available to students
  • Has a sense of humor
  • Is friendly, welcoming, approachable
  • Enjoys talking with students
  • Stays informed on and uses available information resources
  • Puts the student’s needs first
  • Conducts formal and informal follow-up with advisees
  • Maintains appropriate records
  • Remembers the student’s names

    The Coaching Continuum
    By David Ellis

    Among advisors, counselors, and coaches there are distinct schools of thought about how to empower people. Some advisors are directive. Others are hands-off; they just point out the overall direction and let the student figure out the rest. Likewise, some advisors routinely direct their conversations with students. Then there are advisors like Carl Rogers who think that people can solve their own problems when we both listen and affirm people fully.
    This range of opinion also exists in the coaching profession. I like to describe this range as the coaching continuum. You can use this continuum as a way to define coaching.
    The coaching continuum ranges from the least directive responses at one end (listen fully and affirm) to the most directive technique at the other end (offer an option):

    o Listen fully and affirm
    o Listen fully and feed back the problem
    o Ask the student to generate a few new possibilities
    o Ask the student to generate many possibilities
    o Add to the student’s list of possibilities
    o Present at least 10 possibilities (some contradictory)
    o Present at least three possibilities
    o Teach a new technique
    o Offer an option
    o Give advice
    o Give advice by sharing or questioning
    o Give the answer

    The line indicates the boundary between coaching and giving advice. Though there is a time and place for advice, I want to draw a clear distinction between advising and coaching. In life coaching, advice has little value and can even be counter-productive.
    Consult the Life Coaching Manual in Counseling Services for more details about each of these levels on the coaching continuum.

    Adapted from Life Coaching by David Ellis, 1998.


    An Advising Model for Undecided Students

  • The following is an excerpt from the article, Advising Undecided/Exploratory Students by Virginia Gordon, Assistant Dean, Emerita, The Ohio State University.

    Advisors who follow a decision-making model when advising undecided students can ensure that all the necessary steps will be covered. The model below follows a sequence of steps that leads the student through an orderly decision-making process. This plan may be used in a 30-minute advising session or over an extended period of time.

STEP 1: Help students analyze their situation

  • How undecided is the student (e.g., deciding between two alternatives, totally undecided)?
  • Why are they undecided? (The reasons they give will often suggest a place to start gathering information.)
  • What majors are they considering? What majors have they eliminated? (If they can’t answer either question, you can go on through a complete list of your institution’s majors and offer explanations of each; in this way you can help the student eliminate many majors.
  • Be sensitive to sex-role stereotyping in the alternatives they name.
  • Listen for student’s values; discuss hoe these might be important for identifying alternatives.
  • A trusting advising relationship needs to be established. The first contact is critical.


STEP 2: Help students organize a plan for exploring (information gathering phase)

  • What type of information do they need (e.g., self-information, academic information, occupational information, decision-making information)
  • Devise a plan for gathering information (where? How? When?). To what campus resources do they need to be referred (e.g., people, libraries, computer systems, and career center)?
  • Establish a timeline for accomplishing the tasks in this step.

STEP 3: Help students integrate information they have collected

  • Integrate self-information (e.g., interests, abilities, values, experiences, and skills) into possible majors/occupational fields.
  • Help them understand academic and occupational relationships, including majors that lead to many occupational possibilities.
  • Help them understand how different majors fit their values and goals.
  • Broaden their horizons.
  • Help them narrow down to two or three possibilities.

STEP 4: Support students while they make decisions

  • Offer feedback on how the decision-making process is progressing.
  • Help identify external factors that need to be considered.
  • Help students understand their decision-making style and how it affects the process.
  • Support their decision once it is made.

STEP 5: Help students initiate an action plan

  • Help identify specific action steps to be taken.
  • Help identify resources needed to take action.
  • Help set up a realistic timetable for taking specific actions.
  • Remind students that no plan is static; as changes take place, new decisions may need to be made.


STEP 6: Encourage future contact

  • Explain that you are available if they need to assess further or update their decision.
  • Remind then that your role is of support, that you are willing to act as a sounding board for future decisions, and that you will provide continuity and stability as needed

Source: USA Group Noel-Levitz, Inc.


Reminders For Effective Advising

  • Care about advisees as people by showing empathy, understanding and respect.
  • Establish a warm, genuine and open relationship.
  • Evidence interest, helpful intent and involvement.
  • Be a good listener.
  • Establish rapport by remembering personal information about advisees.
  • Be available; keep office hours and appointments.
  • Provide accurate information.
  • When in doubt, refer to catalog, advisor’s handbook, etc.
  • Know how and when to make referrals, and be familiar with referral sources.
  • Don’t refer too hastily; on the other hand, don’t attempt to handle situations for which you are not qualified.
  • Have students contact referral sources in your presence.
  • Keep in frequent contact with advisees; take the initiative; don’t always wait for students to come to you.
  • Don’t make decisions for students; help them make their own decisions.
  • Focus on advisees’ strengths and potentials rather than limitations.
  • Seek out advisees in informal settings.
  • Monitor advisees’ progress toward educational goals.
  • Determine reasons for poor academic performance and direct advisees to appropriate support services.
  • Be realistic with advisees.
  • Use all available information sources.
  • Clearly outline advisees’ responsibilities.
  • Follow-up on commitments made to advisees.
  • Encourage advisees to consider

 

 

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