College campuses today blend a unique mix of students from all walks of life. Acknowledging the diversity of students on a college campus and creating an atmosphere of inclusion allows everyone to have an opportunity to let their voices be heard. Diversity comes in all shapes and sizes, races and genders, sexual orientation and religion, nationality and age, disability status and social class.
As the human agent of the institution in direct contact with students, academic advisors play a significant role in supporting these diverse populations of students. Advisors have the opportunity to inspire students to dream and encourage them to achieve new (and old) goals. They are cheerleaders for student success!
Student cohorts stretch beyond race and gender and into areas such as adult learners, exploratory students, and students with disabilities (to name just a few of many!), and each has their own unique advising challenges. However, with a knowledge of academic advising approaches, advisors can tailor their student appointments to each student’s individual needs.
Advising Approaches
Strengths-Based Advising
Strengths-based advising is an approach that “encourages [students] to capitalize on their unique gifts to become the best version of themselves and gain the most they can from their college experiences” (Schreiner, 2013, as cited by Drake, 2015, p. 236). The strengths-based approach is delineated further by Schreiner (2013, as cited by Drake, 2015) in a five-step process:
1. Identify students' talents.
2. Affirm students' talents and increase awareness of strength.
3. Envision the future.
4. Plan specific steps for students to reach goals.
5. Apply students' strengths to challenges. (p. 236)
Appreciative Advising
Appreciative advising is a holistic approach that draws from positive psychology and the social constructivist theory of appreciative inquiry (Roufs, 2015). Practically, for the advisor, this means asking advisees open-ended, positive questions “that assist them in capturing their own stories, strengths, educational goals and objectives, and accomplishments” (Appreciative Advising, 2018, What Is Appreciative Advising? section). The Appreciative Advising website (2018) describes a six-phase approach that can be applied over the course of the advisor/advisee relationship to build trust and uncover dreams.
Disarm: Make a positive first impression with the student, build rapport, and create a safe, welcoming space.
Discover: Ask positive open-ended questions that help advisers learn about students' strengths, skills, and abilities.
Dream: Inquire about students' hopes and dreams for their futures.
Design: Co-create a plan for making their dreams a reality.
Deliver: The student delivers on the plan created during the Design phase and the adviser is available to encourage and support students.
Don't Settle: Advisers and students alike need to set their own internal bars of expectations high. (What Is Appreciative Advising? section)
This paper will discuss using these two advising approaches with three different student cohorts: students with disabilities, adult students, and exploratory students.
Students with Disabilities
According to Jarrow (1996), “Two rules should be remembered when interacting with students with disabilities: a) advice and recommendations should be based on student interests rather than limitations, and b) counsel should be given based on evidence and not on supposition” (p. 7). With this in mind, one advising approach that would benefit students with disabilities is the strengths-based approach. Jarrow mentions how students with disabilities have a tendency to focus on their limitations rather than their abilities when making decisions about career paths (1996). A good starting point might be to ask questions to determine the awareness the student has of her or his talents (1996). This also falls in line with step one of the strengths-based approach listed above. If the students have a hard time coming up with strengths, the advisor might ask them what their favorite subject in school is. Or when does time seem to fly by, and what were you doing? Another way to uncover student strengths is to have them complete a personal inventory. Many such inventories are online, such as CliftonStrengths (Gallup, 2020) and 16 Personalities (NERIS Analytics Limited, 2020).
The ability to establish rapport and trust will make the difference between being in a position to offer sound advice or not.
Because students’ disabilities are confidential, advisors will most likely only know any issues the student may have if that information is directly shared and provided by the students. The more knowledge the advisor has about the students and their disabilities, the better equipped the advisor will be in making recommendations (Jarrow, 1996). The “ability to establish rapport and trust will make the difference between being in a position to offer sound advice or not” (Jarrow, 1996, p. 9). This is one reason why I feel appreciative advising would be helpful in advising students with disabilities. By applying the disarm phase, the advisor can set up an office environment that is both mobility and sensory-friendly. Initial communications with the advisees can help prepare them for their appointment and ask for accommodations that the students need. These first steps help build trust from the start of the relationship and hopefully encourage greater communication to allow more effective advising to the advisees.
Adult Students
Today, about 38% of undergraduate college students are over the age of 25, and 50% of all students enrolled in higher education institutions. Typically these students over the age of 25 are defined as adult learners. Not only do adult students represent diverse ages on college campuses, but more than 25% arrive juggling family responsibilities, and nearly 60% are working while attending college (Morris, 2019). This creates a unique opportunity for the academic advisor to connect with adult students and learn their stories.
All humans want to be known, and adult students are no exception to this.
The theory of andragogy, popularized by Malcome Knowles, says that adult learners need to know that what they’re learning applies to them and how it will help them specifically. They are also typically internally motivated and have a foundation of prior knowledge to base their learning off of. They’re self-directed and connect best with learning that is meaningful to them (WGU Indiana, 2020). Knowing these characteristics of adult learners, advisors can better prepare and connect with their adult student advisees. All humans want to be known, and adult students are no exception to this.
Using the appreciative advising approach, advisors have an opportunity to disarm adult students with questions about their families or past job experiences. Advisors might ask what brought them to college? Are they re-enrolling, or is this their first time attending? Allowing for their stories to be told will lay the foundation for meaningful connections that will aid in the process of discovering, dreaming, designing, and delivering an academic plan that leads to success (Roufs, 2015). This holistic view will allow the advisees to see how their past experiences have helped them get this far and will help remind them not to settle. With the strengths-based approach, the advisor can capitalize on the adult students’ strengths and help them envision the future while reminding them of the challenges they’ve already faced in life and the strengths they used to get them through (Drake, 2015).
Exploratory Students
According to Gordon (1995, as cited by Freedman, 2013), “an estimated 20 to 50 percent of students enter college as undecided, and an estimated 75 percent of students change their major at least once before graduation” (Facts and Figures section). Students can be undecided for many reasons, from not being developmentally ready to make decisions, feeling pressure from family, being rejected from a previous program to finding interests in a variety of things. The reasons can be as diverse as the students themselves (Bell-Werner, 2019).
An advisor can provide strengths-based inventories as a starting point and use that as a foundation to continue to help build a plan for the student.
Of all the cohorts listed, I think strengths-based and appreciative advising are perfectly matched for the exploratory student. These advising approaches give tangible next steps to the student who is feeling lost in a sea of majors and career choices. An advisor can provide strengths-based inventories as a starting point and use that as a foundation to continue to help build a plan for the student. I think for students who feel lost, using approaches that have a staged or phased approach, such as these advising strategies, brings some structure to their worlds. It takes some of the chaos they may be feeling and channels it into proactive solutions as they find their strengths, determine their hopes and dreams, and apply these to a career choice and major. “Ultimately, a student who makes a more informed major decision in his or her second year of school based on personal goals and values will be more engaged in the college experience and more successful academically, personally, and professionally” (Freedman, 2013, Conclusions section).
Though creating cohorts of students is a starting point for defining similar student populations on campus, it’s important to remember that the students within these groups are unique individuals. Being knowledgeable of different advising approaches gives advisors the freedom and flexibility to acknowledge the diversity of each advisee and tailor their advising time to the individual needs of each student. I appreciate how Jarrow (1996) defines the advisor’s role when she says, “An advisor must believe that every student counseled, with or without disability, has equal potential to do exciting things with their lives” (p. 10). With the beauty of a diverse student population, this is a nugget of truth worth holding onto.
Jayne Rohlfing
EDCEP 835 Foundations of Academic Advising
Kansas State University
Oct. 25, 2020
References
Appreciative Advising. (2018). What is appreciative advising? Appreciative advising. https://www.appreciativeadvising.net/
Bell-Werner, M. (2019). Undecided and exploratory students advising community. NACADA. https://nacada.ksu.edu/Community/Advising-Communities/Undecided-Exploratory-Students.aspx
Drake, J. K. (2015). Academic advising approaches from theory to practice. In P. Folsom, F. Yoder, and J.E. Joslin (Eds.) The new advisor guidebook. (pp. 231-247). Kindle.
Freedman, L. (2013). Undecided and exploratory students advising community. The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal, 15. https://doi.org/10.26209/mj1561278
Gallup. (2020). CliftonStrengths. Available from http://www.strengthsquest.com
Jarrow, J.E. (1996, Fall). The Americans with disabilities act, students with disabilities, and the role of the academic advisor. NACADA Journal, 16(2), 6-10.
Morris, L. (2019, September 12). Adult learners: Who they are & what they want from college. EAB. https://eab.com/insights/daily-briefing/adult-learner/adult-learners-who-they-are-what-they-want-from-college/
NERIS Analytics Limited. (2020). 16 Personalities. Available from https://www.16personalities.com/
Roufs, K. (2015) Theory matters. In P. Folsom, F. Yoder, and J.E. Joslin (Eds.) The new advisor guidebook. (pp. 67-82). Kindle.
WGU Indiana. (2020, April 7). Adult learning theories and principles. WGU. https://www.wgu.edu/blog/adult-learning-theories-principles2004.html
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