Leadership of Advising Administrators - Adventures in Advising

The Adventures in Advising Podcast is back! What challenges have advising administrators faced or still face being in higher education? What efforts have been put forth for the retention of their employees? How are administrators preparing for future leaders and succession planning?

Join guests Teri Farr, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Cecilia Santiago-González, Cal Poly Pomona on their experiences implementing strategies for success.

The Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook handle for the podcast is @AdvisingPodcast

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey, welcome back to the Adventures Advising podcast. My name is Matt Markin and I am thrilled to be back for this latest episode of the pod. After completing episode 75 back in January, I decided to take a few months off and just take a break from three years of this podcast. And I had to make a decision if I wanted to let the podcast be part of advising history and move on, or if there was more that the podcast could offer you in the higher ed field. And well, I guess if you're listening to this, you know, it was the latter, and here we are. So today's episode is about working as administrators and navigating what that is like, doing, what challenges, and even preparing for future administrators. So to talk about their experience, let's welcome our special guest today. So first up is Teri Farr. Teri currently serves as the kind of President of the Board of Directors and works at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign as Associate Director for Academic advising and student success in the Division of General Studies. She has a career in academic advising that began in 1995 and has worked in various capacities as an advisor and advising administrator at many college campuses. Areas of interest and expertise include training and development, working with students from liberal arts, social science, interest, Career Development and Advising administration. Teri has been active in the cada since 1995 and has attended and presented at numerous region and annual conferences. Teri has served on the Region Five steering committee, many region conference planning committees, and she especially is fond of helping coordinate poster sessions. Served as chair of the NACADA Professional Development Committee and was co editor of the NACADA academic advising core competencies guide, first edition. Teri also co authored with Dan Turner a chapter titled Launching with an Effective Training and Development Program in the recently published Nakata publication, comprehensive advisor, training and development, Third Edition. Teri lives in Champaign, Illinois with her dog, Barry, and her cat. Teri, welcome.

Teri Farr  
Thank you. Thanks so much for asking me to to join you with this. 

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I'm glad that you're here. And we're also glad to see Dr. Cecilia Santiago-González. Cecilia is the Assistant Vice President of Strategic Initiatives for student success at Cal Poly Pomona. She leads the university's efforts related to academic advising and student success. This includes developing student centered policy, leveraging data to support students in a timely and holistic manner, and removing institutional barriers that hinder student success. As part of her portfolio, she oversees the Bronco Advising Center, the professional development program for advisors, student success, communication, graduation pledge programs, undeclared advising and advising technology. She also supports the university's Graduation Initiative, 2025 efforts. Cecilia has also served as an adjunct faculty member in the Educational Leadership Development at Cal State Fullerton, where she supervised graduate students engaged in their student affairs higher education field work. She also taught courses in Educational Leadership, Research and Assessment, leadership, history of higher education and developmental writing. Cecilia received a Doctor of Education and educational leadership from the University of Southern California. Her dissertation work focused on identifying how faculty act as institutional agents for low income Latino students in STEM disciplines at a Hispanic Serving Institution. She has a master's degree in college student affairs from Azusa Pacific University, and a bachelor's degree in social work from Whittier College. Cecilia. Is a very proud and also tired mom of Camilla Emmy and Luna, a precious Matty poo. She is married to David, a banker by day and a devoted Laker fan all the time. Welcome Cecilia.

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Thank you so much, Matt. 

Matt Markin  
Both of you were on a panel along with Dr. Shonda Goward from San Jose State University at the region 8/9/10conference in Las Vegas this past, end of February, early March. And we thought, hey, it'd be a great idea to have you on to kind of have a podcast version of this. Shonda couldn't make it for this one. We are going to have Shonda on for a future episode. But let's dive into some of the questions. So kind of expanding on your bio, can you kind of give like your path into higher ed and kind of where you're at at your institution in terms of your department and what you supervise, or who you supervise? And maybe we'll start with Teri.

Teri Farr  
Sure. So my path into my career is it's really looks like a ball of twine. It's just I had no real plan how I ended up here. I just was introduced to academic advising as a career by a woman who I happened to meet when I was at Illinois State University. And she introduced me to the career and hired me on as her graduate student. And I immediately fell in love with it, and ever since then, I've worked as an academic advisor and and they have loved every minute of it here at Illinois in this role I'm in, I supervise 10 academic advisors. I'm responsible for training and development. I'm responsible for hiring advisors, and we're in the middle of that process right now, so I'll be doing reference checks here this week. And so that's kind of an exciting time. I think there's nothing that makes me happier than meeting new folks that are just entering their career in advising, helping them on board, understand how we do things here in DGS, our ethos really working with students that are undeclared and exploring all the different majors and programs and things that we have here in Illinois. So that's a big part of what I do. The other kind of special place that I I work with students also that are having struggles academically. I coordinate a program here in our in our division for students on academic probation. And so while I don't actually have a caseload of students, I coordinate the program, do all the training and so forth for the advisors, so that they feel very comfortable working with students that are struggling academically. And then I also work with students in crisis. So these are, these are areas that are very special to me. I feel, you know, drawn to that kind of area. I have no qualms speaking with parents that are having concerns about their students, helping them navigate through all of the different things that we can do here on campus to help students when they're in crisis. And so those are just some of the things that that I'm really responsible for. And then, of course, there's always that 5% of of things that we have to do that we never really knew we had to do, but now we do.

Matt Markin  
Tther duties assigned.

Teri Farr  
That very famous line, yes. So that's primarily what I what I do. But how I got here is it's kind of a like I said it looks like a ball of twine, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I really loved my journey, and it's it's unique, and it's mine, and I, I'm proud of everything that I've done for students.

Matt Markin  
Yes, absolutely. Cecilia?

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Oh my goodness, similar to Teri. I mean, how many of us will say that we started our higher ed careers, sort of we stumbled upon it, right? Like, who grows up saying I want to work in Student Affairs or higher education as a child, right? And especially for someone I'm a first generation college graduate, and so the notion of a higher education was foreign to me. And so maybe, you know, when my aunt was the first one in our family to go to UCLA, and so she really paved the way. And so I really my career has been informed by my own experience as a college student and as a student who who grew up in a low income household and and really has driven my passion and really serving the students of the CSU, and obviously at Cal Poly Pomona, I've been in admissions. I started working in admissions on my alma mater. I worked in multicultural leadership development, multicultural identity based centers. And I have a secret, I've never been an academic advisor. So, you know, I sort of landed in this, in this type of role because of my commitment to ensuring that Cal Poly Pomona can be the best place, that it can be both for our students and really seeing systemic changes, and it can be the best place for our advisors as well for people to thrive and to feel like they're institutional agents themselves, and that they can create change for our students. So that's really how I landed. I In total, I oversee under my portfolio more than 50 people. We actually just went through an Advising Redesign where every student is assigned to a caseload, and now all the advisors report centrally, so that's been exciting, and they know we're learning a lot, and I'm learning a lot about myself as a leader as well. And so it's been, it's been great. And like Terry, you know, I typically, you know, I talk to parents, I I do work with students who are in difficult situations, and partner with colleagues across campus to ensure that we have a support system for them. And I actually also thrive in that environment. And really, you know, thinking of ways in which I can have those really important connections with students when they're in difficult times. So I love my job, and I'm just really glad to be able to to. Really serve our students and our campus community.

Matt Markin  
Both of you're talking about, like the students in crisis. And I know, like, that's something that has been around in terms of, okay, we want to make sure that we can work with these students, make sure we can identify them, get them whatever assistance we can for them. But it seems like over these last few years, like it's just kind of exploded in the sense of, there's we, there's so many more students out there. Because almost like you're almost on call 24/7 with with a lot of this, or, you know, you're the first person that, because you work in this certain department, to be able to connect with that student or contact them. How do you navigate all of that?

Teri Farr  
I mean, for me, it's just resilience and knowing that you know that, I guess you know, having done it for so long, I just I'm and I'm kind of an activator. That's one of my strengths. And so I think that for me, I just go there, you know, I just immediately try to hear what the problem is, what's going on? We have contacts on campus. We have an amazing Dean of Students Office who and a Student Assistance Center, and they are just right there, available for us when we need them. I know when it's time to bring the Counseling Center in. So I think that that for me, just knowing that there's a situation that needs to be handled, and I just mobilize it just it's just part of what I do, and I've been trained to do that, and at times you have to step back and talk to colleagues and allow yourself to feel the feelings that you need to feel right But then we know that there'll be a student later on that's going to need your assistance just as much. And so it's time to, you know, regroup and move forward. But, you know, I think that's just the part of the role that we have to play. Somebody is has to be there, available, you know, to help students when they're in crisis. And I was a student in crisis once, and so I knew what you know I just and I probably don't think back in 1978 when I was feeling that way, I don't know that there was really anyone to help me. I think I relied upon my friends and family to kind of help get me over that hump. But now we have so many wonderful resources available to us on our campuses that we can, you know, that we can mobilize really quickly and, you know, hopefully mitigate any kind of real, you know, real serious situations that might occur. But it's not easy. And I know Cecilia feels the same way. None of this is easy, but it's work that we're called to do, and we will do it. We just rise to the occasion and get it done.

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Yeah, yeah. I'll add to Teri's comment about sort of the the personal right, I remind myself that I'm not alone, that there is there are colleagues across campus that are here also to support the students that I don't have to solve every issue that I need to be empathetic to the situation, be there for the student and recognize when it's time for me to take a step back and you know, let others you know, who have the training and the capacity to support The student in a better way, but really, you know, being there for the student. And I think the other piece as administrators is developing the developing the capacity. So I think Teri talked about the structures that we have in place, and so we've been able to to develop structures where we developed an early alerts process, where we allow faculty or request faculty to submit, you know, alerts for students who may need timely support through the academic and we have a system in place, and we get to partner with our colleagues in student affairs to ensure that we have the structures in place, the policies in place. Unfortunately, covid pushed us as Believe it or not, we've never had a posthumous degree policy, and so also, not only the student, but their families when, when, you know, we have students, unfortunately, who pass away. So that's not like glamorous, right, but it is so necessary in order for us to have guardrails and the support for us to do our job. So that's been that's also very helpful and supporting students is to have some guidelines, some policies and protocols and anticipating some issues that may came up, that may come up when we're in these types of crisis.

Matt Markin  
Definitely. And I want to kind of take you both back to, you know, when you originally were moving up in higher ed and going into like an administrator role, and even now as an administrator. So maybe we'll start with Cecilia, and then and go to Terry. What kind of challenges or obstacles have you faced when you were moving. Into the administrator role in higher ed. And are there any challenges that that you're still facing?

Cecilia Santiago-González  
I think, I think one, and I'll speak from my perspective as a woman of color, first gen professional, not having anyone who had been an administrator, who had been in a in a higher in an administrative role, is difficult. I think there's, there's a little bit of imposter syndrome in that, in terms of just trying to say, Am I ready for this? Am I very, am I really ready for this, navigating people's perceptions of who you are or who you should be based on, you know, you know me being a woman or being a mother, or being a Latina, you know, whatever it may be, and navigating some of that. And, you know, I am very open about I've experienced, I don't know if it's appropriate about mansplaining, you know, where, where my thoughts ideas sort of get taken by by particular men, not necessarily only men, but particularly men, and in a in a very female dominated environment, right? But I see it more often, and I and I've been committed to myself and to other other women in in in my context, that I will disrupt that, because it is really important that that your ideas, your thoughts, your contributions, are valued as much as others. And so I think that's been the challenge that I've been, I've been, I've been faced with recently, and it's, it's, you know, I think for me, it has been really important to have an opportunity to talk to others, like Terry, like Shonda, to talk and hear their stories, because it can feel a little bit lonely. You know, this is you mentioned this, Matt. It's a 24/7 you know, role, regardless of how much you try to balance it, it is, it's, you know, there's never ending. There's been so much change, change institutionally, change in the landscape of higher education. And so I think that's the other challenge as an administrator, is that you have to continue to keep abreast of the issues that are impacting and anticipating what's going to come next, and how is this going to impact, and how am I going to support my team? And how am I going to, you know, make sure that I'm prepared, or that we're prepared as a team, to face these challenges, and that can be mentally exhausting. So those are those, I would say those would be my two challenges, and administration at the moment.

Teri Farr  
I would say moving from I was an academic advisor until I took on this role, and that was weird. I mean, in a in a way, because you know, you're an advisor one day and then the next day you're supervising advisors, right? And I, I'm going to say this, that I still have a little trouble like talking to an advisor about maybe something that, you know, I don't think they did quite right, or something wasn't, I don't think handled properly. So, you know, you got to get all the information you've got to, you know, kind of go through the conversation with folks and find out what happened. And so that's taken, that's been kind of hard for me. I think, I don't really think we have great training available, necessarily, to help people become administrators in an academic advising setting. Even our supervisory training, I think, lacks because there's nothing like what we do. It's not like regular supervising, you know, I think that's part of it. So I've had to kind of figure that out on my own trial and error. Definitely, I've have some mentors that I bounce some things around. I think our director has been really encouraging in helping us learn how to, you know, utilize kind of coaching techniques with our you know, that's great for students, but it's also great when you're a supervisor. So some of those techniques have been helpful just developing your leadership potential, I think is a lot of it as well. So I don't really look at it necessarily as supervision. I look at it more like mentoring, collaboration, coaching, these sorts of things, being very transparent with my advisors that I want the number one goal for me is for them to be successful and have all of the tools that they need in order to be successful, so that our students are successful, because I think it's very symbiotic. I don't our students can't be successful unless our advisors are successful and feeling very well trained and well supported. So that's kind of my approach to the whole thing. I was just telling Matt before we got going, that I'm Lee. For a conference tomorrow, our regional conference, and I already have, probably, I don't know, eight or 10 things that I'm going to have to do while I'm there that have nothing to do necessarily with the conference at all. So that means huddling over in the corner with my cell phone and my laptop, you know, probably doing meetings and things like that. So, you know, you just kind of have to do that. You got to dip in and out. You're, you know, I mean, that's what we do, right? We we pivot quickly. We have to, we're flexible. We know that we still have responsibilities. When we leave our campuses, when we were advisors, we could, you know, sign off and and leave and go, you know, do all the conference stuff. Well, I'm going to be able to do some of it, but I'm not going to be able to do all of it, but I will do, you know, as much as I can. So I don't know. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm really grateful that I can actually go out and enjoy and be a part of the regional experience with advisors and so forth. So but yes, I will have to step away from the conference experience to do some, some actual work for my current position.

Matt Markin  
And with both of you, also you oversee staff, and that kind of leads into this question with, you know, I've heard from a lot of certain individuals at some institutions where they're advising centers, maybe they're at 50% capacity with staff that they have, whether it's budget cuts or employees that have left to go on to some other position, and the hope was that maybe they would have stayed, you know, so when we look at the future, you know, what kind of efforts Do you think could be put forth, or you're already putting forth for, like, the retention of your employees, and I guess, in connection to that, if we're thinking of, you know, feature administrators, how do you plan for, like, that, succession planning?

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Yeah, that's been, that's been very important for me. I mean, we've all experienced the great resignation, plus, you know, folks finding other passions in their life, and that I'm completely 150% supportive of that, but it's I recognize that we we need to do better for our employees and for our advisors, who really have taken on so much, specifically during this past few years, they've they are, they have empathy fatigue, right? And they, they've done that. So I'm very happy that we received a grant this year through the Stupski Foundation in partnership with NACADA to to implement a one year program, wellness program, really focus simply on, you know, taking time out of the day, or finding strategies to increase their wellness and just refocus and re energize, to to to serve our students are just for their own well being, as people, as humans. So that's been, that's been really great, and we've received really great feedback. I also understand that the pathway to administration is not, you know, the higher you want to go up, the less positions that there are. And so what do we do to reinvigorate or to create, to allow for innovation in their current positions, or to create pathways, right? You know? And as a CSU, as a Cal State University system, we're also bound by, by unionized, by union rules. And so there's limitations and things that we have to do in in alignment with that. And so, for example, one of the things that we are doing is we're working we're looking at salary parity. We're looking at reclassification of certain positions to create steps for folks to come in. You know, do we create, you know, what we call SSP ones, which is the entry level positions and and allow for two threes and fours to come. We actually, I mentioned that we have just gone through a redesign of advising. We actually partner with our HR development office to to create a Leadership Academy for the leads of each of the centers and in central and the central office as well, and I participate in that with the leads as well, so that people feel like we're not just throwing them in there. Now have to supervise double the staff and then, and then they don't have and they can be tool or, you know, or use their strengths to to continue enhancing their skills and their knowledge. And so it is really a multi prong approach that we're taking to support our our staff. I just got noticed today that we lost another advisor, and the advisor is leaving. There's things that I can control and there's things that I can't control. And also, going back to my to my comment about building capacity, you know, it. If this is going to continue to be an issue where we are not able to retain obviously, we're going to look introspectively, what processes can I have in place, or what can I work with human resources that when a vacancy happens, I can quickly refill that position, because then the morale of the team that's left behind diminishes and so, I mean, just saying it, I think about the complexity of all that I just said and but we can, you know, we just have to keep trying and and to really create a supportive community for our employees here.

Teri Farr  
At Illinois, where there's an initiative on campus through the it was called the Student Success initiative. And as a result of the work that everyone was doing there, there was just some really, I guess, kind of low hanging fruit, so to speak. And one of the suggestions was just to do more campus level advisor kind of outreach, or whatever you want to call it, just a way for advisors to connect with one another. And so as a result of that, that started this semester, and it's been overwhelmingly successful. So it's bringing advisors together for just one hour a month, and allowing, you know, giving them a topic to talk about freely. And there's just been some great, you know, initiatives that are coming out of that. So that's kind of a campus level initiative is, you know, to create this sense of community among advisors at a very large, decentralized campus. And so that's been great. I've really loved being a part of that. Here in our department division, we're in the process of rolling out a promo pathway, a promotional pathway for our advisors, and so we're creating a senior advisor coordinator, type role that would be available to advisors that have three or more years under their belts and that are showing, you, know, really strong leadership skills through their annual performance evaluation. So I'm really excited that's going to roll. We roll out pretty much this spring and summer, and so we hope to have that all in place, and then we've created just a different kind of approach to working with our advisors. We maintain one remote day per week. We'll do a full remote calendar after our new student registration program, we'll have, I think, at least two to three weeks that they'll be able to be a remote if they want to. They can come in the office if they want, but they can also be remote some or all of that time. We do every month a huddle, and we give them a topic just to talk about, and it can be anywhere, you know, anything to do with process, procedure, you know, just kind of a wicked problem that we've been, you know, that's been hanging around that, let's, you know, hash it out and see what we can do to come up with some some approaches that might be more effective, working with students, working with staff. I did one on training and development, and as a result of that conversation, I came away with so many ideas, stuff I never thought about, you know, I thought, oh, they'll, they'll, you know, they're looking to me to give them topics. I'm looking to them. What do you need? What are you feeling, you know, untrained on, or lack of training on, or what are you, you know, kind of hot topics that you're dealing with with students on a day to day basis, that you feel like you need more. So I came up with this, what I call a menu of professional development topics, and we, I picked the top six, and we're chunking through them every, every month through the semester, and I have stuff to focus on for Fall already. So anyway that I think it's just approach, you know, being open, being know that, you know, our advisors have great ideas. You know, we hired these folks for a reason. They're brilliant, they're smart, they're well trained, and they keep me on my toes, so and keep me, you know, fresh and interested in in my day to day. So that's how I approach retention.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and yeah, a lot of great ideas for from the both of you and I am curious, though, because, you know, we're talking about things for advisors, but for you both as administrators, you know we've already kind of chatted about how this is a 24/7 job. Terry is going to be at a conference, and already knows that there's various things that are not part of the conference that she's gonna have to take time for for her current job at her institution. What do you both do for yourself for Wellness?

Teri Farr  
Okay, let me tell you what my goal is. I like to do. I like to swim. I like to get into the water, even in the winter, I go to the Y. Um, I'm committed to getting back into my water aerobics routine, and I walk Barry a couple times a day. That, to me, is extremely well. First I get to bond with my guy, my my little dog, and who's a joy, and just the best dog on the planet. Sorry, I love him. I'm sure, Cecilia, your dog is probably great too. But night, dog is pretty great. I know they're like, great. They're all great. I mean, we don't deserve dogs, but so I think just, you know, I live in a very heavily wooded area with a little lake, and I really just love nature. And I think we have to get up in the morning, get out and, you know, I mean, breathe, you know, exercise, move your body a little bit. And in spending time with family, spending time with friends, I'm really looking forward to seeing my Nakata buddies. You know, sometimes we only get to see each other once a year, and it's to me, like a family reunion. I'm very connected to Nakata as you know, and I these are, these are people that I've known for many years, and I'm super excited to get up there and and reconnect, and, you know, meet some new people too, and just share some inspiration about the profession. And anyway, that's what I do.

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Well, Matt, I do have a three year old and a six year old, so they keep me entertained, and so they make me laugh a lot. So that's really great. Also keep me really busy. My husband and my kids are major Disney like, obsessed people, so we do have, like, a Disneyland pass, and so we get to go to Disneyland at least once a month and enjoy it. I One of the beauties of working remotely a couple days out of the week is that I get to have dance parties with my kids, like when my oldest gets home from school, or just with my kid. I just get to snuggle with them or have lunch with with them. So that's been great. I wish that I can see that I'm, like, exercising and doing all the yoga stuff and, like, whatever. But I did try Pilates this year, and I really liked it. It just doesn't fit my schedule for like, the studio doesn't have the classes. But I really did enjoy it. It was amazing. And so maybe I can do videos, but, yeah, I I really try to find little moments. And now that the summer that we had a lot of rain in California, so I know Terry, I'm so sorry we we had rain for a lot of days, and we keep thinking like it was like, like, this big thing, but it is true, we had a lot of rain, and so now that that spring and summer are coming around, like, I do hope to, like, go on walks in the evenings, but I need to do, I do need to do better. And, you know, I also like to go get my nails done, you know, like, Manny petties. And sometimes take my kids, sometimes I don't, they love many pennies, but I'm, like, $15 for, like, little kids to do their money. Like, that's a little too much. Like, I will do it, but, yeah, that's, that's a little bit of what I do. I'm pretty sure there's a lot more other stuff I do, but that's the main thing.

Teri Farr  
I like the idea that that you mentioned about pilates, I've been wanting to try pilates, and so I I'm gonna, that's gonna be my goal. So I really think that's that could be something that I could get into.

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Yeah, Teri, I loved it. It's like, low impact, like sweat, like you think it's easy. No no, when I do the reformer pilates. So, like, with the machine, and so it's super low impact, and it stretches you out. Like, you know, obviously we're sitting in our chairs, like, oh yeah. So yeah, I highly recommend it.

Teri Farr  
Well, I think I'll look for the lazy girl version of pilates. I don't know that. Um, I think the stretching idea makes sense. I could use some more of that. But anyway, yeah, um, you know, and I wanted to say that just cooking and being in, you know, gardening, I'm really into that, too. And I live in a condo now, so gardening is a little limited, but, you know, you can still do a lot with a balcony.

Matt Markin  
You make it work. 

Teri Farr  
I do. I really do. I take it seriously.

Matt Markin  
So of course, one of the other responsibilities you both have as administrators is a lot of times knowing what the budget is and working with with that, trying to stretch it out as much as possible. So I'm sure it's come up or will come up, or you've thought about it, but with what you have, it's you can sometimes you have to determine, do you hire more staff? Do you give pay raises? Do you take a chance on your employees with additional responsibilities? How do you factor all that in, into determining, like, if you were to take a risk on on one of your employees? Employees, but how do you navigate all that?

Teri Farr  
I just want to say I don't have a lot of control over our unit budget, but I can say that we are heavily supported through the Office of the Provost, and because of what we do and how we operate, we really operate for the benefit of all the actual colleges at the University of Illinois, and our funding is extremely stable, so we've never really not. I mean, as long as the state of Illinois stays, you know, in relatively good budget shape, then we don't have to worry too much about a budget. I mean, like we have four vacancies in our for our advising staff. Those were no problem. You know, hire what you need do, what you need to do. Our advisors have $2,500 every two years for their professional development funding, and that's stable. So we've not really had to make a lot of decisions recently, so I can't really tell you how that we would have to strategize with something like that, just because we're of the way we're funded through the Office of the Provost, and because they know that our success equals the campus success, right? How we work with students, because of the way they transfer into all the colleges, we have to be very stable. It wouldn't work otherwise, the way the model is at this campus. So that's what I have to offer there.

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Yeah, Matt, so you know, we're very lucky, like Teri said, like advising has had a lot of focus, both at the campus level and at the system level, and there has been a lot of focus and understanding of the impact that we have on student success and meeting our graduation goals, and so I but I still have to make requests, and I have to ensure that I do the best job that I can to tell our story, and that is through data and anecdotes, personal, you know, stories. And I mentioned that we were going through a redesign, and I had asked for it for a budget. We ended up having a little bit of of money left over from that big pot of money that that our pro, that our president made an investment towards. And I actually decided to use that money to reclassify folks. And, you know, I could have said, you know, I'll give you the money back. Or I could have said, you know, that maybe gives us an opportunity to hire one more advisor. But I really felt that it was the right choice to to make that investment. And again, there are now part of an academy, a Leadership Academy, where they are going through a six month part a training, leadership training as part of the reclassification process. And so I did take that risk, and I also see it that I'm only, not only invest, investing in the people that are in the position right now, but I'm investing long term, because it does make sense long term, obviously the people that are in those roles are doing a fantastic job, and they deserve every single bit of it. But if they were to thieve I want to make sure that I have the capacity to fill in that position, to be competitive, to attract other other leads who can step into that role. I know it sounds kind of frivolous to say, Oh, well, if they leave, I'll be ready to replace but it just, it's, you know, I have a responsibility to the human in the current position that will be always my my guiding star and my guiding light, and I also have a responsibility to ensure that we don't have a gap that will impact our students, Success efforts. And so it's a balance. And so that is, that is a decision that I made recently also providing stipends or special projects for folks. I don't always have the budget to do, to do special stipends, but I have made sort of a guideline for me, if that, you know, if we have a vacancy for more than six months or three months, depending on the role, you know, I will advocate for resources for that, for the people that I have taken on that responsibility. Again, it's not always guaranteed, because I don't always have the budget, and I try to do that. And I also work with my associate provost. She's, she's the money lady, but you know, I'm the one that, you know, I'll spend it for her if she lets me.

Matt Markin  
To end the this interview, we're recording this at the end of April. This will probably be posted sometime in May, but the first week of May, Nakata celebrates the global advising community. So they have their global advising week and a way to kind of celebrate the work of everyone within. Academic Advising in higher ed. So I kind of want to leave it to both of you, if you there's anyone or a team or you want to shout out, here's here's an opportunity.

Teri Farr  
Oh, absolutely, my advisors here in the Division of General Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, this crew is amazing. I love them more than ever. They're just so much fun. First of all, they're brilliant. Number one. Number two, they're fun to work with. They're vibrant, they're curious, they're committed to student success. They're committed to one another to make sure each other are being held up and and taken care of, I think, and anyway, and just all of our advisors on our campus, I just am very proud to be a part of the advising community, community here. And, you know, then I mentioned all of my NACADA buddies, and I can't imagine going through life without having connections with with folks through NACADA, there's so many people I can't even imagine. Start naming people that I've interacted with and worked with and done stuff with. But anyway, I'm just, I'm just proud to be a part of the Nakata mission and and ensuring that we promote the profession and we make sure that advisors have the professional development that they need in order to be great.

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Absolutely. Teri, I mean, I think I would say the same exact same thing about our team at Cal Poly Pomona, and both the folks that you know, that that you know, report to me and to my area, but just our campus community just is amazing, and it's one of the reasons that I've stayed here for a very long time. Yeah, it's just so committed to our students. I do want to give a a shout out to two people on our campus without, you know, leaving anyone else out. Is Dr.Teri Gomez, who's our Associate Provost for Student Success, who has been a champion for advising on our campus, and who has really allowed us to have a transformative impact on our campus, and and Dr. Aaron DeRosa, who's the Director of University Advising, who's been my partner in crime, in my co conspirator, and making sure that that we that we advocate for advisors, that we advocate for our students, that we really execute this vision that we've had for advising on our campus and so but in general, I just I'm so grateful to be part of the Cal Poly Pomona community, and I feel invigorated by their work, by their partnerships and collaboration. 

Matt Markin  
I think it's the perfect way to end the interview. But Teri and Cecilia, thank you both for being on the podcast. Thank you again for being on the panel for the Las Vegas region conference. It's this is really kind of how I got to know the both of you. Is through NACADA, so the connections that are made to kind of go into Terry's point. But thank you both for being on again, and appreciate all the information that you've shared today.

Cecilia Santiago-González  
Thank you, Matt.

Teri Farr  
It's been really great. Thank you, Matt.