Investing in Excellence: A New Era of Advising at Ferris State - Adventures in Advising

This week on the Adventures in Advising podcast, Matt and Ryan sit down with Michael Zaborowski, Director of Academic Advising at Ferris State University!

Michael shares how Ferris State is transforming advising through a $500,000 grant, a groundbreaking collaboration with NACADA, and launching the new Center for Advising Excellence and Advising Fellows Program, designed to strengthen professional development, enhance student support, and build a unified advising community across Ferris State. 

Plus: Back to the Future, family adventures, and an on campus wedding!

Tune in to hear how strategic partnerships and innovative leadership are shaping the future of academic advising, as well as a dash of pop culture nostalgia!

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Transcript

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, hello there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of he Adventures and Advising podcast. My name is Ryan Scheckel. With me, as always is Matt Markin, how you doing today Matt?

Matt Markin  
Doing well, I mean, we're recording this in late October. People are listening to this now in November, but we're just a couple days away from the NACADA annual conference. So now it's kind of the get everything done before we leave, kind of timeframe.

Ryan Scheckel  
How about you? Yeah, I think there's all kinds of metaphors that apply to like the pre conference feeling. And I'm really looking forward to giving our listeners and viewers anyway an opportunity to reflect on where they were if they attended the conference prior to and how they feel afterwards. I'm trying to remember the after conference feeling, you know, just being so filled with everything and and all the ideas that I want to see put into play, as opposed to the stress that I'm feeling about, like I don't even know how to pack for this and, and all those pre conference feelings. It's, it's a funny little thing that we do that I think is worth being reflective of and considering in that. And, you know, we also have a chance to conference in other ways. I always like the idea of conferencing as a verb as much as a noun. And and, you know, just sharing ideas with colleagues and and new friends and people who do the work that we do around the world and in different places is such, such a valuable opportunity.

Matt Markin  
Okay, so the after conference feeling of being on that high of like I just came from the conference, I have a lot of ideas, yes, but it's also the I should have taken one extra day off because I do the recover before I come back to work.

Ryan Scheckel  
Are you saying we contain multitudes? Matt Markin, is that what you're saying? Yeah,

Matt Markin  
sure. Why not? But you were mentioning friends. So who do we got today?

Ryan Scheckel  
Oh, so excited to talk to. Michael Zaborowski, you know, there's, there's these times when you're like, I swear, I swear. We've been in the same room and and it's just a nice opportunity to connect those feelings of familiarity and and make things official. But hey, Matt, will you tell us a little bit about Michael as we get started?

Matt Markin  
Absolutely. So Michael is currently the director of academic advising at Ferris State University, where he provides leadership to a team of 17 primary role advisors. Michael also supports over 150 instructional faculty advisors across the university, while advancing institutional initiatives to strengthen student success. As part of a grant, Michael and team will form the Ferris center of or for advising excellence and initiate the advising Fellows Program. This is all connected to a comprehensive advising program review and partnership with NACADA, which I'm sure we'll chat about that they achieved last year. Michael's professional journey spans over 15 years in higher education with experiences at Michigan State University and Penn State University in advising, retention and student affairs leadership, and along the way, he has been honored with awards from NACADA and Michigan State University for excellence in advising and administration, and he continues to share his work through conference presentations and funded projects that elevate advising practices. And I'm sure he'll also be sharing some of that in this interview today. But outside of work, Michael is pursuing his EDD in community college leadership at Ferris State, where he's about a year and a half into that program. His wife Rachel is also an academic advisor at Michigan State University in the Department of Psychology. So advising is a shared passion in their household. Ryan, I think you can relate to that. Together, they are raising two wonderful children, hope, six and Emmett, four, who keeps life full of energy and perspective, especially Emmett, who bravely manages epilepsy and reminds them daily of resilience and joy when not focused on advising or doctoral studies, Michael loves spending time with his family and finding opportunities to travel. Recent adventures have taken them to Tennessee with Disney World on the horizon this winter and hopes of exploring Yellowstone next summer. He's also a huge Star Wars fan, a devotee to Back to the Future movies, and someone who enjoys attending Comic Cons whenever possible. These outlets help him stay grounded, inspired and connected, qualities that also shape his approach to advising and leadership as well. Michael, welcome.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, welcome, Michael. I've often thought that people might get the idea that the way to get on the podcast is to have an X Wing in their background.

Michael Zaborowski  
Well, I'll take that. Thank you. Both. So much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, well, of course, Matt, read your formal bio and and so many things to talk about in our conversation today. But what we like asking our guests, especially the first time they're on the podcast, is just to share, you know, their journey in higher education, what essentially is their origin story. So tell us a little bit more about you?

Michael Zaborowski  
I'll take you all the way back to Michael Zaborowski in high school, 2003 you know, I wasn't, I wasn't a well motivated student. When I was high school, I finished, I finished high school with a 2.5 and so my first venture into college was Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor. And it's, it's a place where I really found myself. I found that higher education was the place for me. I I transitioned during that during that first semester. It was just that opportunity to be excited for something that for what my future looked like. And so I got to take courses that I was interested in, but at the same time, I was not somebody who necessarily knew how to navigate the system. And so I often tell students that I was, you know, maybe humble enough during that time to say, Okay, I need to seek out support. And so right away, I remember one of the first things I did, not knowing what an academic advisor was, but saying I need to meet with somebody who can help me look at my courses and kind of navigate that process. And my plan was to transfer to Northern Michigan University. I wanted to get as far away from home, but allowed my parents to still pay for in state tuition, so I spent a little bit of time at Northern but it was too far, too cold, too much snow, and transferred to Michigan State, which is my undergraduate alma mater and my master's alma mater, and it fell in love with Michigan State from the moment I walked on that campus. And, you know, had a great opportunity, had a had a had a lot of chances to really succeed. While I was at Michigan State, it was a great place to be, to take advantages of so many opportunities. You know, it's one of those things, right, whether you're in a big institution and have all those opportunities to or you're in a small institution and you have, you know, direct access to faculty and and support services. I'm very much one of those people that buys into like you need to find the place that fits you best. So, you know, I finished my time at my I finished my undergraduate Michigan State, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and I remember sitting down with my academic advisor about two or three months after finishing my undergraduate, and saying, like, I just don't know where I want my life to go. And I'll give a shout out to Brian Egan, who was my advisor at the time. And we just kept going back and forth, like, what did you like while you were in college? What would you enjoy? And I had a few opportunities to work with some high school students and talk to them about, you know, talk to them about college, talking about the amazing things I was doing. And I explained that to Brian, and, you know, we kind of got to the end of the conversation, I go, Well, how do I do what you do? Because I think that's what I want to do. And that led my journey into academic advising. And so I did two years of my master's in Student Affairs at MSU. I was lucky enough to get offered an assistantship during my second year in advising in human development Family Studies, which became my full time job. Afterwards, I spent three years in human development Family Studies and moved over to the College of Education, where I had just an amazing experience. I I often say that if I was to go back to to to the role of an academic advisor, and I hope that I do someday, before retirement, that I love working with education students. They are, that's my jam, that's that's what I love to do. Once, I was in my fifth year, there an opportunity came up to apply for the Director of Student Affairs in the College of Nursing, and I threw my hat in, not thinking that I was anywhere near ready for that kind of role, but but excited to do so, and got offered that job. I remember someone telling me that they had somebody in mind for that position. I remember my boss at one time telling me, you interviewed, you interviewed the heck out of that that that day, and I pulled out and got the job. And it was, it was an amazing experience. You know, I learned a lot from that position once I got to the end of it there for a number of reasons. It was, it was time for for me to leave. I had, I'd had my experience. I had done what I felt like I needed to and I certainly made some mistakes, but I had learned a lot from those mistakes. But what I did is I took what I learned, both, you know, the good and the bad, to this new to this new position at Penn State. I had, I'd always kind of had this interest in going to the East Coast, and this, this opportunity, this amazing opportunity to work at a small campus within Penn Penn State system. It's it was Penn State School about an hour and a half north of Philly, and I will say that that was a transformative and in many ways, you know, some of the good and the bad that came from Michigan State, I was able to apply and worked with a just amazing team of advisors over there, and we were able to accomplish a lot. I know that those advisors had gone through some hardships before I got there, and I feel like we were able to, in many ways, bond. And I will say the number one thing that I learned from that opportunity, and I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit more, but I learned that at Michigan State, I had been an advisor for eight years before I moved to my role, so I felt like I knew everything. But when I came to Penn State and didn't know the system at all, I learned the importance of depending on those who work for you, like I needed their support. I couldn't do my job without them, you know, and I, and that's probably the most important thing that I carried with me from Penn State into my current role at Ferris is that I really appreciate everybody who I work with, but most importantly, the 17 primary role advisors, because they, they really are the voice that helps me do the things that I've had the opportunity to do here. And I couldn't, I couldn't do it without them.

Matt Markin  
And I'm sure, yeah, definitely, we're going to be chatting about that and things at Ferris State. But I want to go back to Michigan State because I was saw a video that was on one of the advise Michigan State advising YouTube channels, and you were being interviewed, a quick interview, and you talked about how you actually got married on campus, yeah. And so I was wondering if you're going to share, share that story.

Michael Zaborowski  
Yeah, for sure. So both my wife and I are alum of Michigan State, and, you know, both of us die hard Spartans, it was a no brainer when we when we were trying to figure out where we were going to get married, what we were going to do, we knew that the ceremony was going to happen on campus. In fact, I remember we had decided that we were going to get married, and it was like, maybe a month later, we said, like, Okay, we have two places, either, either the MSU chapel or the garden, the gardens. And while we looked at the Chapel, the gardens, you know, just was beautiful. And I remember it was mid December, there was about eight inches of snow on the ground, and we went to this garden to meet with somebody, and they told us, I you've got, you know, if it's a if it's a rainy day, the backup is a classroom. And I remember going like, oh my gosh, we're going to put all this in, and we want this, but our backup is a classroom, and I remember just being scared, like, okay, we're planning this six months in advance, and this is what's going to happen. But it turned out to be just a beautiful day. And so we, we got, we spent the morning at Michigan State, just a bit it was, you know, the the gardens there, there's a beautiful rose garden right where we are. And I can just think of some of the pictures that we got that's right there in the midst of the Rose Garden, just beautiful in the middle of July, blooming. And we also got a chance to one of the things that's amazing is, you know, while we have pictures by the Spartan statue, and we have pictures by different parts around campus, having wedding photography, having wedding pictures that are at the Beaumont tower, at the at the statue. I mean, that's just, it's so meaningful to have that and and have that be a part of what that special day meant to us. But it was, it was, it was a beautiful and amazing day. And actually, you know, we're going to talk later about the connection to NACADA and the seer Institute at the University of Wisconsin. You know, Life finds a way of making things happen. One of my good friends, Lucas Hill, will actually be the consultant we're working with it the University of Wisconsin. He was in my wedding that day. So I it just, it's just, it's funny how life finds those ways, right? 

Ryan Scheckel  
When I think about the interconnectedness, I know there's this idea out there of six degrees of separation and. And there's, I recently watched Veritasium video about that concept, and like, how did it come to exist? And it's the people who, you know, have connections outside of the local group, so to speak, who really make that, that small world feeling, happen. And it's one of the things I love about academic advising. You know, my mom grew up in Ypsilanti, a little bit further east of y'all in Michigan. And my whole life, I was fascinated with the state, you know, the shape of it, the Upper Peninsula, all that stuff, and just the way community is so geographically oriented. How does it work two different institutions advising like, Are you constantly comparing notes when you come home, talking about policies and practices? Probably some of the negatives as well. What's it like at home during peak advising seasons?

Michael Zaborowski  
Yeah, you know what I love? I love that we have that relationship with each other because we're able to bounce ideas off of each other. Or, you know, I had some I, you know, because I had spent a good number of years at Michigan State. You know, there are sometimes that my wife is working through something, and she'll say, like, hey, when you were in nursing, did you ever experience this, this and this, and how did you face it? And and on the on the other side, you know, my wife was an event planner before she decided to go back to grad school for advising. And I actually reached out to her because we're hosting the MIACADA, which is the Michigan Academic Advising Association annual conference here at Ferris in May. And so given that experience with my wife, I was like, I'm not good at this, and you are. Will you please be on my planning committee? So she was, you know, we're still working through that with her, with her supervisor, but, you know, I have a feeling that she'll be able to join, and that will be a that that's how we those are the ways that we're able to support each other, not just as parents, not as just husband and wife, but as two professionals who do similar work in the same household.

Matt Markin  
Just kind of transition into maybe more with Ferris State. So you know, you provide leadership to 17 primary role advisors, but you're also supporting 150 instructional faculty advisors. So how does that all work?

Michael Zaborowski  
If I think of the support that I provide to the primary role advisors, it's, it's that I know that to some extent they know what they're doing there. I have 17 amazing advisors who I maintain a really solid relationship with, and bounce things with, and bounce things, bounce ideas off of, you know, one of my advisors, Dave Schrock. I love that we have this, you know, relationship where he'll come in and just say, like, I'm thinking this, I'm thinking this, I'm thinking this. How can we make that happen? And and I love that relationship. The one thing that is so important to me because our our faculty do support, if not 50% just a little bit over 50% of our students on campus and and I pride myself on being able to support the faculty here, but I also acknowledge and respect the realities of being a faculty, mainly because I don't understand them. Like there's one thing you know that I often say, like, I know how to be an advisor. I know how to be an advising administrator. I've never been a faculty advisor, so So I so I respect the fact that they have a different reality than I do. I've taken the opportunity and to build personal relationships with the faculty to understand what their experiences look like. So I've met with the chairs, you know, our faculty advisors, and try to, you know, maintain some kind of regular communication with them, so that they feel that they understand, you know, what advising looks like at Ferris, but also understanding how I can best support them, You know, in their roles and beyond that I try to use, you know, one of the big things that I try to use is make sure that they have data related to advising to help support their role. And so we, we just recently, in November of last year, did you know, the first assessment of advising that included student feedback. So I'm currently in the process of creating a report for each college that will give them some feedback on, what are students experiencing, what what do students want, and so on and so forth, so that I. And using some of that even to help develop professional development that that tailor, that's tailored to what the students needs are in campus. I also work to try to frame advising as an extension of their role as an as an instructor. So you know that I'm thinking like positioning advising within what strengths they already have, what, what type of you know, what philosophy that they use for their instruction that can be tied in directly to the work they do as an instructor. And so that's how I especially the faculty, because I, again, like I said, it's, it's that piece that I really care about, what their experiences is are, and what the experience their students are having with them.

Ryan Scheckel  
So along the way, in all those different roles and perspectives that have to be taken, how did the the grant for the Ferris center of advising excellence and advising Fellows Program. How did that initiative get to the point that it's at now? Because we know that those things don't just fall out of the sky, yeah. So walk us through how you get to such a significant initiative on your campus?

Michael Zaborowski  
So I want to say it was in 20, early, early 2024 or maybe late 2023 the state had issued a number of college student success grants through a new initiative that our our state's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, had put into place, and the first thing that we did, and I had mentioned to my boss, Dean Jason Bentley, that it would be nice if we could do some kind of assessment, or do some kind of study of advising on campus, because just to get a perspective of What it looks like from a 30,000 foot piece, because everybody lives within their office, and they see the world from the connections that they have. But putting that all together is a tough thing when you're just living within your own reality. And one of the grants that was offered was considered was called a Quick Start Grant. And the idea behind the Quick Start Grant was to say, we're going to offer $75,000 for up to $75,000 for institutions to do some sort of study of needs on campus. And so this fit in perfectly. And so my boss said, Hey, this, this, this sounds exactly like what you were talking about. I'm going to throw this in your corner, write the grant, work with our, you know, with our grants office on campus. And so we put together a grant and for that, a grant proposal for that, and we got it, I and so that started with in September of 24 so, yeah, yeah, September of 24 two consultants from NACADA came in for two days and interviewed advisors, faculty, administrators, students, so on and so forth, partners across campus to learn, you know, what did the connections look like? What's the good, the bad, the ugly of Ferris State advising? And so we, you know, which was a tremendous opportunity. I feel like people were so engaged with that, you know, the advisors especially, but the administrators and the faculty. And one of the things that we found is that the advisors and the faculty felt a certain way and the administration felt a certain way that almost directly aligned, but it felt like there was some kind of tension that was long standing that that got in the way of both of them moving forward. This was a great way to say, hey, the administration supports and appreciates what you're doing, the advisors have a lot of great ideas to enhance what advising looks like. Let's put this together, and then part of that grant fund also supported the outcomes based assessment that we did in November. We took all that data. NACADA came back in April of this year went over everything, and kind of gave us a place to move forward. In the midst of all that, we use that data to apply for another one of these state grants called it's an accelerate grant. So the idea was to say, now we have all this information that NACADA has given us, and they've given some recommendation, and it was kind of a, here's a five year plan. The accelerate was the idea to say, like, Hey, can we take this five year grant with some with some financial support and get this done in three years? And so that's what we're working through now. Is we received about a half a million, little under a half a million dollars to enhance professional development and onboarding of our advisors to work towards a cohesive change management process. And that's where the seer Institute is connected. So they're going to help us look at, okay, the all these advisors as of as of July, 1 of 2025, have formally moved under a department of advising. How do we best support everything that was before turning into what it is now? So you know, making sure that support for students is is equitable. To make sure that that we have a consistent advising experience for students that some advisors have this experience, some have this experience where they have this knowledge and this knowledge, it's it's about helping them, you know, get to that place, and then finally, to develop a regular assessment plan. And the fellows are a huge part of that. So we talked about the fellows. The funding behind this gives support for both primary role advisors and faculty advisors to work together on giving input on how these, how all of these processes are developed. Because to me, it's, it shouldn't be Michael zaborovsky's plan. It should be the Ferris State advising plan. And that's and that's what we're working towards. 

Matt Markin  
I'm very happy that you actually asked advisors really great ideas. And so I think this is really wonderful, that they're kind of connected to this and actually get to contribute. The cotta had both on Facebook, like, a couple months ago, and it was like, literally, like, $500,000 and I was like, Whoa, what is this? So with that funding, I mean, I know you're kind of mentioning that it's, it's gonna be used over the next few years, next three years. Do you kind of already have a plan of how that's gonna be utilized over the three years and programming, or how that's gonna go about? 

Michael Zaborowski  
So you know, there's a, there's definitely a significant chunk that is really working with NACADA to support the efforts that that we're doing. So, you know, connecting with the seer Institute, connecting with Sean bridge, and who is just an amazing colleague. And actually, one of the cool things that is coming out of this is the potential to create a change model for academic advising. And so we're, you know, we're looking at like, how can we use this as kind of a pilot for what change management looks like within Academic Advising? And so there's a great opportunity for us to do some research around this, write some publications, do some presentations. And I am beyond excited about that some of the, some of the, you know, a big chunk of the funds is going to go towards, you know, providing financial support to the fellows, so that they feel invested in doing the work, that it's not just another committee or something that they're sitting on that they really, you know, feel invested in doing the work. Because some of this will require producing videos for the professional development. My big thing is, like, I want to create a series of videos so people don't feel like they're having to read, read something and then read something else and read something else. Is that that we have a series of one to 10 minute videos that people can watch and engage in what they're learning. But also, the other thing that I've learned from a lot of faculty is that they just wish that they had a library of things that they can access so that when it's time to do, for example, a medical withdrawal, that they can go through like I haven't done one of these in three years. I'll watch the video again, and okay, now I know how to do it. I often say it's like, I want high quality YouTube tutorials for our faculty, so that they they know what they have to do in real time. And so certainly, a chunk of that change is going to go to producing those videos. But I'm also, you know, again, in collaboration with Sean and Lucas with the seer Institute, is, because the assessment piece is such a huge piece of this, I've got funds to bring a number of advisors on campus, as well as Sean Lucas, and I'm hoping to bring our institutional research director to the NACADA assessment Institute, so that there's a team of us there to say, like, Hey, this is what we're doing. This is important to us. We want to use, utilize the time that we're at the assessment Institute as best as possible. 

Ryan Scheckel  
I want to pause. Signpost for our listeners and viewers to kind of recap everything you just talked about. There are going to be some people who might hear this and be like, yeah, that's there's no way, you know, there's no way that this is going to fit into what we're currently. Currently doing, or institutional culture or whatever. And I think it's worth noting that we're talking about two significant grant support models, the time to pursue the funding, the expertise of people from off of campus, and the commitment to do the change correctly. Some people might not know about the seer Institute, S, E, er, there's a process for organizational change. Encourage folks to look into that, or whatever. But if, if you're on a campus or at an institution who is looking at you know what's what can we do to improve? What you're hearing about is what might be considered an idealized model, but I it's really encouraging to hear the kind of deliberative, intentional, but also capital backed approach to getting this done. It is. It's not a quick fix, and I think that the the involvement of primary role, but also all roles. I'm kind of curious, Michael, about the Grand Rapids location. You have colleagues there. I'm assuming, what's their involvement in this?

Michael Zaborowski  
Yeah, so I so we have the Kendall College of Art and Design is, is down downstate. I actually just spent the last two days down down there. They have a advising days, where they incentivize students to meet with their faculty advisors, which was an amazing experience as a first chance I had to go down there. But then, you know, we have advisors statewide. Ferris, I would say, probably has, you know, kind of hit this mark of connecting with the community colleges and having success hubs across the state that allows students to connect with Ferris, whether they're in Detroit or Traverse City or the Upper Peninsula or or Lansing, which is just, you know, amazing. I remember when I worked at Michigan State and we were working on our RN to BSN program, I remember often going like, and Farris has it figured out, like they've got it. And so it's been nice to be a part of that and have a connection to, you know, our statewide system so and again, part of what I'm doing is bringing in our support, not just in our main campus up here in Big Rapids, but also to make sure that we're to the best of our ability, supporting The differences that exist within what happens at Kendall, because it's a different population of students and and what are statewide students, because most of those are non traditional students, and what supporting them looks like, because it's, you know, it's not the same thing as our, you know, first gen, high first gen, traditional age College students that we see here in Big Rapids.

Matt Markin  
And I guess, going back to Ryan's point, like, you know, this is a multi year thing that's going to be happening. Staff and faculty advisors have their regular jobs. You know, there's going to be involvement across the board for everyone. So I guess for you, like, how do you feel like you're going to balance the innovation portion of it, like implementing framework or something, but with the reality of advisors, or, you know, staff having maybe some burnout, but also maybe those that might also be resistance, resistant to change.

Michael Zaborowski  
Yeah, that's that's a good question. And one of the things that I have found, and it's funny when somebody told me this once before it's it's that idea that sometimes hearing it from somebody outside the institution helps. And so I cannot express enough how much I appreciate the support we've gotten from NACADA. And I would say, if you ever have the chance to connect with NACADA Consulting that's been, that's been a game changer for us, is just being able to put something on paper or or put something in a presentation that comes from our advisors professional organizations to say, This is what's this is what's being done. Well, at your campus. We need to capitalize on that. But here are some opportunities for growth and and I appreciate the fact that it's it's it exists within, like, the nine conditions of excellence of academic advising, because I don't think anybody could look at that document and say, like, no, those, those are not the right things for advising. They really are, um, and having it expressed that way to say, you're doing good work, here's where we can grow. And hearing it from that organization, rather than hearing it from an administrator or even hearing it from me, it helps to it helps to ground it for them. It helps them. Them to see, like, Okay, here's what I can doing and here's how I can tweak things, or here's how I can partner with places to to enhance things across campus.

Ryan Scheckel  
So you mentioned hosting MIACADA in May. Would you say that that was an intentional part of the momentum that you're gaining on campus, or is that a byproduct of this sort of stuff, or is it a third option and just happenstance?

Michael Zaborowski  
I would say it's kind of a little bit of all three we had put in to say to do it last year, but I think it ended up in the right place at Michigan State last year, because it was the 20th anniversary of the organization which started at Michigan State, and so we we put in for it this year. But I would say, I'm glad that it happened this year, because over the time that I've been here, I've really emphasized the importance of professional development, and we have, in the time since I've been here, had a lot of advisors who have decided like, hey, I want to get increasingly involved. And and MIACADA is a nice place to get that kind of dip your toe into leadership, within, within Academic Advising. And so we currently, you know, I sit on the board as the communication chair. We have the treasurer, nope, the secretary for the organization is an advisor here. And then we just, yeah, one of our our treasurer is also a member here, or an advisor here. So we've, we've got some great connections, and so I think it's nice, because it's just a perfect time to say, like, we're doing this exciting stuff, and we can talk about that. We we've got an increase of, you know, membership on the board that is involved, and also to help the advisors here get excited about what MIACADA is, and I'm hoping that by bringing it here, we can also engage some of our faculty in the organization. Because it's, you know, it's, it's $20 to join the organization. It's a it's not a lot of it's not a big cost for the conference itself. And so it's, it's a nice professional development day while faculty are still here on campus before their nine month contract ends and they go into the summer. So I'm really hoping that we can engage some faculty as well. 

Matt Markin  
Hey Michael, how's the EdD program going? I mean, you're a year and a half into it. How's your research shaping? I don't know the what you think about community colleges and their role in the larger advising landscape. 

Michael Zaborowski  
So thanks for asking. So actually, what I am looking at for my dissertation, and you've probably heard me talk a lot about faculty advising, is I'm really interested in how we enhance professional development for our faculty advisor. So what I'm doing is as part of this overall grant, certainly, all of this is connected to a much larger strategic goal for advising on campus, but for my dissertation, I'm specifically looking at how we can advance the professional development of faculty advisors. It's, you know, my my role as the Director of Student Affairs in the College of Nursing, I worked with a lot of faculty who were supporting graduate students. And so that was my first kind of touch of like, how do I support faculty who have who have not formally advised before? When I moved to Penn State, we had three primary role advisors, but we had about, you know, 40 faculty advisors. And so I spent a lot of time thinking, like, how do I best support these and and there were a lot of lessons I learned there, and I think if I had spent a little bit more time there, I probably would have put something together a little bit more strategic. But coming here, I think the big part was saying, like, Okay, this is, this is a lot. There's a lot of faculty on campus. And so, you know, I said, You know that. And they expressed to me very early on, like there's things I know, there's things I don't know. There's things I wish I knew, you know. And so I've put a lot of emphasis on, okay, how you know? How can I support them to learn navigate and work with our navigate administrator to to put on, you know, different types of professional development, but I think the big part of it is learning, like, here's all the things that we try to do wrong, you know, right. We cannot just put on a in person professional development and expect the, expect the faculty to show up. Because they have classes at all different times. And so that's what led me to say, like, I like this idea of of creating flexible advising experiences in looking at ways that we can incentivize advising professional development. So you know, what's really nice about Ferris is that advising is a piece of their a piece of their tenure. And so one of the things I'm looking at is, can I create a certificate, you know, for our faculty and primary role advisors that once they complete a series of modules or complete a series of professional development to say, like, you have this academic advising certificate. And again, I that's, that's kind of where my research exists right now. But I would say, you know, there's a as far as doing the EdD program itself, there's days that it's great, there's there's days that it's quite a hardship. But one of the things that I have to say, that I appreciate more than anything is that have a cohort of people you know from across the state, and you know some a couple people from out of state who are dedicated, you know, higher ed professionals that are committed to the work we're doing, but also committed to supporting each other. So we have a group chat, where we just check in with each other regularly. We have, you know, we get together when, when we're together, you know, whether that's, you know, getting a drink after class or or just kind of sharing in our emotions about how things are going. And it's very cathartic, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's great having a cohort, especially during the time that everything that's going on in my life, not just school, but, you know, like work and and personal things.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, work and the personal things of that balance, you know, you're right. It's It's so nice to have someone that you can just be alongside and in the communities of practice framework, they call that legitimate peripheral participation, that you can be invited next to someone who is doing the thing you want to be doing, and your your participation, well, maybe not full because you're not doing the exact same thing. It's still legitimate. It's still made real and recognized, and that is super nice. I had a fraternity brother from undergrad visit for homecoming weekend before last, and I heard myself saying I missed the classroom. He was looking he's finishing up his PhD program. And I was like, I don't miss the assignments. Or I just, I missed the group of people times, just, we're going to talk about this. And that's one of the things I love about this podcast and and about professional development opportunities and advising, but it does require balance. Yeah, and, and as we're we're moving through this conversation, your bio, you shared a lot of the things that helps you find balance. Helps you find maybe what might help with the full head part and give a little bit more full heart part. So tell us about your family and travel and and the things that you just have around that help balance out all this stuff that's going on professionally.

Michael Zaborowski  
Well, you know, speaking to my family, I have a very, very supportive family that, you know, I my wife, is just an amazing human being. She's been there for me through the thick and thin of of everything that I've experienced. She's she's been okay with moving to Pennsylvania, because that's where my career took me. She's been okay with moving back and coming to Ferris State, and, you know, we, we've kind of thought about, you know, what's next. You know, my, my son and daughter are very, you know, both inspirational. And, you know, my daughter does fencing, and which is cool, you know, I just love that, you know, I like, I on Monday night, she goes, I just love sitting there going, like, gosh, my daughter's doing fencing. How cool is that? Whereas my, you know, my son, especially with him having epilepsy, I think to myself, I, you know, I was just talking to somebody this morning as an advisor, you're often supporting somebody through hardships that you're not you don't fully understand yourself. And I think to myself, like, you know, my experience with my son and what he's done for me, as far as giving me perspective and empathy understanding the value of, you know, advocacy and voice and the importance of having a strong community. We've we've connected recently with the Michigan Epilepsy Foundation, which has been amazing. But I think I have a different perspective of, like, the things I have said to students that I didn't truly understand that I was saying to them and why they were. Important until I was facing similar hardships. And I think that's, and I think that's that's important for how, not just how I am as a father, how I am as as a husband, but how I am best supporting, you know, the advisors that I work with and and and the students, you know, the students that come into my office. 

Matt Markin  
So, as we wrap up. Star Wars Back to the Future, yeah, kids, names, hope, Emmett, yep, I'm assuming there's a connection there.

Michael Zaborowski  
So, um, I, you know, it's funny my I remember when you know my work, when my wife first told me that, you know, hey, we're pregnant, I was going through my, you know, I was going, like, alright, here, here's the boy names I want, here's the girl names I want. And, you know, I had the traditional like, okay, Leia, Luke, Ezra, so on and so forth. And she's the one that came back and said, like, Okay, I don't want anything that intentional. And so she came back, she goes, What? What about hope? Like, it connects to Star Wars, but it's also this name. And I locked it in. I said, Yep, hope, let's do it. And I even made a video, like, okay, it's going to be hope and all this. And so I remember my wife said, like, it took me about a week to to buy in that that was her name, that that was the right name, and Emmett, my my wife had, you know, we were kind of shooting ideas back and forth. And my wife said, Well, what about Emmett? And I said, I don't know. And then I think I had pulled up something back to the future, and I was like, was like, dr, Emmett Brown. I was like, yes, Emmett, going to work, and I'm going to lock that in. And so I was like, yes. And so, so yes, that's, there's a huge, you know, Star Wars Back to the Future connection there that I've tried to be, you know, not so intentional that it looks like I'm, you know, that super fan, but like also that I can tell this story, right? And so we've, we, I have a lot of fun talking about that. And you know, if you saw my office, unfortunately, you can't see the cubes in front of me, but I've got just about everything pop culture from the 80s that you can possibly have. And so I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan of pop culture, and again, the the comic cons and things like that. And even my truck, you know, I just, I, when I moved back to Michigan, I was like, I'm going to get a vanity plate. So my, my favorite character in Star Wars is Obi Wan Kenobi, because I feel like he is an advisor at his core. And so my my license plate says Obi Wan.

Matt Markin  
Nice. Yeah. Third, Back to the Future movie. Where do you rate that of the 3?

Michael Zaborowski  
Back to the Future I would say number two is my number one. Number one is my number two, and number three is my number three. I love the western theme, but, like, I just love the idea of, like, what the future would look like from an 80s perspective.

Matt Markin  
Well, Michael Z as Sean Bridgen would call you, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. This is a great conversation. A lot of great information. And always love talking pop culture.

Michael Zaborowski  
Thank you so much.