NACADA Review Volume 1: Issue 1

Note about this article

This article grew out of several conversations with colleagues in the field of academic advising, most notably Brent Lamons, Ruth Darling and Marsha Miller, as an essay on the relationship between theory and practice, also know as ‘praxis’.

Why do advisors do what they do in their advising practice? What challenges do they face in getting from thought to action, from theory to practice? How do they navigate those challenges? What is their process? What is their method? (B. Lamons, personal communication, November 6, 2018) After briefly surveying the landscape of recent literature on the scholarship of advising, this article explores the concept of praxis in general, underscoring the critical importance of a scholarly approach and activity in academic advising praxis. The article mines the topics of the nature of scholarship in general and the ways in which it relates to praxis, offering concrete examples from within the academic advising profession.

Given a rapidly changing labor market, advisors use parallel planning and alternative advising to teach students adaptability. Whereas parallel planning proactively prepares students for future transitions through considering multiple pathways, alternative advising occurs after students fail to make degree progress or secure admission and, consequently, must change their goals. This article integrates research that can help frame an advising curriculum, pedagogy, and learning outcomes as well as a case study that demonstrates such learning outcomes as coping with loss, managing anxiety, and restoring self-efficacy. Through the process described, students discover hope, resiliency, and a renewed focus on their goals.

Academic advisors occupy an ethically fraught position in institutions of higher education and frequently have to traverse complex curricular issues. Legal theorist Lon L. Fuller's work provides advisors with new resources to ply some of these troubled curricular issues. By focusing on understanding colleges and universities as law-generating institutions, advisors can reshape how they think about the nature of their work so that, in a lawyer-like fashion, they can then subject the rules created by these institutions to Fuller's ethical standards. Analyzing such rules via Fuller's standards can help advisors to navigate better their often ethically fraught institutional position and aid them in advocating for rules that are fair to students and that maintain the integrity of institutional rules and decisions.

The Research Issue

Academic advisors are uniquely positioned to understand not only the structural elements of success for students but also the contextual ones. They offer experienced advice related to the academic journey, such as strategic study skills, curricular planning, and goal setting. However, they can also provide important insight related to the more nuanced environmental adjustments all students are required to navigate, especially related to academic expectations.

The Research Article

The “role of the college student” was the subject of an article by Collier and Morgan (2008), which addressed comparative reflections between faculty members and undergraduates at

From the Co-Editors

Academic Advising: A Discipline of Praxis

Advising Alternatives: A Case Study

Advising the Law: Academic Advising in Law-Generating Institutions of Higher Education

The Interpretive Turn: It's Our Turn

Role as Resource: An Examination of Collier and Morgan (2008) and its Implications for Academic Advising

The Research Issue

The Research Article

From the Co-Editors

The Professionalization of Academic Advising in China: From the Perspective of Culture Diversity

Understanding Athletics Academic Advisors’ Experience with Job Burnout

Rural College Students’ Academic, Financial, and Health-Related Obstacles During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Academic Advisors

Exploring Faculty and Academic Advisors’ Experiences Supporting College Students with Mental Health Challenges: A Qualitative Study Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Examining Experiences of Academic Advisors of Color Using a Critical Race Framework

Normative Theory, Scholarship and the Need to Disagree: Conversations with Marc Lowenstein

Advising the Law: Academic Advising in Law-Generating Institutions of Higher Education

Role as Resource: An Examination of Collier and Morgan (2008) and its Implications for Academic Advising

Academic Advising: A Discipline of Praxis