Advising At The Millennium: Advisor Roles and Responsibilities
This is the first in a series of articles in which we will present the results of the NACADA Academic Advising Survey 2000. In this article, we focus upon the reported roles and responsibilities of academic advisors and examine them according to institutional type, mission, and size. Similarities and differences in the roles and responsibilities of professional-staff academic advisors and faculty advisors are also examined.
Contributor Notes
Michael Lynch is Associate Vice President for Educational and Personal Development and Associate Professor of Counseling and Educational Psychology at Kansas State University. He is a past editor of the NACADA Journal and NACADA Special Publications Editor. He also serves as Coordinator of Academic Advising Initiatives at Kansas State University where he oversees a number of initiatives designed to enhance academic advising.
Karen Stucky is an Academic Advisor II in the University Advising Center at the University of Texas at Arlington. She coordinates advising programs and maintains the Advising Center's Web page, database, and computer system. She was employed as a graduate assistant with the NACADA Executive Office and assisted in the administration and compilation of the NACADA Academic Advising Survey 2000.
We encourage our readers to exercise appropriate caution in generalizing the data and analyses herein reported. The voluntary nature of the respondents, coupled with the fact that 75% of the respondents were NACADA members, precludes us from considering these data to be representative of all advising in higher education. However, the number of respondents (2,695) does lend credibility to the profile presented by the data. The frequencies and percentages are intended to provide a profile of academic advising as reported by the NACADA membership and their associates—both overall and according to various subcategories of institutions (type, mission, and size) and advisors (faculty and professional staff). The chi-square analyses are intended to indicate those categories of institutions or advisors who differ significantly from the overall aggregate.
A copy of the NACADA Academic Advising Survey 2000 may be obtained by contacting the NACADA Executive Office by E-mail at nacada@ksu.edu or calling (785)532-5717.
