Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
professional development, the Mason Academic Advisor Network (MAAN) grew from three
individuals working together over lunch breaks to brainstorm ideas to over 250 advisors,
administrators and partners across campus. We have established a comprehensive advisor
training, a monthly workshop series, and a marketing campaign aimed at encouraging students to
see their advisors early on in the semester. Through this process we have heavily influenced the
development of advising reform on campus, which has lead to exciting changes including the
establishment of an advising vision and mission. We have shared the success of MAAN at
various NACADA conferences inspiring other institutions to begin their own networks. I look
forward to working with these peers to publish an article on our experiences so that others might
learn from our successes (and missteps).
This spring I presented at the NACADA Region 2 conference in Hyattsville, Maryland. I
was excited to present some of what I learned in my first-generation advising experiences
literature review and pilot study. I was able to talk about what I had learned through a poster
presentation. Additionally, I co-facilitated a roundtable discussion with a colleague on
longitudinal assessment of retention initiatives. This discussion was based on our experiences
trying to retroactively assess the progress of students who had participated in an intrusive
advising program I facilitated over the past four years. We had been asked to demonstrate the
long-term effects of our efforts by administrators and we found that this was a more complicated
process than originally anticipated. The roundtable conversation focused on hearing experiences
from others and sharing ideas, failures and successes. Participants left with a list of suggestions
so that they might avoid some of the pitfalls that we fell into (know exactly what you are looking
for, brainstorm the data you want to collect first, set a clear goal for when the work has been
complete).
will be imperative to find ways to make editing a more prominent step in my process.
Over the past few months I have been reflecting on the end of my experience as a student
in the PhD program. In reading my original goal statement for admission into this program I am
reminded of my long-term goals: To improve upon my research and assessment skills, to
contribute to the general knowledge base on higher education and how we can help students
succeed, and to be a leader in my institution and in my field in retention and advising. I think I
have made great strides towards these goals and find that I have achieved most of them. I will
continue to pursue my goal of being a leader in the field in regards to retention and advising, not
only at my institution. I believe that my dissertation work will support this endeavor
tremendously and am excited to reach this stage in my PhD career.
References
Lowenstein, M. (2014). Toward a theory of advising. The Mentor, August 12, 2014, Retrieved
from https://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2014/08/toward-a-theory-of-advising/
Perna, L.W. (2006). Studying college access and choice: A proposed conceptual model. In J.C.
Smart (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Vol. XXI, 99-157.
New York: Springer. doi: 10.1007/1-4020-4512-3_3