How to Continue Best Serving our Students - Adventures in Advising

Matthew Plescia, academic advisor in the Quinney College of Natural Resources at Utah State University discusses navigating the cultural and curriculum changes through switching institutions, advocating for others, synchronous communication technology, and utilizing an appreciative advising approach with students. Guest hosted by Dr. Locksley Knibbs, Florida Gulf Coast University. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello there and welcome back to the Adventures and Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin. And as always, thank you for tuning in each and every episode. I truly appreciate it and I hope you gain better insight within the academic advising profession. So from time to time we bring back a past guest to host an episode and that's what we're doing today. We welcome back a wonderful friend and supporter not only to this podcast, but also so many to higher ed professionals out there. And that is Dr. Locksley Knibbs, Assistant Director of Academic Advising in the College of Arts and Sciences at the water school at Florida Gulf Coast University. And if listeners want to check out Lockleaze interview that was way back in episode five titled empowering emerging leaders, which came out in March of 2020. Literally the episode before our lives changed forever with the pandemic. So Locksley, welcome back. How are you?

Locksley Knibbs  
Well, Matt, I'm happy to be I'm thrilled. I'm elated to come back to this podcast. It has gotten so popular that and when I first did when I did my first episode, there was a yearning to come back to thank you for bringing me back on.

Matt Markin  
Yes, I'm glad it all worked out. And you know, congratulations on your new assistant director position.

Locksley Knibbs  
Well, thank you, sir. It was it was a long time coming feet. Folks are happy about it. I am happy about what more can I ask for?

Matt Markin  
Absolutely. So well, Locksley, I will turn it over to you. And I'm looking forward to hosting this episode and interviewing today's guests. So go for it.

Locksley Knibbs  
Hello, everyone. And welcome to Adventures in advising podcast. My guest today is Matt Plescia, who is from Utah State University. Matt is a first generation student and he holds a bachelor's degree in Human Resource Management, and Master of Arts in curriculum and instruction in educational technology. But I'll be interviewing a friend and a former colleague, Matt, welcome to Adventures in advising podcasts. I'm happy that you're here. And I'm happy that I'm the one who got the opportunity to do this interview with you. Welcome.

Matt Plescia  
This great thanks, Locksley. I appreciate it. It's good to see and yeah, as always, certainly.

Locksley Knibbs  
So I know before you sent me a bio about who you are, and I'm sure the listeners would want to know a little bit about you. So I'm going to touch on that a little bit. And then we get right into the question. And sounds good. Sounds great to me. Excellent. He's a first generation student. He has a bachelor's degree in management with a concentration in human resource management, as well as a master of arts in curriculum and instruction and educational technology. So Matt, as I mentioned, happy to have you as a guest. Why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about you, who you are, and you are and where you're currently working?

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, so I'm currently an advisor at Utah State University within the Quinney College of Natural Resources. So we happen to be the smallest college on campus with about 500 students. So my caseload is around about 280 to 290 students, and I advise for wildland ecology and management, forest ecology and management, conservation, restoration ecology, and ranch land ecology and management. So I have four majors that I am over. And so within USU USU, is fairly large school around 28,000 students. So this is the largest institute that I have worked at. But within that Institute, I'm actually in the smallest area of the college, which makes it nice. There's a great sense of community, I'm really glad I ended up in this area. It gets, you know, it's very personable, I get to, you know, make connections with students make connections with faculty. And so yeah, so I, as you stated, I started out in Florida Gulf Coast University. And that's where I had done my undergrad and graduate program as well, and curricula, and instruction educational technology. And that's also where I met you Locksley. When I became a student worker, and the office, I want to say, I was about 19. So this was back in 2016. So I've known you since I was 19. And that's when I started my advising assistant role and the office.

Locksley Knibbs  
All right, sounds good. But I don't want you to date me in this interview, Matt. All right. So you mentioned that USU very small, the majors that you advise, what is your caseload and can you tell us about the population of students that you work with on a daily basis?

Matt Plescia  
Yes, so my caseload is approximately 280 to 290 students And as I mentioned, they're wildland students. So population wise, we have a lot of students who are veterans, we also have a lot of students who are first gen students as well. And then also, here at USU, we do have a lot of LDS members that are members of the church. So that's something that I've actually have had to navigate as well, coming in to learn about students and make sure everyone feels, you know, have that inclusivity, I don't want to, you know, ever come off as ignorant to a student or anything like that. So I've had to do some research on my own, and prepare for, you know, students serve on missions here at USU. So if they're going to serve on a mission, it's gonna be one to two years. So that's where I kind of like, you know, have had to navigate my advising style, and learn new, you know, sets of rules for like, three work. So when we're co creating plans. Now, I'll have to have a student put out a notification of leave. And if they go ahead and do that, then you know, I make sure I, you know, refer them to the proper offices, financial aid, scholarships, just so you know, they make sure when they come back, they're gonna have everything set in place for them.

Locksley Knibbs  
Excellent. So Matt, I'm sure listeners or audiences, they're a little bit curious. You mentioned Florida, I know you're all the way in us in Utah. Tell us about how how did you find yourself all the way from Florida to Utah? Talk to us about that. 

Matt Plescia  
So it's, it's pretty interesting. I'm I attribute it mostly to one of the first professional development trainings I've ever done, I had the opportunity to co facilitate the appreciative advising Institute. I want to say that was back in June of 22. I noticed a lot of the facilitators and CO facilitators were actually from USU. And they were very like minded and had a passion for student success, and appreciative advising framework as a whole. And I thought to myself, hey, that would be like a great place to work one day. But if you had asked me back, then if like a year later, I would have found myself here in Utah, I would have told you probably not but the opportunity presented itself, I had a past coworker, Pam, she sent me a job opening that was on it was listed. And I went ahead and apply for it. And a year later, I was there. And fun fact is, I've never seen snow before moving to Utah. So you know, I've been in Florida pretty much my whole life. And it's been quite a change.

Locksley Knibbs  
So one of the things with academic advising, you find that advisors Move on, move around a lot. And you have started off at Florida, Gulf Coast University, you went to Florida, South Western State College, and you're at Utah State University, we move around a lot in terms of but now you're in a different state, how is that going culturally for you? 

Matt Plescia  
So culturally, it's definitely something I've had to learn. Like I said, there's a large LDS population here. So and I'm not part of that community. So I've had to, you know, kind of navigate, learn different terms. And also, like I said, you know, learn from my students as well to have that inclusivity. So like, you know, if they are going to serve on a mission, I don't want to come off ignorant, and not know what that means. And I want to be able to make sure I'm serving them best. So that when they do come back to USU, and, you know, start back up their education, we can, you know, go right back into it and have the resources that they need as well. So if a student's you know, gone from school for two years, that's, you know, quite some time, we have other offices on campus called, like the Office of Academic, belonging, and learning excellence. So able, we use a lot of acronyms in higher ed, as you know, so that one is where I send students to, we have academic success coaches. So if someone is gone for a while, then that way I could refer them to that office and, you know, sort of have them get back with like time management, you know, learn about task dependencies, and really have that coaching. So it's not just them coming back to see me it's me helping refer them to other outlets on campus as well. 

Locksley Knibbs  
Okay, good. So, while preparing for this interview, in your bio, there was something interesting that jumped out at me, and I wanted to share that with our listeners. So you mentioned a publication that you did while you were in grad school. Now, many people don't have such opportunity until after they finish their master's, or, you know, for a while they've been working on a couple of things. But you got published while you were in grad school, talk to talk to us about that. Tell us about the article. How did you get involved? And what is the article so people can reference and look it up?

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, so I was able to get published in grad school with my professor, so it was part of an internship. His name is Dr. Charles Wang. And he was the first one that paper and the second was Dr. Michael Houdyshell. And I was the third the title of it synchronous communication technology for remote academic advising at a state university. So we saw like, you know, the pandemic was happening, we had a pivot, obviously, so we went, you know, remote. So we were mainly focusing on how synchronous communication technologies such as zoom, teams, even thought appointments as well could help advising because in the past, I mean, I'm still a new advisor, I've been advising for a little over two years now, it's always been in person, or, you know, maybe there were phone appointments here and there. So what we did was we interviewed students, we sent out a survey to them, got their experience to see how remote academic advising was going, you know, during the pandemic. And then I also had the chance to interview advisors at FGCU, to see what their experiences were like, during the pandemic. And switching over to that remote academic advising or our a method, as we call that. And what we really found was that it's, you know, in person advising is always going to be the best form of advising, and in my opinion, and many others, but having the flexibility to have that remote option via zoom or phone is great. I would say zoom, it's probably the second best because we could share the screen with students works or you know, whatever platform and advisors using. So yeah, it was a great experience. Something I never thought I was going to do in grad school, I wasn't sure like, you know, getting, you know, going through that poll publication process was something new to me. And I really enjoyed it. And I'm glad that we did it, because it does show that raa does have a space in advising, and it was continue to be, you know, something that we do?

Locksley Knibbs  
Well, thank you, Matt. You know, a lot of a lot of us from back in 2020. As you mentioned, we had to pivot. And a lot of us with the pandemic has brought a change in how we advise our students at you know, at FGCU, where we currently are, we have what's called the tele advising with the advising via the telephone, and we have the video conference where we use Zoom and Microsoft team instead of face to face. And so advice advising us change since 2020, the way we you know, reach out to our students and where we connect and build relationship with our students.

Matt Plescia  
As you know this, I just want to talk this. I actually started out just fully remote advising. So that was my transition period. So I was we were only doing phone appointments at our office at that time. So my first face to face appointment was when we had walkins. Yep. So I think I saw about 70 students that week. And it was face to face appointments that I had just jumped right in, which was great. It really helped. And I really enjoyed it. But that's when I first started seeing students face to face. So I really started as a remote advisor, essentially. 

Locksley Knibbs  
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with our listeners. And you mentioned two things I want to go back a little bit for during the interview where you mentioned, you mentioned that you run about what two to three years now you're in academic advising. All right, so tell us about that. That whole process of you becoming an academic advisor and where you are now. How was that resonate or things resonated with you in terms of the things that you do now you started off as an advising assistant and you became an advisor, then you move places and then the mode or the platform of delivery of advising? How are you feeling today about what you are doing?

Matt Plescia  
I feel great about what I'm doing like you said like I was an advising assistant while I was in undergrad. Then when I was in grad school, as you mentioned, I became an administrative specialist. So I did that for about three years still working with you and the team and casts advising while I was pursuing my graduate degree. So while I was administrative specialists I feel like I gained a ton of knowledge. And that's what led me to advising as well. There is also, I want to attribute another way how I got into advising mentioned our past director Shane Talbot, he actually gave me the opportunity to attend FLACADA. And that was a year, I think I actually did go to your presentation, I have a picture that came up on my phone actually, recently, memory. And so I got to sit in on see you actually present and so FLACADA actually, like really opened my eyes to because the keynote speaker was Jenny Bloom out of the office of appreciative education. And once I, you know, had attended that conference sat in on different presentations, that's when I really like knew I wanted to work with students. Because I had my background in management, I was thinking about going into finance, I had a finance internship, but I was an undergrad. And then I realized that wasn't really the way I wanted to go. It seems much more, you know, relevant for me to go into that advising space and get into that. So I'm glad that I made the decision. And I'm really glad I didn't go the way I thought I was gonna go. And like, I tell students do like, you might have one thing in mind that that you're going to be doing in the future, but it can change several times. 

Locksley Knibbs  
that's a that's an excellent point, Matt, I, I too, had my undergraduate degree, we both have the same undergraduate degree, we both got it from the College of Business earned or a degree from the College of Business in the same same field and look what we are doing today. And that's one of the unique things about academic advising, like I share with folks all the time, I advise in the sciences, my background is not in the sciences. But when you learn the curriculum, you're able to articulate it clearly, you know, navigate the curriculum and help students from what I call matriculation to graduation. That's a good thing. So let me bring that back to you as an academic advisor. Now that you have changed, as I mentioned, states here in Utah, what are some of the things that you had to learn besides working with students culturally, as far as the curriculum is concerned? What are the differences?

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, so natural resources was new to me. I was a social science advisor at FGCU. And then, at FSW, I was, you know, doing AA's. And working on As's with students as well. Here, now I have these four specific majors, I'm learning about OPM requirements, there's different requirements, students have to meet for these programs in order to actually land their, you know, career in the field. So a lot of our students, they are pretty much STEM majors, they have foundations of biology, math, chemistry, and like stats. So and they're having to meet certain class requirements in order to go on and get that, you know, career that they're searching for. And everything's very sequential as well. So a lot of our classes are only offered in fall, spring, fall, spring, we don't have any summer courses. So our students during the summer are actually doing internships, and they're all paid internships, which is amazing. I remember when I was advising in Florida, a lot of our students weren't getting paid for their internships, there's just kind of something that was required for the major. So here, they're getting paid, they're getting that relevant work experience, and they're building up their federal resumes. It's another thing I had to learn about, too, I didn't know that there was two different types of resumes, I just knew about a traditional resume. So when I came here at USU, had to learn about federal resumes. We actually have two great peer advisors in our office that are trained to work with our students on their federal resumes. And then how we make as advisors we refer students to a lot of different offices, we also have a career Design Center, where we have someone who works full time there who's trained on those federal resumes as well. So these are all different things that I had to learn curriculum wise, and just coming from that social science background, going into this natural resource background has been much different.

Locksley Knibbs  
Thank you for sharing that with us. So I want to back up a few to again, back to your bio. So while reading that you had you describe your areas of interest include technology and advising, appreciative advising, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion. Can you describe for audience how your passion resonates here in your involvement, and why these three years of interests met? 

Matt Plescia  
So technology and advising, as we all know, something I haven't like really dived into yet, but like AI, I really am like looking forward to seeing this, how that's going to be shaping advising in the future. But also because my background was in educational technology. So a lot of things that I did with like Universal Design for Learning, which is having like, you know, students, you know, being able to equally say seat in all areas. So now the every student has their own different learning style. And I also view advising as teaching in a sense as well. So, you know, some of my students might not pick up on things, if I'm just, you know, showing them their degree works. And going off of that, sometimes I have to implement things. So there's things that I learned in my graduate program like gamification, so like, you know, kind of like turn things into like a game in a sense, and like, kind of reel them in that way. So there'll be more involved in that way. During our sessions, also, equity and inclusion, I used to work at FSW. I, when I was working there, we didn't have a an advisor that spoke Spanish so that I would have to pivot. So that's really where I learned why, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion are very important, because we don't have an advisor who can speak Spanish, how are we going to best serve these students? So then I'd have to pivot in that way with technology. And I was using Google Translate for some of my appointments, which kind of made it harder in a way, you know, to advise the student, but I was still trying to, you know, meet the needs of the student. And then I would also just, you know, make referrals and find out, you know, other campus partners. And if I did find someone that could speak Spanish on campus, then I would bring them into my office if they had the chance. And then we can go over that way, too. So I think I hit most of your questions. 

Locksley Knibbs  
Just one little era, because I know you have the expression for appreciative advisor, because your deepest love with Dr. Janet bloom at FAU. And that is one of your years of interest. Why? Why appreciative advising, Matt?

Matt Plescia  
So that's because for what landed me here at USU, I would say to the framework, I have tried to implement it in all of my sessions. There's the six phases, so disarm, discover, dream, design, deliver and don't settle. For those who aren't familiar with it, I would definitely encourage others to check out the appreciative advising office. So the office of appreciative education at FAU, it's really helped me, you know, so the first phase, I'll just get into my first like, my favorite phase of it. No, it's bizarre. So disarming students. So back when I worked at FGCU, and we had a another administrative specialist, Joanne, who used to sit next to me, sometimes students would come into the office, and you can tell there's this sense of anxiety and like, you know, they might have that barrier. A lot of times students, you know, don't know why they're coming into advising or, you know, they might be have this tendency to be afraid of us for some reason, we're just like them as well, you know, we're all I consider everyone like a lifelong learner. And so we could see, sometimes the student would be, you know, have that barrier. So Joanne, and I would kind of like, have this playful banter back and forth. And so there was an age gap between her and I as well. So I would say I was maybe like, all go back, say I was 19 at the time, and like, she was maybe around 60 years old. And we would have this playful banter. And then students would just, like, start laughing at what we were talking about. And then they would join in on our conversations. And then when the advisor, let's say, you would come out to get creative student, which is another form of disarming the student coming out, you know, calling them by their name, or their preferred name, rather, and then, by the time they get back to your office, and they're sitting with you, that barriers kind of already removed. So and I do the same thing here. As an advisor, I'll go out and greet my students by their name, have them come into my office, and I don't jump into advising right away, you know, I'll ask them how their weekend was, if it was a holiday, I'll ask them how, like, you know, the holiday was as well try to get to know my students, and actually really, you know, form that connection with them.

Locksley Knibbs  
Excellent. So some, some of the professionals will have something to say about that. Because what are your your sessions? Are they 30 minute sessions or...?

Matt Plescia  
They are 30 minute sessions. As I believe that you're doing so FGCU, correct?

Locksley Knibbs  
We do 30 minutes as well. But some, some will argue how do you pack all of that in 30 minutes in getting to know your student, and then to talk about different things and then get into the curriculum or the reason they came to meet with you? 

Matt Plescia  
The thing with the like, the six phases I mentioned, that's something that students or people that go through the advisors that go through the institute will learn. You don't have to hit all six phases in a session. And that's completely okay. Like the disarm phase, I always will do my best to disarm a student just to make sure they're comfortable with me. And then we can actually, you know, get into the advising, but here since I do have a lowercase load, it is easier for me to kind of hit all of those points. And then if we don't then you know, have a follow up appointment, and I'll actually schedule the follow appointment with the student at my office so they don't have to go back home, make the appointment themselves, they might forget to do it. I'll do it right here, just so you know, we make sure we're gonna meet again, when I was had like a hierarchy caseload, like I said, 1800 at one point, it was a lot more prescriptive advising in a sense. So I would just try to implement much as the framework as possible. But you know, with 30 minute appointments, and then having 1800 students, it was prescriptive in nature, it's a little harder to do.

Locksley Knibbs  
Absolutely know what you're gonna get through all that with with such a high caseload. And we just want to clarify, for the listeners, you are pretty much at the State College, it's pretty much like a two year school, they do have some four year degree, but the population was so large, and they have such fewer advisor. And just for the listeners that I used to work at that particular institution that match referred to so we're a little bit mirroring each other with a couple of things here, which makes this a little bit unique and interesting. So I want to go back to something that you've mentioned about a preferred name, that has become a thing now in a lot of higher education institutions where students are opting in to you, uh, you know, for instructors and advisors to check their computers to make sure that they're using the preferred name. Are you seeing a lot of that in at USC, where you are currently?

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, I actually am. So I still am seeing that. I saw it in Florida as well. I think even during one of my interviews, when I was going for, you know, to be an academic advisor, Florida, that was one of the things that I mentioned that I do, I would check banner for students preferred names, before appointments, just so I can, you know, write it in a note as well, it's a little different here with our achieve actually is now. So not everyone's using the same form of achieve, I believe, appointment manager. There has been updates to it now it actually is showing the preferred name. So if I see a difference on my Outlook calendar, and then I look at Achieve, then I know that what is showing it in achieve is the actual preferred name for the student. So the software as like things, you know, the time has been going on, it's been making things easier for us as advisors to make sure we're, you know, reaching out to students and calling them by what they actually pre prefer to be called. If that makes sense.

Locksley Knibbs  
Yeah. make sense to me. All right. So last year, you surprised me a little bit. I saw you at the Nakata conference. And as much as far as I know, it's probably your first conference you've ever attended and Nakata conference back in Orlando in for for Orlando, Florida last year in October. What was that experience like for you as a first time attendee? So I wanted to be clear about that. Because I know we have some folks who are going to be listening to who probably have never attended in a car conference and will be up probably first time attendees later on this year, in October when the conference takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Matt Plescia  
So I'll be honest with you, like you said, it was very overwhelming. But in a good way, it really opened my eyes to see how many advisors are like truly out there and that are passionate about student success and continuing to learn best practices, which professional development I mean, I feel like you know, as advisors, I said, this already being a little repetitive, but we should be lifelong learners. That's the only way we're going to keep up with, you know, rising. And as it continues to, you know, grow as a field. But I'm, so it's great seeing that sense of community all come together. And as you'd mentioned, it was my first conference. So I would say one of the biggest takeaways from it for me, was seeing that a lot of us do experience similar situations, whether it be institutionally from like, then institution perspective, or from our student populations. And I think it was pretty fascinating to see that we're, you know, essentially all in this together, to, you know, continue to best serve our students and to continue to foster a sense of growth learning together. I think I might have just actually quoted like, High School Musical there by accident. 

Locksley Knibbs  
So any, any of the sessions that you attended that you you know, you took away some best practices and try to incorporate those in your advising practices back at USU?

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, so, um, I would say, so I actually kept a spreadsheet of the sessions I attended. I don't have it right now in front of me. But a lot of the, like I said, again, a lot of the appreciative advising sessions, those were great some sessions with, like, that included advisors talking about like impostor syndrome. Sometimes they feel like you know, they shouldn't be doing what they're doing, or they don't know what they're doing. But I think that's something you know, some of us kind of all faced with, like, you know, when there are changes, especially to like maybe like curriculum or something, it's like, you know, we're not sure we're saying the right things. But as a newer adviser to I want to let other advisors know out there, ask for help. I think you know, this, because you saw me throughout my first year of advising. Even when I was an administrative specialist, I wasn't afraid to ask for help. And I think that's what was a huge strength of mine to like, you know, help me grow in this field and having someone like you and every I considered everyone in our office, a mentor to me, everyone always advocated for me, and I would, you know, if I had a question, I can go out to you and know that you would give me an answer, and you wouldn't be worried or bothered with it.

Locksley Knibbs  
Yeah, that's, that's what we do, Matt, you know, seasoned individuals in academic advising, you know, you want to make sure that you've mentored the folks who have just entered the field. So they can be just like you, as you know, as they, you know, go along their career growth, and so forth. And if this is something that they're going to stick with, they need to know. And we possess what I call a wealth of knowledge. So it's easy to share with other people, because later on in life, you're going to be that person who is going to impart that information to someone who is just entered the field of academic advising. So I know I just mentioned to you about the conference, and the one that's slated for later on this year in October 27-30, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he plans to be in Pittsburgh in October this year?

Matt Markin  
Yeah, so I'm hoping, so good. I'll name drop him as well, Eric Sutherland, one of our past co workers. He's now working at Bucknell University as an academic coach. And him and I are planning on putting a proposal together. So I'm hoping you know, if that gets accepted, then it'll be my first time presenting at a conference. Plus, it'll be my second conference that I've attended. So I'm really hoping that goes through. 

Locksley Knibbs  
Pleased to hear that. I'm very happy to hear that you attended your first conference. And you're looking forward to submitting your proposal for presentation if it gets accepted. That's, that's interesting. And that's something that I tell folks all the time, it's not just about conference attendance, in some participation presenting. And also, we should keep in mind, ours is not just presenting. So I hope that whatever you present, you'll be able to put that into some kind of article that you can submit, you know, for publication, we have the 80, academic advising today, you could start from there. So I wanted to use that as lessons or information that I'm imparting to you that you could follow because a lot of us go to conferences, and we make these presentations, and then they just stop right there. Dr. Charlie Nutt at the conference last year, talk about the way for us to advance or, or profession of academic advising, is if we take responsibility for it, and right, cuz that's what we have to do, we have to impress upon people that this is itself is a profession. And we have to write the articles that solidify the things that we are doing. So I'm very pleased to hear that.

Matt Plescia  
And I think it's important that you know, like you said, like, and I know, You've written many scholarly articles regarding advising, and you've been, you have a few book chapters, I believe. So these are all things that I would like to do in the future, I want to ease into it. But I think like you said, it is important because, like administrators, and this is something that I hope to see in the future. Maybe even a little off topic here. But I don't think administration fully understands what we do as advisors, sometimes, even students might not understand what we do advise as an advisor sometimes. So I think us as advisors, actually putting that work out there will truly help showcase what we do in our day to day practices.

Locksley Knibbs  
And what a fantastic argument. Yeah, we still a lot of folks in administration still don't understand that academic advising has changed so much significantly over the years. So it's not about just, you know, giving students that didn't say go take those classes, we are doing so much. We're looking holistically at students, we are dealing with so many mental health issues. So we are we're coaches, we're academic advisors, we're counselors, we're teachers, we're educators. And sometimes we you know, some of us play the role of parents or students. We're a long way from home. So we have many roles and many hats that we wear as academic advising. So just know that as you get more into the profession, you're going to see you're taking on more crucial roles and help students as they progress through their degree. So I wanted to go to this question that I have for you now that you've mentioned that you attended your first conference you'd like to present now, any future involvement in the cada taking on some kind of role or something because folks always They don't know where to start. And I've always said to you ask me, because you know, I have this intense experience, you know, in Nakada. Are you thinking of anything in terms of leadership roles within NACADA? 

Matt Plescia  
So in the future, that is something definitely I want to take part of I'm currently taking part in the mentor mentee program. My mentor right now, Rachel Lim, who's the Assistant Director for undergraduate programs for the College of Business at the University of Denver. She's my current mentor, and I had brought up to her how do I get more involved, and just reading proposals is something that she told me right away. And that's going to actually help me, you know, with my proposal when I submitted, and then also, you know, reaching out to other mentors as well like, such as yourself. So I will be, you know, contacting you more often, just to see how I can get more involved. And I would like to, you know, continue being involved in the kata and you know, holding a position maybe being on a committee on the future. But for right now, my first step really, is that mentor mentee program, which I'm glad that I was able to get a part of.

Locksley Knibbs  
Excellent, excellent. So now that you've mentioned that, I want to ask you, because we're getting down to the end of our session. What Where do you see yourself in the next maybe five to 10 years in higher education? You're an academic advisor now. tunnel vision, where do you see yourself going?

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, so it's a good question. So I know, I was so higher ed is where I want to be. I think I learned it as soon as I became that administrators specialist role and started working towards my master's degree and was, you know, pursuing that higher education? So I do have plans on pursuing a doctorate and would like to see myself in more of an administrative role in the future? Not surely not really sure. You know, what kind of role yet, but I still want to have the flexibility to meet with students as well. That's something that I would like to have.

Locksley Knibbs  
Excellent. You mentioned, some of the things that you've done at USU. Can you point to anything specific that you enjoy about academic advising itself?

Matt Plescia  
I would say so one of the new roles I've taken on as well as recruiting, didn't really do much of that at ftc or FSW. So I've got to go on recruiting events went on three pretty big ones recently. So we went to Provo, Layton in Salt Lake City. So we're reaching out to students from different areas, and their seniors in high school, and just you know, telling them about USU in general, but also for my table talking about natural resources, because a lot of students might not know what it entails. And then they'll come over and be like, Oh, I got to work outdoors, this is great. And so recruiting has actually been something that I've actually really started to enjoy as well. And then just working with this specific group of students has been great. We are a very laid back college. I mean, I've had some success stories here already, I've only been here for a year, something that's, that made me very happy to learn recently, I had a student that was going to have to drop out of the semester, because we have a lot of students, like I said, if they're, let's say, a forest ecology and management student, that a lot of them are doing wildland fire positions during the summer, and it cuts into the semester, and then they don't have the funding to continue school. So I actually reached out to my Associate Dean, and said, Hey, is there any, you know, outside scholarship opportunities for students, and that student actually received around a $2,000 scholarship. And that's just what he needed to continue his schooling for this semester, which really made me happy. And I saw him in the hallway one day, and he just smiled and waved at me. And I was like, oh, maybe he got the scholarship. And then we just had an appointment recently. And he's like, the only reason he made the appointment was to say, thank you. And that's something that, you know, as advisors, you've been in the field for a while, you know, like, it's really something that it made my whole weekend, essentially, and like, you know, whenever we get thank you notes, too, that's something I would encourage new advisors as well hold on to those because if you are having a rough day or anything like that, because there's also compassion fatigue, as well, I know I'm getting a little off topic there. But sometimes, you know, if we're having rough days as advisors, it's nice to have that folder in your Outlook inbox that says, you know, thank you notes, and just reflect on all the success stories.

Locksley Knibbs  
Sounds good to me, Matt. All right. So we're pretty much at the last question, and I want you to I know you're already looking into the camera and so but the way to think about this, any advice from you to his a young adviser into the profession, any big advice that you want to impart on those who are thinking about entering the field or the profession of academic advising, you've been in for two to three years now. I wanted to be succinct and just let folks know talk to them about, you know, if they're thinking about academic advisor, why should someone become an academic advisor?

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, so it's one, it's very fulfilling, being able to see a student start from, you know, their freshman year, get to senior year and then walk across that stage. Here, we actually, you know, help out at commencement. I know you volunteer at commencement, I do, as you knew, you volunteered at mine, called me out, which was funny, but it was great. Um, but yeah, so it's a very fulfilling job. Just being able to see students succeed throughout their time here. You know, sometimes there's gonna be bumps in the road, but we get them back on track. If someone's coming from a different background, like let's say they were a teacher, or something like that, there's a lot of transferable skills that go into advising and advising also, Officer also offers a lot of transferable skills for other professions as well if you know someone if it wasn't the right fit for them. But really, I would say, it's just a very fulfilling career, just as be able to see students go from once they, you know, point A to point B, which graduation I would say is, and then I would also say, if there are advisors who are afraid of so this is just from my experience, you know, moving across the country and going into a different area, take that chance was in Florida, like I said, now I'm in Utah, I think it was one of the greatest moves I've ever made. And, you know, it was a little frightening at first, but definitely something if you want to change in culture, definitely that they should look forward to doing.

Locksley Knibbs  
So no regrets?

Matt Plescia  
No regrets. So I mean, yesterday, I did snow a lot outside my window, and it was it consistently snowed the whole day. And I'm not used to driving in it. So the drive home was a little scary. But yeah, no regrets at all, I would say if someone's thinking about jumping into the role itself, or moving from one institution to another, and they have that gut feeling that it's going to be good for them. That definitely make that move.

Locksley Knibbs  
All right. Thank you. Sounds good to me, my man, I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule. To talk to me today, I didn't feel like it was an interview feel like, you know, us connecting again. Yeah, as a young advisor, veteran advisor into this role itself, to talk to me about the experience in at USU. And encouraging folks who are a little bit anxious to take that leap of faith, sometimes a lot of us sometimes we do look for jobs, and we don't want to move in so far. But you are a lived experience of what happens when you take that leap of faith. And we really and truly appreciate you taking the time out to share your experience with us. If there's anything that I can do for you, you know where to find me, you know how to reach out to me, and I really would love to see your sub B, you know, get to submit a proposal for the conferences. Yeah. And hopefully it gets accepted. So we can talk some more about that distinct progresses. Good luck at USU. And again, thank you for being a guest on Adventures in Advising podcast.

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, thank you for having me. And it's always great seeing you and let everyone know back in casts advising that I missed them as well. FGCU always be home. It's been great.

Locksley Knibbs  
Yeah, we gave you the wings, now you've flown away. So we hope that you'll Yeah, so we hope that you know, you're we want to make sure that you have become, you know, a seasoned profession. And if you need anything, please do not, as I mentioned, as a teacher reach out to us. If there's anything that we can do for you. I know you're in a different state, but academic is academic advising. So we know that there's always room to learn. But what I want to encourage you is capitalize as much on the opportunities that you can when you attend these conferences, find those best practices, take them back to your institution, implement them as part of your your, your advising with folks who are back in Utah and you'll you'll make a big difference in that field. Yeah. All right.

Matt Plescia  
All right. It was great talking to you.

Locksley Knibbs  
Likewise, man, have a great day.