Navigating the Changing Academic Landscape - Adventures in Advising

Join us in celebrating 100 episodes of the Adventures in Advising podcast with special guests: 

00:10 - Charlie Nutt, NACADA Executive Office (retired)
09:00 - Melinda Anderson, Achieving the Dream
44:40 - Josephine Gabi, Manchester Metropolitan University and Ann Bingham, University of Southampton
01:11:25 - Jennifer V. Nguyen and Cheri Souza, Stupski Foundation

Topics include: The future of advising and enrollment management, cross-institutional projects, terminology changes, and innovative ways to increase advisor wellness and combat burnout.

Check out the Money as Medicine in Advisor Wellness article about interventions and strategies you can implement at your institution!

June is Pride Month! Check out Emerge: The Anthology for the 2023 Lambda Literary Writers Retreat by Jennifer Nguyen (Ed.)

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

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Connect with Matt and Ryan on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Matt Markin  
So we can't celebrate episode 100 of the adventures and advising podcast without having Dr. Charlie Nutt, retired NACADA, Executive Director. Charlie, welcome back. 

Charlie Nutt  
Thank you, Matt. It's always such a pleasure to be on the podcast and to be a part of this. And I just really appreciate you giving me a chance just to say a few words about this, you know, 100 episodes and 50,000 downloads. That's amazing. You know, when we started this, I was hoping, if we lasted a couple of years and had this maybe, you know, 10,000 people listening to it, but we will get to really hit some things. And you have just taken it and gotten so far with it. And I just really want to thank you and Colum for deciding to pull together. You know, I'm a firm believer, as an educator, that one of our goals has to be to connect people. And I think that's one of the things that was really important to me, and my years was NACADA was to connect people, it's one thing to connect with folks, just in your own state, when you're in a state is largely California, but to bring everything that you and come together from Ireland to to California was was quite a trade out. I was trying to remember, was Sheffield, when I introduced which which up was was it?

Matt Markin  
Yeah, it was in Belgium.

Charlie Nutt  
It was one of those brain farts hit me because I talked to you about some of the podcasts you were doing. I talked to Colum about it, and no book was standing like within two feet of each other. And I thought I'm gonna introduce them, and just talk to see what would happen and there was a need for this type of effort development. You know, our conferences are amazing, Institute's are amazing. Our publications have, in my opinion, were the top of all higher education associations and in those types of festival developments, but the folks and particularly incoming new advisors that this medium is important to this is a way they can learn this is why they can can learn about NACADA. This is about advising, because sometimes that's the first encounter, we think they only hear about it to the NACADA information, but we know students hear them advisors say about it from each other. And they hear about it because it's other campuses and, and that type of thing. And so I think it's a great way for them to learn about NACADA is to begin to interact with each other. You know, when when I first began in the association, I was very, very lucky. Because I had connected with Nancy King. Nancy King was an undercard queen, and she knew everybody and anybody in the world. So once I connected with Nancy, simply connect me with this person, this person, that's how I kind of got involved. But not everybody has a Nancy King to connect. And the beauty of the podcast is your listeners are hearing from several experts across the country that they need to hear from. But it's also so interesting, Matt, is that you've not just gone after the people who automatically are the folks presenting are the people who are automatically the keynote speakers at conferences. I mean, every time you every I listened to every one of them. And I'm always amazed at folks that are brand new. And when I say brand new, they're brand new to the kata they're brand new to the session. Some of them are just putting new programs in there doing exciting new things. And it's a great way for them to get known. But it's also a wonderful way for your listeners to be able to hear from those people who are just like they are. And so I think the beauty, in my opinion is connecting people who are new and innovative things who are always first in line to present at a conference. I don't know how you found the people you're finding amazing. I also believe in my opinion that it has done a huge need to just be hugely beneficial to the profession. This has moved us so forward. I really do want to thank Alan from the executive office and the Board of Directors because you know when we examine said, and I don't know what it was, it was maybe $1,500 At the time of what's that y'all needed? It was minuscule. And Alan just looked at me and said, Why are you asking me out? And I went, okay. So you know, but I mean, some people that would have been something we'd had to deal with. That was never an issue. Because we knew it was a way to meet and bring people together. I can't do this. Well, thank you, you. You, you not only help being done it, but what's column had to move and do some other different things. You've kept it going? It would have been just as easy for you to say Colum and I are done. But you chose not to and you kept going? I don't know how you do. I don't I think he just worked three, four hours a day, seven days a week. But what I say with everything, you know, the evidence and everything you're doing for us, but I just I'm so proud of you. And I'm so excited for what we've done. And when I say we it's a wildly because all I did was connect to people. And y'all took it from there is just such a benefit to the profession, not just to NACADA. You know, that's one of the things that I I really tried to push when I was in the deck of offices, not everything's got to be about his association. Yes. We need more members. Yes, we need more people attending. But our goal is about the build of advising. And this has been such a benefit to our members, and to people who are not members. You know, I'm sure if you love 50,000 downloads, there's probably some people who have never done Association, let's just listen to the webcast, we would never wish them was it to this. And so I'm thrilled. I'm just so excited. I'm so excited that number one hundreds coming out, and just look forward for the next 100. And help I'm alive when you get to that next 200. And I'll come back and and say something then. So, Matt, I'm so proud of you. And I'm so proud of the podcast, I'm so proud of all the people you have participating in the podcast will go down historically, as a major professional development project, a major pressure development pattern in the association in the field is just a great way I think of showing the heart of what our job is, no matter what we do in the field is to continually connect people together. Thank you, Matt, so much for your patience and give me a chance to say a few words. And I'm just so proud of you, my friend.

Matt Markin  
Thank you for one listening to this episode, and to joining us in the celebration of almost four and a half years of this podcast. And this started back. This podcast started back in January of 2020. Just a couple of months before the world's shut down. And this podcast has been going strong thanks to you in the higher education community, especially academic advising. And this has been a team effort over the years from Colum Cronin and I started this wild idea with the support of Dr. Charlie Nutt helping us get this off the ground and really helping to promote the idea of learning through stories. And then of course, you listening to episodes, sharing. Some of you being interviewed as guests on the podcast and many of you returning back as guest hosts. For me this podcast has been the gift that keeps on giving. And I know I mentioned Charlie. Charlie helped us get us started and really get through the first year of this podcast. one other person that I have to thank is Dr. Melinda Anderson, when I was burnout and was ready to ride off into the sunset and end the podcast after episode 75 and January 2023. Melinda suggested, why not just take a break, reflect on everything and really look at everything through the rested eyes and then make your final decision. So I can't celebrate 100 episodes without Dr. Linda Anderson, the executive director for network engagement at achieving the dream Melinda. It's been far too long. Welcome back to the podcast. 

Melinda Anderson  
Thank you so much, Matt, and congratulations. This is huge here. Yes.

Speaker 1  
And I'll say congratulations to us. You've been a huge part of this. You've been interviewed for this podcast, you've helped guest host multiple episodes. You've been so supportive, even behind the scenes and you know, you gave such great advice. I mean, I was ready to call it quits and I remember I remember running into Banks Blair at the NACADA, Portland conference and he asked like, is this true? And I was like you had fortunately. And then just a few months later, it's like, nope, we're still gonna continue. But something so simple as taking a break didn't even cross my mind. But after you suggested it, you know, I came to the conclusion that I was good with the decision to end the podcast, but I wasn't great about the decision to end the podcast, there's just too many stories left to be told. And I wasn't ready to be done after that. So I mean, honestly, like, thank you so much for that suggestion. 

Melinda Anderson  
You are so so so welcome. And you know, just such a tremendous, you know, addition to the field. And I agree with you learning through stories is exactly what we do as advisors, right, you know, whether we're amplifying somebody else's story, or we're learning from it, or healing from somebody else's story, right. But just again, you know, just tremendous effort, you know, it takes a lot of energy consistency, right to be putting out this content, and people are looking for it, you know, I see all the Thanks, Matt, and I appreciate this, and, you know, being able to just for other people to be able to, you know, put their voice out there. And so it's just, it's just been tremendous. I know, I've learned a lot, I got to know people that I'm like, Oh, I didn't know that about you, you know. And so that's always powerful, right? Because we have these lenses of how we think we see somebody and then you hear their background, or you hear about, you know, just things or thoughts that they have, or the work that they've done that's kind of carried the way that they see, or how they shape their lenses. And that's just so powerful and impactful. And I just, oh, just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to support and be here and be your number one champion and cheerleader and this effort. So just again, thank you so much this work that you're doing is so critically important to the field.

Matt Markin  
Oh, no, I definitely appreciate that. And I know the last time you were on was almost a year ago and Episode 79, titled advisors as cultural navigators, you have listeners, if you haven't had a chance to listen to that one. Stop this recording, go up back to Episode 79. And take a listen to it. And then come back. But Melinda, tell us what you've been up to over the last year. 

Melinda Anderson  
Matt. So, you know, I'm still, you know, just working with Achieving the Dream. So the nonprofit that I work with now focuses on supporting transformational experiences with community colleges. So we have over 300 community colleges in our network. And what I find fascinating about the this work that I'm doing currently, is the way how, you know, these conversations that we're having, whether you're a four year or two year campus, you know, just the value of higher education, how is it transforming lives? How is it transforming communities, and just really powerful conversations, you know, from practitioners, you know, from faculty to student service practitioners, right, from presidents, thinking about how policy is impacting the way that we're showing up in our institutions, right, we've heard about the DEI legislation that's happening across campuses, you know, I see stuff in the news all the time, you know, you guys are not glued into the Chronicle or Inside Higher Ed, and all those other news vehicles. CCRC is what I'm alluding to now, to definitely just seeing how policy is impacting the way that we're working. It's, it's just really interesting, seeing how higher education has transformed. I reached out to some of my colleagues in financial aid and Enrollment Management when stuff was coming out about FAFSA and I was like, Lord, are you gonna be okay? And they were like, please pray for us. So there's just so much going on. And so what I've been up to is really just in my role, just supporting institutions, thinking deeply about how this work shows up. For them, specifically, my portfolios, look at tribal colleges and universities, rural institutions, and also looking at schools coming into the network wanting to look at transformational opportunities, and how that shows up for their students. And it's just been amazing to hear how focused institutions are about how do we serve our students? Well, how do we continue to do the best job with the resources that we have access to? And it just gives me great hope. So when I hear people talk about, oh, the value of higher education is expensive. And I'm like, no, hold on. There's people out here who are working hard every day to show up for their students. They know the power of education and what a credential means to being able to transform somebody's life. You know, when we start talking about social and economic mobility, and how that can change somebody's whole family and generational wealth, I like to talk about those topics when I talk about not just academic advising in terms of nuts and bolts, but transforming somebody's life, Matt, you know, like this idea of, you know, generational wealth is something that I think we should be talking a little bit more about in terms of connected ways, especially how it transforms our communities. And so it's just been powerful this past year. In terms of what I've been learning, so thank you so much. But yeah, that's guys. That's what I've been up to just learning and growing and thinking differently about the work that we're doing in this space. And then just always being a champion for academic advising and student success. 

Matt Markin  
And if I remember correctly, you were when we were talking offline, you were mentioning with, with the community colleges, that you have coaches that that help out with the community colleges?

Melinda Anderson  
Oh, yes. So a part of our three year network engagement experience, we assign coaching support to the institutions. And so we have a data coach and a leadership coach, that helped to guide the institution to thinking through what their transformational for example, every school has to think about what is your action plan? How are you moving forward, because what we truly believe is that when you're a part of our network, is we're not just another initiative, right? It's, it's a way that you think about how you get your work done. So a framework if you will, and so you have a leadership coach, and a data coach. And so thinking about how that is informing the decisions that you're making, to determine how successful you are in completing your outcomes, and then your leadership coach thinking about organizational design, thinking about change management practices that are happening on your campus, but then schools then sometimes know, you know, where they need additional support and guidance. And so our coaches are able to bring that level of expertise, you know, from, you know, being a practitioner in the field, and to be able to bring that into their institutions. And so just being able to see how that synergy comes together has been very exciting, seeing how the coaches work with the institutions. And then seeing schools I haven't been here three years yet, but seeing how, you know, somebody started in their first year to go their second year, the third year, so very excited to see how that process works. So very similar to when you work on a campus, and you see that freshmen graduate as a senior. And so I am really excited to see how my first year with this work transforms in the second year in the third year. So it's just been really thrilling to see how this work happens.

Matt Markin  
And earlier, you mentioned financial aid. And when you met that I was like, I need to ask them a little question about financial aid. You know, there's been so much talk about financial aid, there's been a lot of the changes to the application and certain issues with that extended deadlines. Again, the application issues. So I guess like from, from your viewpoint? How can academic advisors you know, help students, even regarding financial aid, questions and concerns?

Melinda Anderson  
Oh, Matt, that is such a good question. And I will do my best right in terms of how I generally respond to that conversation, I guess is probably the best way to frame it. Because my daughter just got accepted into ODU. Yay, go monarchs. And so I'm really excited about what's next for her and her transfer journey. But yes, it was like, okay, so I need to apply for FAFSA and then the school will know how much aid they can award me and you know, and what does that look like for me? I think the best advice that we can give to advice so specifically to advisors in terms of how to manage and support during these kinds of challenging times. I always encourage, you know, practitioners, how much information can we learn and share and be abreast of in the moment, right? It's kind of daunting that people are expecting, what's the answer? What's the answer? What's the answer, if you will, you know, like, is there anything new? Is there any new information? And so I think helping people help themselves, right? That's what advisors do best, right? Like, this is the information. This is how I'm getting the information. This is where you can find the information as well. So I would always say, you know, how are advisors staying up to date on where they are and for me, when I think about being on a campus it was and I always joke all the time when I do keynotes, like advisors have best friends with financial aid the Registrar's Office So you know, housing and read live, right, we have best friends all over the place on our campus. And so this is no different, staying connected with your financial aid office to be able to get updates, if not weekly, bi weekly to understand kind of what's happening in terms of real time support for how your institution is either navigating the way they're communicating with students about the delays that are happening right now or other solutions that they've come up with, in terms of being able to support students with understanding the cost of going to the institution that they're planning to go to lots of enrollment management, financial aid offices have come up with really good action plans about how do we continue to monitor number one, what's happening, you know, at the federal level? Number two, how do we communicate that information to students and parents and families who are really concerned about understanding the true costs of what their education is going to be. And so I think from an advising perspective, we want to be locked in to those sources as well. So that we're able to give that information in real time because you know, a student's gonna go to financial aid and then ask you, so you want to make sure that that message is going to be the same on your respective campuses. And then like I said, there's always those new sources that we want to stay in and plugged into, so that we're understanding what other information might be coming down to kind of give us clues in terms of you know, how quickly the situation has either been resolved. Or if there are new dynamics that are happening, it's always best not to get information from sound bites, it's so hard these days, like, Well, I heard this or I heard that, but I always encourage people really go to the source to kind of get good information. And so that would be some of the things that I would quickly share, because my daughter, like I mentioned earlier, is getting ready to go through that herself. And so for me, it's about picking up the phone and trying to get information directly from the institution. But then also talking to my colleagues who are in this space saying, Okay, what are the ways that we can navigate this? Well, how do we prepare ourselves for understanding that information is going to be delayed? What are the other dynamics that we should be considering in terms of how delay of information is going to impact your ability to to understand what you're going to be able to afford moving forward? 

Matt Markin  
You mentioned sometimes it's the student go into financial aid, and then after that, go into their advisor and say, hey, help me understand this a lot. Other times, it's gonna go into the advisor, first, about financial aid or another department. Hey, how do I figure this out? 

Melinda Anderson  
That is that is very true, you know, and that's the beauty of our ability to build relationships with our students, right? Like a student will come to us first and say, hey, you know, Matt, you know, Mr. Matt, you know, I heard this or I have a question, right? Because I have a really strong relationship with you, which is great. But we also want our students to have agency and understanding what it is that they are experiencing. So no, but you're absolutely right, they will show up to us first. And so it is important for us to make sure that we're sharing information that's also being shared at the institution level to make sure that we're all on the same page. 

Matt Markin  
And then sometimes, you know, like, in this case, with the financial aid application issues, sometimes financial aid officers at the art institutions, were in the same boat, not knowing what was going on and waiting for information to be able to share with everyone else, it's also kind of giving our financial aid department some grace to.

Melinda Anderson  
Give them lots of grace. And, you know, I was asking that question from, you know, the two enrollment management offices about, you know, may one was, you know, decision day, and you know, where people are going to pull that time back and trying to help people understand how they were coming to their decision, or, yeah, so there was this a lot, you know, and I just, like you said, a lot of grace, you know, just letting them know that, hey, I'm thinking about you. I know, it's difficult. A lot of things are gray right now. So I agree with you, Matt, like let's let's give our colleagues and enrollment management and financial aid Big hugs, and we see them because they're still navigating a lot of things. And from a data perspective, and I can't help myself from a data perspective, and we're looking at those trend lines, right, you know, when you get to decision day, and then you think about registering for orientation to understanding how melt looks like over the summer. You know, all those things may look different now, right? Just because, you know, you have a delay and people being able to evoke a decision because you're still waiting for financial information. And so, it's very stressful times to kind of know where you're gonna fall, you're gonna have enough classes, you know, do you have enough beds? So it's, it's a lot.

Matt Markin  
But I think that's a good segue into and I know, it's gonna be a broad question. So answer how you will maybe there's follow up questions to this, but I think everything we're, you've just talked about relates to this. And that's what's the future holds for advising and what's the future hold for Enrollment Management? You know, there's delays, I think, a trickle down effect. We're not saying that financial, the financial aid application delay, delays everything else, but some of it did you know, some of the maybe the position day deadlines may have ended a little bit, but we're also seeing that maybe not so many students or individuals are applying for college. or none offer being accepted? You know, how does that impact numbers, the enrollments? How does that impact how orientations done? How's the impact events or things that are done during the first year? Like from your vantage point, you know, where do you believe the state of higher education is currently? Enrollment Management advising?

Melinda Anderson  
Well, I love your question, right? Because when you think about the way we are positioned in the field, we're seeing a lot, and we're seeing trends, maybe parent run parallel to each other, sometimes they collide into each other. You know, we've been hearing for years about the enrollment cliff, you know, we're gonna have less students graduating from high school. And so what does that mean, in terms of when they're coming into college? AI is going to transform the field. And so you're gonna have people needing to be retooled for the workforce, then you're hearing, you know, there's deficits in certain areas and aspects of education, like STEM fields, you know, and so how do we encourage students to be thinking more math and science? And so, you know, your head would be dizzy, right? If you know, you've been in the past 10 years thinking about how trends are impacting the way that we're working and supporting students? And then now you've got this dynamic where, you know, the cost of education, is it compromising its value, because it is so expensive, and people wanting to see the return of investment, right, the ROI. And that is definitely something that we, you know, you've heard been hearing that drumbeat for several years. And then definitely with the pandemic, you know, the idea of people saying, you know, what, because I was looking actually at some trends with the clearing house. And it was interesting that and undergraduate education numbers had went down, but graduate schools actually did pretty well either held steady or didn't continue to increase. And I thought to myself, maybe people were like, you know, what if the world's gonna end and won't be in this job, right? So I'm gonna go to graduate school and maybe change my career. So it was a very interesting trend in that perspective. But what the future holds for us, I think, will always be the idea that education can transcend my current experience, right? I don't think that that value, if it's held dear, in terms of the way that we think about American society, right, like education can change lives, right? I think the challenge that we might be running into is like, how much should it really cost? How long should it really take? You know, you're hearing the challenge of can you accelerate time to degree shortened courses, for example, you know, does it have to be 16 weeks? Is there a way that you can shorten courses to be able to help increase student success, you know, the idea of going to school online and looking at how pedagogical practices can change for our online space versus being in the classroom? You know, you're still hearing, you know, some of those debates back and forth. And so when I think about supporting students through those decisions, really is how we sit in terms of what makes sense for you, what is it that you're wanting to achieve? How are you defining success, I've always kind of held that position in working with students, especially when I was working with students in pre health and pre law, you know, in terms of how they're defining success for themselves. But when I think about tied, these conversations being tied to social and economic mobility, you are starting to see stronger conversations around our academic programs being tied to, you know, workforce development needs, and how that's showing up. Right. So the major and career interests that you have, are they tied together? You know, what is the job prospect look like for you once you complete your degree, right, so you can afford to be able to pay back, you know, the loans that maybe you've taken out to to earn that degree or that credential. And that's a reality, right? You've heard the debates with, you know, loan forgiveness and debt forgiveness programs. And so it's a reality education is very expensive these days. And so people are wanting to make sure that they're getting the best out of their investment. So I think it is important for us to be helping people think deeply about what is the best decision for me in terms of the type of credential I'm receiving what makes sense for me in terms of the field that I pursue in terms of relationship to the career that I'm also pursuing. And when I think about how, from an advising perspective, it's not just about what I need to take for my degree, right? We're holistic now in our approach, definitely after the pandemic, in terms of understanding the other aspects of what's happening to a student's life. And I would always argue that as an advisor, we always thought about that, right. But now, it's so prevalent, you know, I, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I just did a talk around student mental health. But then in that conversation, I started talking to the practitioner that I was working with, about mental health for faculty and staff on campus, right. So it was just kind of like we're talking about students, but within it, we're supporting the students, right. So then we need to be talking about how well we're doing on campus in terms of being able to support students because so much of that effort and In time, and being able to support our students, you know, can wear us down. And I always talk about you can't pour from an empty cup. You know, we talked about that before, Matt. And so I love your question. I think that in terms of trend lines, in terms of what we're seeing, our campuses are going to continue to diversify, they're going to continue to look different. I think the needs for how we're credentialing for the work in terms of workforce development needs, or how people are tying academic programs to workforce development needs will continue to evolve. I think the cost of education is something that people are paying greater attention to. And so they're really thinking deeply Do I really need this credential to be able to get this job? So I think it's going to be incumbent upon us to make sure that we're very supportive in terms of helping students understand what their options are. So I know that I didn't answer that question fully. But I'm telling you what, what sits on my mind, more so than not, as we think about this work, I am happy to see that there's a lot of, you know, senior level leadership positions, looking at students success overall at institutions. And they're thinking beyond, you know, just horse registration in terms of the way that we're operating on our campuses. I'm hoping that we'll continue to see us moving beyond just being a strategy for retention and persistence. That's what I'm really hoping that is not just about keeping students here. But I also understand the reality that institutions that are businesses, and they need to keep the lights on. So my thing is, there's a tension there that we also can't ignore.

Matt Markin  
Yeah. And, and you just saying that? I've, I don't even know if it's a question, but more so a comment. And maybe there's some answer for this, but the retention part, right, you know, you have, you know, less students coming in, so, or possibly less students coming in, or new students coming in. So that impacts the enrollment numbers. But you know, a lot of institutions, it's, they need to have a certain amount of enrollment, or they might lose money. So you sometimes you know, you, you're reviewing grades, at the end of a term, there are students that you might be looking to say, you know, this student might need to be dismissed or put on, you know, take a break. And then, you know, we don't want them to dig themselves in the hole they can't get out of, but we also overall, our enrollment numbers are down. So if we dismiss for this number of students, then our enrollment goes down another certain percentage points, then you might have administration says, let's keep these students and then now, maybe for the short term, it's like, great, we have our enrollment numbers are close to it for the fall semester. But there's probably a trend of those students may continue to dig themselves into a hole and not doing well, even with the support services. And then it just goes into this cycle. You know, so are we doing more harm to the students doing it that way?

Melinda Anderson  
No. I mean, it's a powerful question. You know, Matt, because oftentimes, you know, from it, when I think about what the your your statement kind of question from an ethical standpoint, right, you know, should we be giving consideration to those things when we find ourselves, right? How do we best support the student and we know that sometimes people do need to take a break, or sometimes, you know, you were just, you were trying to do too much in this one particular semester. And so you know, some things had to be sacrificed. And sometimes maybe that's the class, I think, we can't necessarily think about bottom lines, when we're thinking about what's best for the student. I've seen a lot of students who sometimes they were like, Thank you, I needed to sit down, I needed to step away from school, I wasn't focused. And I might have just kept wasting a lot of money, because so much of their identity as a college student is tied to who they are as a person, right? So the idea of like, if I'm not in school, who am I? And so it feels very scary, right to this idea of being dismissed. But then when you think about reframing it for the student and saying that sometimes you need to take a break to refocus. Sometimes you need a break to just take a moment to figure out how to you realign your priorities for what it is that you need. But then you're right, from an institutional perspective, are they thinking about that in relationship to overall enrollment goals, I have been fortunate to work at institutions that didn't necessarily make me feel like that. The enrollment goals that were always set at the institution, they were continuing to grow in such a way that I think that they accounted for, you know, whatever that percentage was of students that we lost, either through stopping out or transferring and everything like that. And so I think healthy enrollment management plans account for that. And so I think, but it's a great question, right? So the dilemma that maybe some advisors are out there are facing right now saying, Can I really recommend this or is it going to be overturned? Or, for example, are there other institutional policies that allow students to continue too long, and then those students do find themselves in debt with no credit and then they can't even transfer because you know, they don't have the GPA to be able to To transfer and so then they find themselves in a lot of debt with not a lot of credit. So I think it's an important question that we're always asking ourselves as we move forward in this work. So I love the fact that you raised it, because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that either experiencing it or maybe feel that way. But I always would say that a good enrollment management plan takes into account the the about the level of attrition that you might be seeing through different vehicles, by transfer and such, that there is a level of growth, that's always being able to replace what your attrition might be.

Matt Markin  
Another thing you already you're talking about changes, you know, change always happens. And one that always seems to happen to terminology is constantly. It's quite frequent in higher education. You know, let's say, for example, moving away from saying special populations or not academic probation, but instead academic notice moving away from professional advisors to primary role advisors, what are your thoughts on one terminology, change, language changing, but also the language catching up with the work that we're actually doing? 

Melinda Anderson  
You know, I love the way that you frame that because it is so true, it is so true, Matt, we had, I think, I can't remember the campus that I was on. But I remember talking to my team at the time and saying, you know, we have been wanting this particular spotlight for years, right in terms of people recognizing the value of our work and thinking about it differently. And not just saying, you know, looking at us just from an operational perspective, but looking at us in terms of how we can be involved with strategic planning initiatives of the institution, and how we can help contribute to the growth and development and the vision of the institution. And so we wanted that, but it also comes with a little bit of heat. But then at the same time, as you take on different spotlights, you know, the language that you're bringing, also evolves to because it helps people resonate quickly with the work that you're actually doing. So, you know, for example, when we say intrusive to proactive, advising people like intrusive, this sounds terrible. And then people are like, well, proactive, advising, and it's like, oh, and then it was oh, appreciative advising. And then people got confused, like, what is the difference? And it was like, well, there's different models and frameworks in terms of how we're doing this work. When I worked in residence life, you know, people would say, dorm, and I'd be like, Oh, no, it's a residence hall. because life happens here. You don't just sleep here. You know what I mean, you're growing, and you're thinking, and you're developing, and you're building relationships. And I think that that helps people give a better perspective of the work that you're actually doing. So I think it's great that our language is evolving holistic student success, right? It's a catchphrase that people are saying now. And I shouldn't say catchphrase, it's a phrase that people are saying, now to really define holistically the work that we're doing in terms of looking at the entire student's life. But I would say that advisors have been operating that way for years, right, but then they're labeling it, labeling it either, you know, intrusive or proactive. But you know, we were always understanding the history that a student was coming from, or the challenges that they were facing when they went home or financial, you know, implications of the decisions that they were having to make at the time. And so for example, when students graduate across the stage, and we have real tears in our eyes is because those are real tears, you know, we knew what it took for that student to get all the way through, right. And so holistic indeed, is how we were always operating. So I am glad that there is language that's catching up to really reflect the work that we're doing. I hope that people continue to contribute to the field. And this is, you know, Matt, we talk about this all the time, like the weight the reason why I love this podcast, oh, and by the way, I am wearing the shirt, look at me wearing the shirt adventures in advising, right, and we're, you know, I'm branded out. The reason why this work is, you know, your podcast is so important to the field, we need to do a better job of publishing our own words, we need to do a better job of putting our thoughts and our voices out there because we're the ones doing the work, and not letting other people speak and write on our behalf. And I love seeing you know, all the students that graduated with their doctorates this year and advising, I love seeing, you know, anytime I see these masters students coming through and thinking about, you know, student success work or Student Affairs work, I love to see it because we're definitely a part of the vision and the health of any institution. But then when you think about our backgrounds and academic disciplines, sometimes we're not writing as much as we should. We're not publishing as much as we should. And so this is my call to everybody who's listening, that those in the field are like, I don't know if I can write or maybe it's not me, or maybe I don't have the chops. You do have the chops, you know, and that didn't you just publish something. 

Matt Markin  
So Cheri Sousa is going to be a guest on this episode and a little bit Uh, yeah, we we wrote for academic advising today. And we wrote about the advisor wellness grant that the Stupski Foundation did. And kind of the what's the innovative ideas that have come out of it? But I will say with writing, I was one that was years ago was like, Oh, that's not me. And part of it, I think me personally was I looked at it as like, well, I don't see anyone, the people that are publishing, I don't know, if they're the ones that are the ones doing the actual work, you know. And so, but I took it as a challenge. It's like, well, then, let me try to do something. The issue, and maybe this is with other advisor professionals, too, is like, well, I don't even know where to get started with it. You know, am I writing something on my own? Am I trying to collaborate and work with others on it? And but I also think the piece also might be the length of time it takes to publish something scholarly. And the it's not a guarantee that it gets published.

Melinda Anderson  
No, Matt, thank you for highlighting. This is why I I adore Matt guys, because he's like, that's a great point. Melinda, however. And you know, you're absolutely right, Matt, when I didn't see anybody like me doing work like me, that was writing. So that was intimidating, right? It was like faculty who were in student affairs, right, where I went to school and got my masters. And when I got my doctorate, they were publishing, they were writing books, right. But I was in the field, I was practitioner, I was the front line, I didn't see people like me writing. And you're right, it does take a while. And then there's no guarantee, right? That somebody's going to accept your manuscript and your publication. And what I loved about NACADA is that they would set up workshops, they had groups, they were like, you know, hey, this is what it means to, to be involved in this work. And this is what it takes to be published. And you too, can do this right. And so I feel like that was a really great opportunity for anybody who was maybe had doubts, like, Well, where do I get started? How does this look like? And it doesn't have to be for like, you know, Psychology Today, like, who, who am I, you know, writing this for, they really kind of took you through those steps. And so I appreciate those workshops that I attended, and I appreciated the colleagues and the mentorship that showed me, you know, this is how you can get this work done. And this is how you make writing a habit. Because you're absolutely right, man, it does take some time. But what it does for you as a practitioner in the field, is that it helps us solidify your beliefs, it helps us solidify your philosophies, it helps you think through, you know, the way that you were building initiatives on your campus, and then you can speak to the data, and being able to say, I know that this works, because right, I know that this has an impact because and so it just kind of tightens you up in those particular areas, which I've always appreciated when you know, you find yourself, you know, talking to administrators, and you're trying to help them understand why you need to upgrade your language, stop calling it that we need to call it this, because of this, you know what I mean? It just helps to really give you strong justifications for why you need to be operating differently in the field. And then, more importantly, on your campus. So I just I appreciate you uplifting, you know, some of those challenges that people run into early. But I would continue to encourage people to write write, write your, the field needs your voice. 

Matt Markin  
And, and someone pointed out to that, you know, a lot of times, you know, yes, we have a lot of academic advising journals and spaces to write, which is like, please continue to do that. But also, it's, we also need to publish outside of our bubble. You know, everyone else understand what we're actually doing, what the work is, and how important it is.

Melinda Anderson  
Yes, I would agree. Because I think that it's easy to kind of say, well, these folks get me. And so I agree with you. But I think that you're absolutely right. It's it's about broadening the circle of concern in an academic space about the work that we're doing. Because oftentimes, unless people really understand what you're doing, they're gonna have misconceptions. And so you can come in and you can help people understand like, No, this is what the work looks like. This is how we're showing up. These are the things that we need to be supported with. And then also you're learning and growing to when you're in those other spaces and seeing how those dynamics can actually sharpen your skill set and how you show up as a practitioner to.

Matt Markin  
I know we have more interviews on this episode, and you're going to be joining us back in a little bit for us to interview Jen Nguyen and Cheri Souza. Melinda, thanks so much.

Matt Markin  
As we celebrate episode 100 And as we continue our interviews for this episode, I like to welcome back a past guest of the podcast and that is Dr. Ann Bingham from University of Southampton. Last time Anne was on the podcast was way back at episode 22 titled listening leadership and best practice and his co host In this episode, and we'll be interviewing our next guest. But before we get to that, and November of 2020 was when episode 22 came out, how have you been? 

Ann Bingham  
Where did that time? 2020 just feel like, I guess, Adventures in Advising was entirely days wasn't a hit. It was yes, I remember that so well, because we were obviously locked down. I was sitting in my kitchen, trying to find a blank piece of wall so they didn't stack. And of course, we had column with us. Yeah, so it was really, really good. Since then, things have been amazingly busy. We've got involved in all sorts of new projects. I'm still working very closely with you, cat and doing all that kind of work. And of course, that's how I met Josie. So yeah, we're really, really excited to be doing this one today. 

Matt Markin  
Well, I'm excited for you to be here. And I'm excited to be listening to this interview. So I'm happy that you're back. Happy that you're joining us for episode 100. Thank you so much for guest hosting. And I'll turn it over to you.

Ann Bingham  
Thank you very much, Matt. Josie, welcome.

Josephine Gabi  
Thank you. Thank you, and, and thank you for the opportunity to share my story.

Ann Bingham  
I am so excited about your story, Josie. This is something the whole world needs to know about. I think, since we met, we met about maybe three, four years ago. And it's just been such an exciting time. And I think we've been on quite a journey. But I really want to do to come on here really to talk about this amazing work that you're doing. But I wonder if we could just start off, you know, if you could tell us a little bit about you. But tell us how are you? What was your journey into higher education?

Josephine Gabi  
Yes, yeah, I am a reader or associate professor. In some institutions they call read as associate professor. So I'm a reader within the School of Education. Here. It's Manchester Metropolitan University, and I've been at Manchester met since 2003, from undergraduate to PhD, so I have a strong sense of connection with my University. I'm also an academic co chair of the rest of network at Manchester, and a chair of the UKAT Equity and Inclusion SIG and the UK black awarding gap network, where I advanced co creation is a humanizing and epistemically liberating pedagogy that facilitates relational agency inclusivity, justice, and reconceptualizing the ontological and epistemic foundations that informs our practices. My scholarly ethos is a set of principles and a deeply ingrained commitment to solidarity, which is a strategic tool for challenging the matrix of domination and maintaining that critical stance towards envisioning an emancipatory futures. This, for me is a commitment to collective action and my contribution to the broader discourse of social justice and societal change. I am particularly driven by a strong belief in fostering an inclusive and dynamic learning environment where every student can strive whilst also championing academic freedom. I'm a strong protector of our academic freedom. 

Ann Bingham  
It's absolutely amazing that you so much, and you have such a passion for this Josie. And that passion comes through, I think, in every conversation we've ever had. And you know, I'm just so proud to be able to work with you. Tell us a little bit about that project. I know you're working on this big project across the UK institutions. Tell us about that. 

Josephine Gabi  
Thank you so much. I think we've had this conversation previously. And I'm quite pleased you're asking this because this is a really important project I'm passionate about. I am currently working on a cross institution research project as the principal investigator, and collaborating with colleagues on the potential role of personal tutoring, to contribute to narrowing the awarding gap for Black and Asian students. And our refer to these students as racially minoritized students, I intentionally use minoritized to acknowledge the active processes that are involved in differential allocation of power and domination and also recognizing the ways in which these groups of students tend to be pushed to the margins in higher education and in society as well. I do not know If this gap exists at all, for recently minoritized students in other parts of the world, particularly in higher education, but in the UK, despite racially minoritized students entering higher education with similar entry qualifications to their white counterparts, they are more likely to leave the university with a lower degree classification. This discrepancies various names as we know it within the literature. It is sometimes called ethnicity awarding gap, and sometimes racial equity gap. But what we know is that this gap persists. And despite gaining considerable attention from policymakers, and scholars, it is implications for students entering graduate level jobs or progressing to postgraduate courses. So we felt the need to do research in this area because there is a need for us to think about comprehensive strategies that can transcend the conventional approaches and boundaries to achieve systemic change. So far, what has been happening in higher education in terms of conversations about the awarding gap efforts have been to narrow the awarding gap for racially minoritized students, but predominantly just focusing on decolonizing the curriculum that is been the dominant feature, which is vital and my work also contributed a lot in that respect. But it is also crucial to recognize the role of personal tutoring is a pivotal and often in underestimated role in addressing the awarding gap. So, personal tutoring plays a significant role which is so regular in continuing contact between the students and institutional staff. It can also provide students with a joined up experiences we know and that also enables them to navigate an ever changing academic landscape, especially on a global stage. We are now in a globalized stage, which is makes it more important. So our cross institution research project considers personal tutoring to be a potential catalyst for racial equity, and an antidote to the racial awarding gap. We were also thinking about how personal tutoring can be effective in narrowing not closing, and if we are yet there to talk about closing, but it's about narrowing the awards in gap. Effective personal tutoring needs to encompass cultural humility, relational equity, radical openness, and a pedagogy of listening to students diverse knowledges histories and aspirations.

Ann Bingham  
There is so much to unpack there, Josie. I mean, you make it sound. I don't know. You make it sound. This is so obvious. You know, and of course, for those of us who have been working on closing this gap foot mark for some time now. Do you get the sense that we keep having the same conversations?

Josephine Gabi  
Yeah, we do. It's it's it's been a constant process of talking about the awarding gap. But what we've realized what I've noticed for so many years, and within my institution and other institutions as well, personal tutoring is never been considered in its potential to contribute to narrowing the awarding gap. Most of what we've been talking about is what can we do in order to decolonize the curriculum, and this is important, but if we think about the pivotal role of personal tutoring, there's something there that we can do, in order to make use of the personal tutoring role to narrow the awarding gap.

Ann Bingham  
That is, it's music to my ears. As you know, here, I'm responsible for coordinating the personal tutor training. And there was nothing about this in the training until we started talking. And you either think, right, okay, we're not getting this right yet. Yes. You know, what, and it's not for the lack of goodwill is it there are lots of we have lots of colleagues who want to help they want to support not quite sure how to do it. So this is why I think your, your project, working across institutions, is just gonna have such an impact on so many people, not just the students themselves, but the tutors and the people like me who advise tutors, it's going to have an impact across the board and it's just such an exciting time. Because you can sense a shift in what we're doing. I'm I think I've just think that's amazing. Can I ask a little bit more about that? I'd like to see, can you tell me a bit? Getting that engagement? It can't have been easy getting that engagement with the other institutions. And there must have been challenges. Can you tell us a little bit about those because I'm sure other people are going to want to know about this.

Josephine Gabi  
Oh, yes. It's not something that is easy to work across institutions and to try to look at an aspect that has been overlooked for so many years. And in aspects that we are all grappling with in higher education. So I worked with a colleague from the University of Swansea and Hassan Braddock and Andrew Ross on with the CEO on access UK, to share a call for expression of interest to colleagues in various UK higher education institutions. We shared this through various professional networks. And our efforts paid off, I was quite pleased, and we were quite excited we received an overwhelming response 56 colleagues from 23 UK institutions expressed their interest in participating in this cross institution awarding gap. So the awarding gap for Black and Asian students is such a pressing concern in higher education. And it wasn't a surprise that we had so many colleagues interested within these institutions. I must also mention that this is not the only awarding gap that we are grappling with in higher education. If we scrutinize our data carefully, there could be several, we have students who are faced in their families to study at degree level in higher education, we've got K experienced students is estranged in students from vocational backgrounds. That is why although we are focusing on racially minoritized students as part of this project, we also acknowledge the existence of other awarding gaps and intersectionality is also important to consider as part of this. And that's what we've been focusing on. By focusing on the role of personnel to setting we tapped into a very critical area that many institutions are keen to explore and to also address. So working on this, each institution operates within unique their unique contexts, and with also varying resources, policies and research ethics, its expectations and student demographics as well. So aligning our research to accommodate these differences was while maintaining aqueous even project that is also challenging and important. We also thought about this because whatever we aim to do is going to be context specific. That is why it is important whilst we are talking about something that is happening across higher education institutions. But it's also important to realize that institutions are different. My university is a post 92 institution is not a Russell Group institution is not research intensive. We focus more on learning and teaching. So that context is also important and dissimilar to all the other higher education institutions participating in this project. So despite all the challenges that we encounter is part of our project. I want to also say that our project is both impactful and inclusive in that respects. The commitment and collaborative efforts that have been reached this project in bringing together diverse perspectives and also expertise from the team within the core investigators. It also helped bring those diverse ideas into conversation in order for us to think about strategic ways in which we can bring change in higher education and also enhance our personal tutoring practice. So in this engagement, it is not only advanced our understanding so far of the role of tutoring, in addressing awarding gaps we published a journal article in the British Educational Research Journal, which also helped us understand the current issues in higher education, which also helped us have that broader understanding of personal tutoring in different institutions because it looks different in each and every institution. It is also fostered a community of practice committed in to equity in higher education and I would like to honor my colleagues and CO investigators in this important and truly, truly collaborative projects.

Ann Bingham  
That is incredible. I'm I'm not surprised why's that you've got so much buy in. But I mean, for our fellow colleagues in the US who are listening to them, when we talk about personal tutoring, you you may know it as academic advisor. And so it's a different process. But you know, at the end of the day, we're all responsible for, for trying to get to give our students the best possible opportunities to succeed. And I think this is Josie. This is why what you're doing is absolutely amazing. 

Josephine Gabi  
It's I wanted to say it's important because although colleagues in higher in in the US may know, this is academic advising, some institutions in the UK do not even recognize this now tutoring the US whether they make advising, that's something we learned as part of this cross institution project, whilst in my institution, we call them personal tutors. In other institutions in the UK, and mostly in Russell Group institutions. They call them academic advisors, good personal tutors, essentially interesting.

Ann Bingham  
And I'm currently working in Russell Group University, and we have personal academic tutors. So no, it's the personal tutoring. And you know, it's about putting that the academic into academic tutoring. It's interesting, because I think it also, in the UK have a lot of a lot of institutions have now got separate herbs for students to go to, if they have pastoral problems. But as a personal tutor, or personal academic tutor, you cannot remote in my view, and it's my opinion, you cannot separate out the pastoral from the academic sometimes. Josie, you must have come across that. 

Josephine Gabi  
First of all, when we work with students, we first of all view them as humans, before we talk about students. So that's the separation, you can't you cannot separate the two, you're working with humans first.

Ann Bingham  
Absolutely. And it's just so to combine all of those things I'm really interested in, in those that must be challenging for the project when you have very, they're very many models, as we know of personal tutoring, academic advising, personal academic tutoring, and the myriad names that those know those roles are, but also in the way that they operate. You know, I know myself from the work that I've done, that they are many, many models, a personal tutor. And so trying to develop I think the one thing that you've done with this project, and one of the things that, that we've number one, there's no such thing as a one size fits all tutoring program. And it would be foolish to try and create that, I think I'm happy to say I think we're all a lot more enlightened in that sense in the 21st century.

Josephine Gabi  
Absolutely. So in addition to not try to, to look at institutions differently, we also have programs in different program expectations. I am in education, but I'm not in teacher education. So colleagues in teacher education, have also got external expectations from Ofsted as well that we don't have on our program. So in addition to looking at how personal tutoring is different in different institutions, we've got different faculties and also different programs that personal tutors and even academic advisors will need to take that into consideration as part of their advising and tutoring to make it more effective.

Ann Bingham  
Yeah, I totally agree. Josie, I was at the last few cat conference. And I saw you pick up the CEO award this year. And now we called you into the room you absolutely once expected that. How did that feel?

Josephine Gabi  
Wow. Yeah, I remember that. You sent me a message. I was even in the room. I was preparing for a session for my colleague who couldn't be there. That's when I got the message and then thinking, Oh, what's going on? So for me receiving the Outstanding Contribution to personal tutoring award this year has been such an immense honor and deeply meaningful recognition of my efforts and dedication as both the chair of the UK Equity and Inclusion special interest group, as well as the principal investigator for our cross institution research project on the potential role of personal tutoring to contribute to closing the awarding gap. Although the award is such a personal accolades, I would say it's also a collective achievement. It's a celebration of our shared commitment to creating an equitable and inclusive higher education for all at the same time, it reinforces the critical role of personal tutoring in fostering student success and highlights the crucial need to innovate is the chair of the equity and inclusion see, I have worked tirelessly, you know that, um, to advocate for inclusive practices that ensure all our students thrive, this ROI has allowed me to champion diversity and foster a collective, inclusive culture within higher education institution in order to address the systemic barriers that our students encounter. And the award for me underscores the importance of these efforts in highlights the positive impact and dedicated personal tutoring, how that can also foster student's personal, academic and professional aspirations. I was also thinking about our research on the potential role of personal tutoring to closing the awarding gap, and how that is driven by such a commitment to understanding and addressing the disparities in student outcomes. So for me, this award feels incredibly validating and inspiring. It is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the equity and inclusion SIG members, as we continue to further explore how we can enhance student support systems to promote equity and inclusion in higher education, which it is what is in my heart, and I champion this every day is for me is the responsibility and not work.

Ann Bingham  
It's a passion, isn't it? It is and in? And as I said earlier, it's something that shines through in everything that you do. It's just amazing. Before we can this Josie, I'm sure this will be I'm sure this will be of such interest to so many people. As you know, in the UK, it's it's more than lip service, when we're all trying to get this wrong. We're all trying to do it. And we all have different approaches. And we're all trying new things. But this project feels very different to me. So if people wanted to get involved, or maybe they want to find out more about the work that you and the team would do it, what should they do? Is this it says something like is we have someone they can go and look, can I contact you tell us what they want, what they should do. 

Josephine Gabi  
I do invite members, you got members, oh naqada members who may be interested in being part of this in exploring how personal Tutoring and Academic Advising can support students and improve outcomes for all to join the UK Equity and Inclusion seek this is where all this work is happening and it's on the UK website. There's a link on the UK website for colleagues to click and register to become members of the UK Equity and Inclusion SIG or to also email me for any questions or any suggestions and my email is j dot Gabi Gabi g a b i abi@mmu.ac.uk. So on the UKAT website, there is also information about what the equity and inclusion SIG is. So the SIG aims to provide a space for personal tutors and academic advisors to reimagine advising and visualize its potentiality for transformation by putting theory to practice and also promoting it typically just scholarship and increasing professional development opportunities that align with principles of equity. We also as a seek acknowledge that we inhabit in inequitable worlds in that effective advising and tutoring will also depend on empowerment and Praxis principles, which respect and engage students varied perspectives and backgrounds. So for advisors in suta, tutors personal tutors, these need for in that ethical responsibility to contribute to student success by identifying and implementing equitable and inclusive practices as a cig, we also recognize the potential of advising and tutoring to intentionally champion equitable and inclusive higher education institutions in ways that ensure students develop that sense of authentic belonging. And I highlight authentic belonging, because it is so important. It is not about trying to force students to be who they are not. It's about having that authenticity in their belongingness in higher education and also mattering.

Ann Bingham  
That is music to my ears. It's not about students having to fit in a system that already exists. It's very much about them genuinely feeling that sense of belonging. You don't have to change yourself to belong, if we're doing it, right.

Josephine Gabi  
Yes, absolutely. It's not a one size fits all.

Ann Bingham  
No, Josie, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. It's always great to sort of hear what you're up to what your latest developments are on the project. And I can't thank you enough for joining us here today.

Josephine Gabi  
Thank you so much for having me, Ann.

Matt Markin  
Hey, there, the 100th episode of the podcast continues. Let's welcome back Melinda Anderson, who is joining me to co host this interview. Hey, Melinda.

Melinda Anderson  
Hey Matt.

Matt Markin  
And Melinda I know, we've talked about so many different topics impacting not only students but also advisors and advising professionals. And one of the topics we've chatted about before has been advisor wellness. And last year in Episode 77 of the podcast. That episode was about advisor wellness and burnout, and also a grant initiative aimed at helping advisors with wellness and helping to combat burnout. And we thought it would be great to bring back the to the podcast, those two amazing individuals and talk about this topic and what has come out of their advisor wellness grant initiative. So let's welcome back our friends from the Stupski Foundation. We have Jennifer Nguyen, the director of post secondary success, and also Cheri Sousa, the Hawaii post secondary Success Program Officer, Jen and Sherry, it's been far too long. How are you? 

Cheri Souza  
Great, Matt, it's good to see you. And congratulations on the 100 super excited to kind of hear the podcast and always wonderful seeing you, Melinda.

Jennifer Nguyen  
And just wanted to say thanks for having us back. It's a pleasure to be here again. And I'm doing really well and very excited about this conversation too. 

Melinda Anderson  
And then what a fitting way right to celebrate the 100th episode with talking about something that has been so critically important and close to all of our hearts. 

Matt Markin  
And for those listeners that maybe this is the first time hearing about Stupski Foundation, the grant initiative, and maybe they missed out on episode 77. Let's maybe recap from last year's interview, you know, what was the Stupski advisor wellness grand initiative and maybe even kind of going into what were some of the innovative ideas some of the advising teams?

Cheri Souza  
Sure. The Stupski advisor wellness initiative was a two cycle grant initiative really aimed at academic advisor wellness and for advisors throughout NACADA region nine, each of the grants were about $30,000. And we required the teams on the campuses to come up with their own it really advisor led initiatives to increase wellness in their campuses, it was really important for us to have those ideas be advisor, source and advisor lead. And so that was definitely one of our priorities. The initiative was dreamed up as Jen and I noticed challenges and advisor retention and recruitment, as well as really hearing about the challenges of burnout, compassion, fatigue that was happening happening across campus. We also felt that grantmakers and institutions as a whole were under investing in academic advisors and wellness. And around this time, when we launched the initiative in 2022, national studies were talking about, you know, the high number of institutions having trouble recruiting for open positions, as well as a number of higher education staff, indicating that they were likely to look for jobs in the new year. So in 2022, and then again, in 2023, we're really fortunate to roll out the steps key academic advisor wellness grant initiative across the NACADA region nine. And you know, in partnership with NACADA, we're really fortunate to have amazing institutions apply and we're really lucky to award 24 institutions awards, ranging from you know, California, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada, for a total of about 600,000. And over those two years. 

Matt Markin  
And also could you share about like maybe some with those institutions, were there any advice or innovative ideas that some of those institutions had that you might be able to share?

Cheri Souza  
Sure, the University of Haaii at Manoa team built upon their program. And they were really wondering, you know what they could do to proactively combat advisor burnout, burnout and attrition. So they focused on the professional environment and the strengthening of community through a series of activities that targeted mental, physical and spiritual aspects of self. And something that really stood out to me was the intentional decision to include folks as families in some of the events and so they defined family as however folks wanted to define that. So whether it be your, you know, immediate family, or a grandparent and neighbor, they invited people to bring those loved ones, those family members to the events to really see what advisors do, and to kind of meet their community. And they found that in doing so, it really enabled more participants to attend the events. Because sometimes, you know, if you have family obligations at home, you're not able to attend things in the afternoon or in the evenings live by saying, Hey, this is everyone's welcome. You know, they had increased participation. And they also realize that they created a stronger community of support, because they found that, you know, their family members or partners or neighbors, were able to find community and others who are there. And so that was something that was really exciting to me just really underscoring the importance of human connection, especially, you know, now, as you're moving out of the pandemic, and we're getting back to traditional life.

Jennifer Nguyen  
And just to add on to that response, I found that there were two themes, a very innovative initiatives that we funded one theme was the idea of campuses that notice that there is going to be a significant institutional change in advising, for example, maybe it's going to be centralization of advising and restructuring, or maybe it's gonna be decentralization, so going in the other direction, and that these advisors took the initiative to figure out what is going to be our voice, and how do we bring together advisors to be able to have a say, in those major changes, whether it be debriefing some of the conversations, were even just organizing themselves around those major changes, and to campuses that were able to proactively see these changes and try to organize themselves, where Chico State and San Diego State more recently. And then the other theme that came across is just the need for professional development for advisors across the board, whether it be people managing other advisors or advisors themselves. And so we saw an array of different kinds of pedagogies when it comes to professional development, from appreciative advising, which I know that NACADA definitely endorses to San Jose State, which actually decided to opt into a hip hop type of pedagogy to really take care of their advisors and provide more training that's more culturally aligned to the students and for the advisors. So those are some really exciting initiatives that we've been able to see through over the last couple years.

Melinda Anderson  
Well, you know, it says, I'm listening to you know, number one, hip hop, hello. Okay, so I just had to say that out loud. But when I think about, you know, Sherry, what you shared, and then Jen, you know, the idea of the need for community, right? So Sherry, even if it's this concept of, I'm bringing my family, and I'm able to talk about what it is that I do, there's a replenishing spirit that happens there, right, you know, because he reflecting on the work that you're doing, but then you're, you're strengthening your community, because you're expanding it. And then, you know, Jen, what you were saying around the advocacy part? And how does our voice show up in the work that we're doing, it gives agency back to what it is that you're doing, and how you're moving forward. And so and that's, that's just very invigorating in itself, right. When you feel especially as well as coming out of the pandemic, you know, that exhausted, you know, do I have any, you know, agency role, right, in terms of how my work continues to move forward. And that can really be a game changer, right? Especially if you're already you do what you love, but you just don't know what you're doing it for anymore, right? And so it gives you an opportunity to pause and reflect on that. So that's just wonderful to kind of hear how the works been moving forward. Do you still feel like this is an important issue in higher education, like, given the grants given how people are moving forward, given the fact that we're, I can't even believe it's been four years. When I talked to you about the pandemic, they're just like, Oh, you mean yesterday? And I'm like, Okay, now now, you're just trying to be funny. Do you still feel like you know, wellness, the spaces that you were able to create for advisors and campus communities? Do you still feel like that's an important issue?

Cheri Souza  
Most definitely, especially as we see the events and in some cases, violence that have been unfolding at campuses around the country, you know, in this time. Academic advisors really plays such a multifaceted role and the demands of these roles can really lead to high levels of stress and burnout if the advisors are not adequately supported, and so it was really our hope to to create those communities that you mentioned to create that support for them. Additionally, you know, The data shows that advisors and people in general who have a clear support system have that strong, you know, community and strong network are really better able to assist students more effectively. And, you know, has shown the quality of academic advising is linked to student student satisfaction, student retention, student and success. Academic Advisors are superheroes, you folks. I mean, you know? Yeah, I think definitely wellness is so important. And there's also that growing recognition of the importance of mental health and well being in the workplace in general. And that includes higher education. And I really think ensuring that advisors have access to mental health resources and support systems and wellness is really essential for their overall well being and to build their community. Advising, you know, addressing wellness is not only important, you know, just for the retention and recruitment of talented advisors, promoting wellness can really contribute to a positive change in organizational culture. And that's really what what excites me when we talk to some of the campuses is they're saying, you know, hey, my Provost, my president is starting to really listen a little bit more and starting to get excited about wellness. And, you know, I believe believe that when institutions are able to prioritize the well being of their staff, that leads to higher morale, increased job satisfaction, a greater sense of community, and really better overall institutional performance. So I definitely still believe, you know, maintaining and enhancing advisory, wellness should be a continuous priority for higher education institutions, to really ensure the overall success and well being of both advisors and the students that they serve.

Jennifer Nguyen  
And just to add on to that Melinda, something that you said, really resonated with me, and that's the idea of community being central and, and really important to wellness. And what we're finding his community takes so much time to build, especially post pandemic, in a hybrid working environment, with people coming back, but maybe they're coming back on different days of the week. So it's a question of, how do you create consistent community. And that takes a lot of time. And so that's why the investment is a long term investment, and not just a one or two year grant. There's something else that is really interesting, and that in philanthropy, we, we say something akin to culture eats strategy for breakfast. Yeah, we means like, you know, you can have a beautiful strategy and a bunch of initiative. But if people don't believe in it, or the culture isn't with it, then that strategy is going to die. And what we're finding is that it's going to take a while for the culture of wellness, to take roots for it to supersede the idea of strategic wellness that is endorsed very high up that might not be the most strategic forms of wellness, and it's premised on community and really centering advisors and the worth of advisors on our campuses.

Melinda Anderson  
Right, right. No, thank you. That's a that's a very strong point. And I love that quote, and sometimes I use it when I talk, because you're right. It doesn't matter how amazing your plans are. Right. If the culture in place, is it going to allow those efforts to be sustained? So in terms of the cohorts that have come through, what what is the encouragement around? How are they building sustainability around the new work that they're doing? What has that? What does that look like so far in terms of their sustainability plans for the future? Yeah,

Cheri Souza  
Sustainability has definitely varied by campus. And I feel like a lot of what's going to be sustained are the learnings. learnings are going to be what will have a continuous lasting impact on the campuses contributing really to the way that new initiatives are conceptualized and develops. For example, you know, going back to the human connection piece that we talked about Chico State, really learned how important human connection was, and found that their advisors really preferred group activities versus individual options. And so that's really changed the way that they're thinking about moving forward and thinking about planning other things is, you know, really keeping in mind the importance of that in person connectivity. We have other institutions who are thinking more about, you know, how to how to involve advisor voice and all of their initiatives, you know, folks for providing feedback that sometimes advisors don't have the most voice on campus, even when it comes to initiatives that they're implementing. And so a lot of conversations about what can they do to increase advisor voice.

Jennifer Nguyen  
And just to add on to that, you know, the one place where we really are trying to figure out is the financial sustainability piece. I think that's the piece that all of us are trying to figure out right now, especially with enrollment declining at quite a few campuses, some have actually jumped up in enrollment, which has been really exciting. But the result has been budget declines over the last couple of years, which I think our folks who are listening to this podcast might be experiencing. So we're really trying to figure out, you know, how can we make the business case for wellness to show that retention of advisors means that you don't have to spend money on recruitment practices on retraining people who are new to the campus and showing like the data on wellness means that students are also positively impacted by advisors who stay and who are consistent and a part of the culture of the campus. So that's the piece that we're really trying to work on right now, is that financial sustainability piece that would require some level of administrative advocacy, which a lot of our campuses are trying to engage in at the moment.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I know budget for sure. I know, a lot of colleagues, a lot of schools here in California kind of being told, you know, budgets not really looking good. And especially like you're talking Jen about the enrollment decline. And if that's going to continue on for, you know, the next, however, you know, how long that's gonna end up being. But I guess also, now that you've had two cohorts, you know, what are your personal thoughts or professional thoughts of how this grant initiative has gone? 

Cheri Souza  
My dream kind of going into this initiative was threefold. First, I wanted to provide the necessary funding to really empower advisors and giving them the funding that provided them the freedom to dream, and then the agency to really experiment, collaborate and explore what wellness meant to them. You know, having been a former academic advisor, that was just based on my experiences, sometimes you just can't dream, just, you know, talking about the budget challenges and things like that there's certain walls that you need to fit into. So I really wanted to empower advisors and encourage them to dream. Second, I really wanted to elevate the academic advising profession on campuses. Previous member of the community, I know firsthand experience with how advisors voices are sometimes excluded from the decision making process. And so it was really important that we gave advisors a voice and we let them lead these initiatives. And finally, I really had hoped that this initiative would offer a valuable professional development experience for advisors really, to talk to just last point, encouraging them to seek out additional opportunities to support their needs, and really not be afraid to lead with curiosity when things don't make sense. And so, you know, for me, personally, I think after the two cohorts, the cohorts told me met all of my hopes, and there's definitely you know, a lot of work that still needs to be done to influence campuses and and change that campus culture and increase the amount of funding that goes into wellness initiatives. But I think that, you know, advisors can really be on the front lines leading, leading the way for this charge, and really showing their campuses what it looks like to be healthy and well, and how important that is.

Jennifer Nguyen  
And just to add on to that I love this initiative so much. I mean, Sherry and I, our jobs is to check in with the campuses once or twice a year to see how things are going and to act as a reflection space for implementation of their plans. And the level of excitement that advisors feel every time they get on the call of being able to try something new and to innovate, something new, that's might be different from their day to day routine is just so exciting to hear, as well as the creativity that we get to hear on a regular basis from these group of advisors and campuses. I think what's most exciting to me, I know, we talked about, you know, budget enrollment challenges, but I truly do feel that there's a whole level of systems change that could happen from these grants, when it comes to being able to influence systems to be able to center wellness, not just at individual campuses, but on a Chancellor's Office level, at a state level, and that our advisors and our grantees are a big part of that, because they're implementing things. They're reporting back. They're communicating this widely to their campuses, and they're collecting data, and are encouraging us to collect data too. So I'm really, really excited about the future of these grants to be able to do larger scale systems change, because as Sherry mentioned, there's 20 Plus campuses here, that provides sort of a laboratory for being able to experiment and also show best practices to the field, which is what, you know, gets me up in the morning when I speak to the advisors about their projects. 

Matt Markin  
I do want to add to just from an individual standpoint, oh, sure. You were talking about like the professional development of these advising teams. And I will say for me, for sure, like the team on at Cal State San Bernardino, you know, and we received the grant from you all as well, we got so many new things that we had never been a part of, or been asked to be a part of, like being a PI on the, for this account, whole new world. And I have such a more appreciation of those that work on budgets and have to deal with all the paperwork that goes through it, but to be able to work with a team of other advisors and kind of in like you're saying kind of be creative. And what we're doing, I think has been beneficial. I want to say through our surveys we've done with with our advisors, they've been appreciative of every activity, every type of discussion, every professional development speaker, we've been able to bring through zoom for them. So to me, it's been definitely worth it. And I think the most important one in to share this story is we've never had an an academic advisor award on our campus. We've had a faculty advisor award since the 90s. And so to be able to create that award and one of our award winners ended up saying this made him feel like he was actually important to the university.

Melinda Anderson  
Oh, wow, that is so powerful, Matt. Oh, you know, because we know that work that we do is is important. But this, the ability to be able to recognize is what you're seeing right here. And so I think sometimes when, when people hear money, what we really need to be focusing on is impact, you know, the impact that we're making because of the resources. And so you know, Jen, earlier you, for me as an administrator, right? I thought about what you said about the case making, you know, the case making. And so I think sometimes we do get caught up in like, well, this is important. So it should happen. Institutions are a business, right? And I think, Matt, what you're speaking to is what is that skill set that we need to be able to articulate in a way that you're able to influence those, right, who are shaping the culture of your institution, right? So for example, if I'm able to make the case that the impact, right is going to be great. And that's why it's worth the investment, I need to be able to talk in a way that resonates right, with senior level administrators, right, so that they can continue to support the resources. And it's not just oh, this money could go somewhere else, no, this impact will disappear if this money moves somewhere else. And so I just I think that this is a very powerful opportunity that has, you know, many advantages, right? When you think about how academic advisors have been engaged and have been engaged on their campuses through these grant opportunities, so it's just exciting to hear more about the work, and how we need to continue to keep talking about it. So, you know, bringing you back and not just, oh, this is great guys, and then know, how did they go? And then where do we go from here? How are we leading forward? So, so this is just wonderful. 

Matt Markin  
I guess to kind of go along with that, you know, we've for Jen and Cher, we've heard from you about your like your personal professional thoughts on this. But what about from the advising teams that have gotten the grant? What's been the general feedback?

Cheri Souza  
I think, you know, like you mentioned, a huge learning process in terms of how to write for grants, how to be in compliance with your institutional grants office, your foundation office, there's a lot of learnings around that for all of our campuses. And I think one thing that stood out to me and that I'm going to share an example that you shared with me, I hope it's okay. But it was really moving, but it was edited out. I probably should have asked you, but moving from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance, which, you know, really made some teams and not just your team but reconsider the way that they perceived resources, opportunities and potential and I think, you know, the example I believe that you had shared with me was you folks wanting to purchase T shirts, right? Oh, do you want to share that? I can share it, but I think you just...

Matt Markin  
I'll let you share. And I can always chime in. Yeah,

Cheri Souza  
I mean, you know, just that was just such a great example to me was, you know, you folks who wanted to purchase T shirts, and there was just an internal conversation about do we buy the really nice high quality high thread count? I don't know, maybe $12 per shirt T shirts? Or do we buy the sale, ones that maybe have been $5 a pop, and I'm making up the numbers. But you know, there was conversation and folks for kind of split? Because some were like, No, we're, you know, we do really great work we did we deserve the higher quality shirts. And if we buy the higher quality shirts, people will read them. But then the flip side was like, Well, if we only spend $5 on the shirts, and we can do so much more. And I think as advisors, we really learn to pick that dollar stretch. Because, you know, institutionally, sometimes advising just doesn't get as much funding, you know, as I think they should. And so to hear so many campuses go through similar conversations about just how challenging was to really move from that scarcity mindset. And also for the advisors that they serve, you know, folks for sharing, I think it might have been your campus as well that people pre ate breakfast before coming to an event and breakfast, because you're so used to being given just, you know, try not to be rude. So used to be given just some pastries and coffee, you know, other campuses said, like, people when they came, they didn't realize that they were gonna, they thought they had to bring things like potluck style, which is great, but I think sometimes it's, it's, you know, why are you making a party for advisor wellness, and then you're asking everyone after work to go and cook food and then bring it back? You know, that mindset of scarcity to abundance was a challenge. And I'm hoping that people continue to kind of embrace knowing that there are opportunities out there and knowing that, you know, Jen and I are trying to look for funding options. I think that was something that really stood out to me. And I think the other part was a general awareness that funding doesn't always have to come from the institutionally institutional allocated budget, like there are other options ranging from community organizations, community partners to actual foundations with funding that can be allocated.

Melinda Anderson  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know what I think about that scarcity mindset, you know, if you if you haven't seen the opportunities or the possible abilities, right? You only know what it is that you've experienced. So I'm going to eat before I come here, because usually there's no food here, then you get here and there's bacon. And you're like, oh, maybe I was invited to the wrong meeting, right? But, but what I love what you're saying, Sherry is that being you know, campuses have been a part of this initiative, now have the confidence of saying, I've written a grant, it was awarded, I've done the work, I've reported back, we have outcomes that we can speak to that, then I can take to the next funder and say, This is what we were able to do with the investment. And so now we're looking for either sustainability, or we're looking to change, you know, our direction with this, these additional resources, right? Because now you're able to know how do you articulate that? How do you speak to that, but the confidence piece, right? It's so big in terms of thinking about, I don't always have to just settle, right, it's kind of what we're speaking to, for what it is that's been given to me, you know, I can create differently here and impact so many people, right, who give their heart every day to make sure that their students are successful, we can do that for ourselves. And we can build communities that strengthen the work that we do. And I think sometimes administrators want to do more, but they feel like I can't my hands are tied, right? And so then them seeing you, well, how about this opportunity? And then, you know, you're probably going to build coalition coalition's along the way, right, like, oh, we can do that. Okay, well, then what do you need from me? What can I do? How can I help with the reporting? You know, what I mean? Because when people want to want to be a part of winning teams, right, you know, I'm thinking about the Olympics, you know, in a couple of weeks, you know, but you know, people want to be a part of winning teams, right. And if you're a winning team, then I want to be a part of this team. I just, I just love how it's this domino effect, you know, that we're seeing?

Jennifer Nguyen  
Melinda, just to speak to what you're saying there, the dynamic that I'm noticing is that we wanted to give control back to the advisors. And Jerry and I were very, very specific about the initiative, that we were not controlling the way that funds were being used on the campuses that the advisors had full jurisdiction. And that was by design. And it was because we were noticing that during the pandemic, there were a number of factors beyond the control of many advisors that sometimes it felt uncontrollable, to be working on a campus and as an advisor, with the pandemic work from home, a lot of external circumstances impacting advisors. And so it was this level of saying, like, burnout is perpetuated from feeling like you don't have control, how can we give a small level of being able to have advisors dictate their own destinies, with these funds, and that they're making good decisions, really, really good sound financial decisions based on their previous history, and it's just something that I'd love to say directly to administrators everywhere, that when we give money, you know, to our teams, maybe having less strings, but with impact still at the center, I think it's possible, and that it's not a binary either or, that it's a there's, there's a path forward. And we've seen this happen, it sounds like 24 times according to Sherry with the number of grants that we've had out there. But I love what you stated that it's a level of trying to make sure that we give control back to the folks who are directly impacted, and who are also giving direct services to our students.

Matt Markin  
And I think a lot of that connects to, you know, yes, building the community, but also kind of building the trust, or getting back the trust, you know, because I'm not sure, you know, we had talked about like, the breakfast. So like our first our kickoff event, we had a full spread, and we had told the advisors, pancakes, bacon, eggs, everything. And yeah, we had a couple advisors after that event come up to us and say, you know, hey, we had we actually ate breakfast, because we didn't actually think there was gonna be this full spread was gonna be, you know, some muffins and coffee, and then we're still be hungry afterwards. And I think after that event and knowing it's like, yeah, we said, what was what was gonna happen actually happened? Then they, okay, now we believe you now we trust you. And everything that we've done. And I think a lot of the advising teams probably have done as well as like, they asked their advisors, what do you want? This is our money, how do you want it spent? And, you know, even like, the T shirts, you know, again, we're used to stretching that dollar as long as we can and holding on to the money because we don't know if we're gonna have it. But I think we kind of remember from the orientation that we had in Portland, and you know, it was reminding us okay, well, Jen, and Sherry said, you know, dream big, and hey, this is the money we have use it. And I was like, Okay, let's get that better quality shirt. But we also included our advisors in terms of like, well, we're gonna get a shirt, how do we design it? Give us your ideas, and let's put it all together and have a T shirt that's been created, you know, for us by us. And I guess kind of leading into that, you know, you know, we're talking about funding, but of some of these ideas that advisory teams have had, can these be implemented if one doesn't have access to funding or has very limited budget? 

Cheri Souza  
Definitely. I mean, you know, just I think the easiest thing is taking advantage to campus resources, so a handful of campuses were able to really leverage wellness facilities or programming that already existed on campuses. But then they're able to work with those departments to have them expanded and offered specifically to advisors. So that also includes your administration. So I would say, you know, communicate with your administrators to have an administrative advocate on your side who's willing to champion wellness, because we talked about earlier, once you build that community, you have your strong community of, you know, these great rabid fans about wellness. And then you have, there's more strength in numbers, right. And you have that if you have the data to back things up. And so you know, Melinda, you can talk to that point as well. You know, it's especially helpful if you can gather data to backup, you know, your wellness initiatives. And, really, that's kind of just helps advocate for more resources on campus. I think another one another, learning that one of our campuses had was really reviewing and understanding the metrics their institution was using to evaluate the advising department. And I think about this one, because what it allowed them to do was free up time, they realize that they were, what they were offering to students was not what they were being evaluated on. And so then they step back to really reassess their own personal workloads. And, you know, as part of the grant, they realized that they were getting so many extra things that were not being measured by the institution. And that had inadvertently, you know, created a lot of work for themselves, that the institution just wasn't looking at, not to say it wasn't valuable, but the institution wasn't looking at, you know, those things when looking at performance based budgeting. And so they were essentially doing all these great things, but they were kind of falling short, and one of the other areas that institution was looking at. And so what that allowed them to do was to kind of create more spaciousness and their, their work to reallocate time to those metrics that the university was looking at, stopped doing some of the extras, but then it also gave them time to reflect on their strategy. And they were drafting something to then go back to admin. So for the next strategic plan, they say, you know, hey, this is really what's important to our students, is there an opportunity to be measured on this versus that and so I think that's something that folks may overlook, sometimes you just feel like, okay, this is what the institution's measuring us on, we're going to keep doing that, or they may not even know, because advisors are so passionate about helping students. And sometimes that passion can just encourage us to create all these different workshops and different opportunities and different things. But that, you know, oftentimes comes in a tool to the personal moments of advisor. So I think that's something that I really learned from that advising team. And then I think the last one, I would say is don't underestimate the power of community organizing. So advisors really, really deserve a voice on campus. I mean, there's no student success. Without advisors, I may be biased. But I truly believe that. And unfortunately, you know, so many times advisors are left out of that decision making process, which may translate into poor job satisfaction, high turnover, a lot of the challenges that we mentioned over and so we've really been able to see a lot of our teams develop advising councils with a clear process for liaising with the administration to ensure equitable seats at the table. So I feel that that community organizing piece definitely has a spot at the advice in table.

Jennifer Nguyen  
And just add to add on to Cheri's last point there, the community organizing can happen internally and externally. And one of the most popular things that we did with our cohort of 24 grantees is on upon request, campuses were like, can we talk to another campus, and I remember there was one instance where CSU East Bay out in Hayward, UC Berkeley, and Chico State all in Northern California got together and UC Berkeley campus and they had dinner. And what was really interesting about that, when they were co learning is they were able to figure out that some of the problems that they were internalizing and really annoyed about were not unique to their campus. So there's almost a therapeutic aspect of going, Okay, it's not just us, it's not just the culture of this campus. There's a systemic thing happening. So it's not just on us, but then they're also able to figure out their strengths as well. So CSU East Bay was like we were further along with wellness than we originally thought, or Chico State was like, well, we're actually counting and trying to centralize advisors really successfully, UC Berkeley was able to see that they had really strong professional development offerings and plans. And so it was also just a commiseration but an asset building exercise as well. And so for anybody who even doesn't have a grant, a good start would be internal extra organizing, just like Cheri just mentioned, but also reaching out to a campus that's similar to you. Whether it's within the CSU system, the similar system or a private campus and going can we just talk about wellness and being able to have a level of organizing externally that could really contextualize and validate the experience of advisors on that particular campus or your campus as well?

Melinda Anderson  
The peer learning piece, I just I just love to hear it, you know, because I'm thinking about some of the folks that we may know that sit on those particular campuses. And you're absolutely right, the when you realize that you're not alone in a particular, you know, challenge or if you're exploring an opportunity, just the power that can come from the synergy of those relationships, can really take you to the next level. And so sometimes we might tell ourselves, I don't have these resources. So, you know, I can't, I can't go to, you know, Mars, right, you know, like, I can't do it all. I can't make it big. So that that means I can't do nothing. And and we know that that sometimes it's not true, but maybe it's idea generation, right? Like, who can I sit with that kind of helped me think through what we're experiencing, or just normalizing it? Like, yeah, we're all kind of going through that right now. And so, we this is what we've been doing to manage to get by. But then again, if we keep coming back to community, and so I just love hearing, you know, when you both are responding to that particular question, I was just like, here we are, we're talking about how the power of community again. And so what I just, you know, hope that we give hope to those who, you know, I didn't get a chance to participate in the grant, you know, what can this mean, for me in terms of thinking about it wellness on my campus, you know, just hearing how encouraging it can be that, you know, with or without funding opportunities, sometimes you can make a difference on your campus and definitely in your community.

Jennifer Nguyen  
Yeah, it's so good to community build, it's also amazing to see the level of creativity in the community to work around big challenges. So one concrete example was there's a travel ban in in California to use public funds to travel to certain states. And it was amazing how some campuses in our cohort, were able to figure out creative solutions to that. And they were able to then inform other campuses who felt like they were reaching sort of a barrier with traveling certain states. And so it's little things like that we're just having a line of communication between different campuses is just so powerful in so many ways. And to your point, Melinda building community that's sustainable, and also resilient, in a job that can be really, really challenging at times.

Matt Markin  
And I know, having those conversations, some might seem as might be difficult to have, and I know and last year's interview, you had suggested maybe doing an assessment of the climate culture on the advice of advising on the campus. And, you know, taking that to the administrators, and question for you is like, what advice would you have for, you know, an advising professional and advising team that wants to advocate for themselves, you know, maybe wants to do an assessment of that climate culture, but maybe they feel that doing that assessment might be seen as negative to, you know, from the administrators. Anything to any advice that you might have?

Jennifer Nguyen  
Just off the top of my head, just because there's a specific data sources that came to my mind is you could start externally, because there's a lot of publicly available information available to baseline things. So two resources that come to mind is I believe NASPA has a lot of datasets on student professionals and their wellness. And I also believe that the American Council on Education, which is the affinity group that brings together college presidents that has a survey, a poll survey that happens every single year where they survey college presidents from across the country. And the number one and number two issues that college presidents are concerned about is the wellness of students, followed by the wellness of faculty and staff. So there's publicly available information to make the case. But then I also think it's appropriate to do pre and post surveys of advisors of how they're feeling about their workloads, as well as seeing if you could do a departmental diagnostic of how people are feeling about their workloads, and how they're feeling about their work in general. And then using that same survey or diagnostic after you do some level of intervention or treatment to make a small case there. And I think that's less about, hey, everything is bad on this campus more about I have a solution, but I just want to test it out. What's the pre what's the solution or treatment? And then what's the post to be able to make the case? So those are a couple of mechanisms that we've seen, that our campuses have used on in our cohort. But Cheri, feel free to expand upon that, because I know that you have a couple of ideas as well. 

Cheri Souza  
I think it's just finding those allies. Also, you know, I think, Jen, what you mentioned is great, but finding those allies, whether they be on campus or through professional organizations. And then NACADA has the well being and adviser retention, advising communities, so finding those allies who can kind of help you brainstorm and if you can't find allies that you know, structural interest group, you know, like ask around, there's got to be more people on campus other than you, you know, we're passionate about wellness and once you can, you know, kind of mobilize folks you can brainstorm ideas and think about really how to better integrate wellness and just also recognizing it won't happen overnight. I think a lot of our campuses and hence felt discouraged when they saw cable you know, the enrollment the first time or the attendance, the first event wasn't that great, but things will happen, you just need to really plant the seeds. I really believe that this process involves some a support system, you know, sharing resources, really fostering that community dedicated to well being. And so sometimes you just need to plant the seeds, and those seeds are gonna take a while to grow. But when they do, it's gonna be really just going back to community, I think society has taught us you know, that sometimes you don't want to be like, you want the multimillion dollar house, you can be on top of a hill by yourself. But that's not what we need. You know, especially in advising, we thrive on that human connection and relationships. And so, just really, being able to work together, rely on each other, and, you know, ask leave of curiosity and ask for help ask for support when you need it, I almost leave looks worse, it's gonna happen, you're gonna end up where you started. And so if you don't ask, you know, you're missing an opportunity. 

Melinda Anderson  
Right, you know, I, I love both of your responses, because it's really about the framing of how you perceive the problem. You know, I think the delicate part sometimes if people perceive like, Oh, what do you think is wrong? Well, no, I didn't say that. What I'm trying to explore is how do we enhance create, you know, how do we expand upon what we're currently experiencing? As a community? And so I think you're writing about, you know, the idea of, like, Hey, I have an idea, let's see how it works, you know, is not this idea of like, how somebody can frame that in a complaint and, and charity, you know, to your point, like, you know, it's it can be external in terms of pure learning opportunities to help generate ideas in terms of how this work moves forward. And so it's just trying to encourage, you know, our audience who's listening to us to be thinking, you know, number one, this work takes time, but it is worth it anything worth, it's going to take time. And you're right, share, I love your mountain top analogy, because oftentimes people, you know, they think that's what it you know, this is what they think success looks like. And then you ask a lot of people who are there and they're like, no, actually, it's, that's not what success is, right? Because we you, right? We do, you know, crave human connection. And, Jen, I do love the sources that you share, because oftentimes, when I'm thinking about a problem, I do like to frame it around how other people have have framed it, you know, like, is this framing along the lines of what I'm thinking? Or am I thinking about something different, but at least it gives you something to start with, because sometimes staring at a blank page is terrifying. You know, so you show up to the table like, Okay, guys, we have a problem here, or, Hey, I have a solution. And it's just easier to start with something to edit right than starting with a blank page. And so I just I really encourage, if there is something that you want to examine Lee with curiosity, I know, we've heard that a couple of times. And so I just want to amplify that because you both have spoken to that lead with curiosity. And then the way that you frame what you want your experience to be, you know, to come from a positive space, because you're really trying to grow community, and you're really trying to make a different kind of impact on your campus.

Matt Markin  
And you know, now that the advising cohorts, you know, your two cohorts, I'm assuming majority have finished up their grant, or we'll be finishing up their grant soon. What happens now? What's the relationship with those advising teams and the subsidy foundation? Does it continue?

Jennifer Nguyen  
It does, it does, it does in different ways. So we actually surveyed almost all of our grantees, and we asked them beyond this grant, what do you need from us to make your initiatives successful. And the number one request was the development of a data set that goes beyond the 24 campuses, to show and make the case for wellness practices, and to really show why people need to invest more in wellness. So Sherry and I are really thinking about what that looks like, We welcome suggestions from the community on the types of data that folks need in order to make the case. So that's priority number one, the number two, and number three thing that we heard are pretty similar. And that's more CO learning opportunities, among campuses, and among our cohort. So we're gonna be hosting more events. And then we're also going to be linking up campuses even more, we'd be interested in hearing from other campuses to from across the country, if they have best practices that they would like to share out with our cohort as well, to be able to expand the learning community further and see if there are wellness practices that may not be in region nine, that could be employed elsewhere. So those are the next frontiers. And then sort of the whole frame behind this is how can we use all of this information, all the great energy, bring folks together to make a larger case through communications to the systems and powers that control the piggy banks and the money? And so that's sort of the the secret agenda that Cheri and I have as funders is how can we influence with of course in concert with our advisors, you know, how money is applied these to these interventions and to eventually sustain themselves for the long term.

Matt Markin  
And not to do a shameless plug, I promise spacious timing wise is how it came about. But anyone listening wants to learn a little bit more about some of the initiatives, check out the June edition of academic advising today. And you might see an article there from two of us on this call. 

Melinda Anderson  
I was gonna say that's not shameless. It's I think that's a really great way to provide resources that people need.

Matt Markin  
Thank you. And Jen, not to put you on the spot, but kind of put you on the spot. For those that are listening to the audio version. I'm holding up a book, Emerged 2023. So recently, Jen, your book that you're an editor on came out, I was hoping that you could share a little bit about this. 

Jennifer Nguyen  
Thank you so much, Matt. And I'm totally good with shameless plugs. I'm going to do one right now, actually. So last year, in 2023, I had the privilege of being a Lambda Literary fellow. It's a retreat that brings together emerging writers who are part of the LGBT community from across the country. And I was selected to edit and anthology of the work of about 75 people who participate in that retreat. And this means a lot to me one, because we're recording this during Pride of 2024. And the launch is actually happening this month. But also, I think, we're in a midst a lot of contentiousness around book banning, and what can actually be publicly available information from queer authors, and not just queer authors, but people of color authors as well, you know, in our libraries and our public schools. So I felt it was really important to lift up the voices of those authors, as an editor to the anthology. And so if folks are interested, they can find a copy of the anthology on the Lambda Literary website. And it's also my wellness practice, as well as to be able to support other writers and to write myself so just thank you so much for allowing me the ability to do my own version of a shameless but not so shameless plug. 

Melinda Anderson  
And you guys, please go get that book. And then let Jim know what your thoughts are. And so thank you so much for your work on that. I mean, writing is it's it's work, you know, so thank you.

Jennifer Nguyen  
No problem. Thank you.

Matt Markin  
So, so fantastic interview is great to have you both back on again to chat about the grant initiative. And we'll also make sure to include a link to the book in our show notes. Jen, Cheri, thank you for joining us again, on this podcast episode.