Advising and Supporting
"Addresses the knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to providing advising and support to individuals and groups through direction, feedback, critique, referral, and guidance" (ACPA & NASPA, 2015, p. 15).
Level: Exemplary
One of my favorite aspects of my work in student affairs is working directly with students as they navigate their college careers. In some instances, my work with students is on an individual basis. At other times, it has been with a student organization or planning group. Either way, I do my best to advise and support them through their endeavors. Two of my most influential experiences have been as the advisor for MentorUF and as a support for student organizations as a graduate intern with the Office of Campus Activities.
When I was an AmeriCorps VISTA, I advised the mentoring organization MentorUF. This group was responsible for training college mentors and matching those mentors with local K-12 students identified as “at-risk” by their school administrators. As the advisor I directly mentored the student leaders responsible for executive team management, mentor pairing and mentor training. According to ACPA and NASPA (2015), mentoring students is one of the intermediate outcomes for the advising and supporting competency. One of the ways I mentored these students was through weekly meetings. During those meetings, I would advise them on different organizational matters. However, I would dedicate much time to their personal growth and aspirations. I tried to be a constant show of support for their lives as students and their goals for the future.
During Cara’s time as MentorUF’s advisor, I served as the Training Director for the organization. She and I spent a great number of hours together during the year, which allowed me to witness first-hand Cara’s unfaltering positivity, her endless dedication, and her overall passion for the organization and the students she was working with.
Cara was always ready to help us through anything that was thrown our way, no matter how difficult, and she never let us nor herself show defeat. Even when members were feeling overwhelmed with school, work, and volunteering, Cara kept spirits high and encouraged an overall mentality of positivity in the program. She gave her heart and soul to advising this program. To us, it felt like she was always there to help and support us, whether we needed guidance on the development of curriculum or if we just needed someone with whom to talk.
Cara helped all of us develop tremendously during her time there. She knew exactly what we were capable of doing, and she was constantly helping us grow as leaders. Personally, Cara challenged me to develop entirely new curriculum for our mentors. She served as my greatest critic and one of my greatest supporters all at the same time. Cara taught me so much about being a leader during her time with MentorUF. She showed me how much hard work and positivity really do pay off and that self-development is a something you can work on perpetually.
Student testimony from 2015-2016 MentorUF Training Director
During my year as the MentorUF advisor, I was able to enhance my ability to analyze “organizational needs of student groups” (ACPA & NASPA, 2015, p. 37). At the start of the semester, their leadership team was comprised of twenty members. All members were required to attend weekly meetings, which usually did not contain relevant information for all in attendance. This led to a lack of engagement at the meetings, which made it difficult for the student director to lead the team through important decisions. As I witnessed this throughout the semester, I attempted to provide advice for how to make meetings more engaging. However, by the end of the semester I suggested a shift in their team’s structure in response to an assessment of the leadership team’s experiences. We concluded that there should be a distinction between an executive board who handled the larger mentor training and structure and the leadership team, which comprised of the site liaisons for each of the K-12 institutions. This change increased productivity, communication and engagement of all members of the team. In turn, this allowed for a better mentoring experience for all those involved in the organization.
As a graduate intern with the Office of Campus Activities, my major job duties include supporting students and student leaders through training, event management and travel approval. One of my favorite parts of my job is working with student leaders as they plan on-campus events. All student organizations must register on-campus events and the organizer is responsible for meeting with their assigned staff contact. During these meetings, there is often a need to “strategically and simultaneously pursue multiple objectives in conversations” (ACPA & NASPA, 2015, p. 37). In general, the objective is always to gather all the logistics of the event and to articulate university policies pertinent to the organizations’ event plans. However, these conversations generally have interactions that are more transformational in nature. There are many instances that these event meetings will allow me to work with students concerning the impact of their event or even discuss their organization operations and structure.
Another exciting aspect of my internship experience has been the ability for me to advise the student planning team for TEDxBGSU. In this capacity, I have been able to “facilitate individual decision-making” (ACPA & NASPA, 2015, p. 36). One way that I have been able to do this is through the creation of evaluation forms for the team to complete concerning the selection of speakers for the conference. As the planning team began deliberations for speaker selections, I noticed that the verbal conversation was not productive. There were students who were extremely vocal in their opinions to the point that some quieter students did not share their opinion. Additionally, no one was keeping track of the conversation, which was detrimental to their ability to provide rationale for their decisions. In order to make the process efficient, I created forms for the students to complete regarding the speakers’ applications. After everyone had completed their scores, they were able to make speaker selections with everyone’s input with both qualitative and quantitative information from the survey.
Advising and supporting students is a large reason for my passion in student affairs. It is vital to “establish rapport” (ACPA & NASPA, 2015, p. 36) with students and groups in order to work with them and help them develop. Part of my personal advising philosophy also calls for using “reflection to make meaning” (ACPA & NASPA, 2015, p. 36) of my students’ experiences. Thus far, my experiences as the advisor with MentorUF and within the Office of Campus Activities have allowed me to develop this competency and become the student affairs professional I want to be.
ACPA: College Student Educators International & NASPA − Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (2015). Professional competency areas for student affairs educators. Washington, DC: Authors. ​​