Advising Year 2: Electric Boogaloo

Five Things I’ve Learned in My Second Year as an Academic Advisor

Making my own professional development. Because we’ve been understaffed for a full academic year, professional development opportunities have been limited. We needed all hands on deck to meet the needs of students across all three campuses, so the advising staff didn’t have the opportunity to go to any conferences. Instead, I read articles and books to keep abreast of current advising trends and issues.
My big read for the year was Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom. I’d always known that there was a difference between “traditional” colleges/universities and for-profit institutions, and had done my best to warn students away from our for-profit counterparts, but I didn’t have the words to explain why the two institutions were different. reading Lower Ed was really eye-opening.
Being braver in advising appointments. This year, I really tried to move beyond just talking with students about their academic progress during advising appointments. My goal was to dig deeper, to get to know the students, to celebrate their accomplishments and, on the flip side, to understand some of the barriers to their success. This led to some amazingly informative, and terribly heartbreaking, interactions. I had conversations with students about their mental health, their living situations, whether they had access to food, and if they were getting adequate rest. By not shying away from difficult conversations, I was able to point students to campus resources they didn’t know existed, like counseling services and the food pantry.
Stepping out of my comfort zone and into the classroom. This fall, I accomplished a longtime bucket list item by teaching UNIV 1231. This class, titled First-Year Experience, is a one credit hour seminar geared toward first-year college students. Twice a week, I got to hang out with twenty-seven pre-nursing majors. It gave me the opportunity to engage with students for longer than a thirty-minute advising session. I learned so much about myself and the students (mostly that they are little balls of stress ALL THE TIME). It was a great experience for me and it’s something I’d be open to doing again.
Being equal parts optimistic and realistic. I’m a pretty positive person, but positivity alone won’t get students into nursing school. As difficult as it is to tell students their grades aren’t high enough or their test scores competitive enough to get into our nursing program, those conversations need to be had. It is a detriment to students if I lead them to believe that having all C’s in their science classes will net them a spot in nursing school. This year, I’ve really tried to temper my unflagging optimism with doses of realism, being open and honest with students, even if that honesty meant giving them bad news. It wasn’t as scary as I thought, and most students were actually glad that I was so frank. It helped us set better goals for the future.
Taking time to blow of steam. Self care! Self care! Self care! I’ll say it again, for the people in the back: SELF CARE! With all of the ups and downs at work, it’s been especially important to take time for myself. I work a ten-hour day, often with back-to-back student appointments with no breaks in between. Toward the end of the semester, when registration season hits, it can be easy to just keep chugging along without any breaks. I’ve made it a point to do little things throughout the day to keep from feeling overwhelmed and stressed. They’re not big things, either. Sometimes, I take little walks around campus or I just close my door for a few minutes to breathe or eat a snack. Those little things make a big difference in my day.

Working While Black

As the only staff member of color in my office, this is a topic I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I’m still struggling to put my thoughts and feelings into words, but as I sit in front of my computer on a Sunday evening, faced with going to work Monday morning in wake of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, I figured it would be better to write something than write nothing at all.

I know that when I walk into work tomorrow, no one will talk about what happened in Virginia. We will talk about what we did over the weekend and we’ll sigh and lament that it’s Monday and that we have a busy week ahead. I know this because I’ve experienced it countless times before.

The day after Terence Crutcher was shot by police officer Betty Shelby in Oklahoma, I had a rousing conversation with the office administrative assistant about how Brad and Angelina were getting a divorce.

When a sniper killed five police officers in Dallas at a peaceful protest, I couldn’t go to sleep until I talked to my mom and brother on the phone to make sure they were safe. It was well after midnight, but I called and called until they finally picked up the phone. The next morning, it was work as usual. Despite being exhausted and frightened, I got through my work day with forced smiles.

When Jeronimo Yanez, Philando Castile’s murderer, was found not guilty, when Betty Shelby was acquitted, when countless other tragedies occurred that chipped away at my humanity and faith, when I was afraid to leave my house and nothing in the world felt right, I still got up, went to work, and did my job. And as I met with students and answered emails and smiled and went about my day, it felt like I was the only person in my office who didn’t think it was business as usual.

And now, in the wake of the events on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville, I get to go to work tomorrow and wonder if one of my coworkers is a tiki torch carrying white supremacist. I get to wonder if a similar protest could happen on the college campus where I work. Neo-Nazi propaganda has been popping up around town, these awful groups targeting bulletin boards and free speech areas at the college across town with their message of hate. Will my school be next? And if so, will I again be the lone brown person in my office trying to pretend everything is normal?