The NACADA Review: Academic Advising Praxis and Perspectives seeks to discover and amplify new voices, showcase a variety of methodologies, and embrace different epistemologies, all in service of our goal to broaden our understanding of academic advising as a practice and a field of study. One might say that what we “see” in academic advising depends on the lens that we choose to do the seeing. The editors of this journal hold that there exists an array of lenses through which we may look at and understand academic advising more completely. Put another way, there is an array of voices that have much to say about academic advising. We invite you to read the articles contained in this issue to hear voices you might not already be familiar with and to see things from new perspectives.
We lead off with Bowlus, who drew upon work from the humanities, specifically in narrative, to see dismissal and reinstatement in new ways. She found little objective information in the literature to determine in advance how successful students might be if they are allowed to return to the institution following academic suspension/dismissal. So instead she turned to the subjective realm—narrative in particular—to see whether the narratives that suspended students write seeking reinstatement or the narratives they provide in interview settings with college officials responsible for making reinstatement decisions had a bearing on such students’ future academic success.
Bowlus found that objective quantitative measures do not correlate well enough with academic success to be able to prevent students from being dismissed in the first place or to predict their success if reinstatement is granted. Given this, Bowlus argued that we should rely more heavily on the narratives that students provide, both written (e.g., in an appeal for reinstatement) and in interview situations, to determine that student’s readiness to be granted a return to degree-seeking status. She stated that academic advisors are well suited for making such judgments primarily because of their expertise in student narratives. That being the case, she further argued, then familiarity with narrative theory—with what makes for a coherent and faithful narrative—can provide academic advisors and other academic professionals with ways to make cogent decisions, supplementing any available objective information. Most importantly, she suggested several ways that administrators and advisors can work with students to bolster their narrative skills, thus positively affecting their future academic success, as well as analyze student narratives.
Babb, Mitchell, and Van Horn presented us with ways of using what we know works in counseling settings for academic advising settings. It has long been recognized that the two fields have much in common. They argued that this crossover has become increasingly necessary during the recent global pandemic and academic advisors, hard-pressed during that excruciating period, can learn much by integrating methods found in the field of school counseling. Specifically, they recommended the technique used in counseling known as Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) to strengthen the collaboration between advisor and advisee, even when time is short and the advisor is hard-pressed to deliver the goods, as it were, during times of crises and of extremely high caseloads. Such an approach, they argued, is time efficient, yet not cursory.
Spight, Mooney, and Orr offered a historiographic review of the research on undecided students. This is a valuable summation of research done on undecided students in the last half century. Scholars interested in studying this population will find this article to be a valuable vade mecum, helping them to focus their scholarly efforts. Using historiographical methods, the authors chronicled and categorized the available literature on advising undecided and exploratory students. Importantly, they pointed to avenues for future research and offer practical advice. As they stated, “Avoid wheel reinvention. Read the existing literature before developing new undecided programming.” This article will take advising advocates a long way toward that goal.
We hope you enjoy these new perspectives on academic advising and find something useful to advance your own practice and scholarly writing.