The Long Game of Advising: Leadership, Learning, and the Future - Adventures in Advising

Six years. Hundreds of conversations. Countless “aha” moments. In this special anniversary episode of, Matt and Ryan chat with Dana Zahorik, Kyle Ross, and Jennifer Rush about the NACADA Institutes. They break down how these immersive experiences turn big advising challenges into doable next steps. Think intimate cohorts, expert faculty, and real take-home impact.

Then, Matt and Ryan are joined by special guest Jeff Elliott, Executive Director of Undergraduate Academic Advising at Purdue University. Jeff takes us on a journey of leadership lessons, ethical questions around AI in advising, and how to give advisors the same care and intentionality we give our students. From delegation guilt to automation, Waypoints, and even comic book philosophy, this conversation covers a lot of ground and sticks the landing.

Here’s to six years… and to whatever adventures come next. 🚀

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• 9:39 (Cont.) The Long Game of Advising: Leadership, Learning, and the Future - Adventures in Advising

Transcript

Matt Markin  
Well, hello and welcome to the sixth anniversary episode of the Adventures in Advising podcast Matt Markin and Ryan Scheckel here, thank you for listening to these interviews, sharing episodes on social media, sending messages, everything this podcast continues because of you, and no doubt about that. So Ryan 2026, six years of the podcast. Can we make it to seven? A seventh anniversary?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, I'm always up for a challenge, but man, sometimes I think about just the magnitude of stuff, and I'm like so many episodes, so much to listen to so many guests, and I'm like so many people who listened and watched, that's one of the things that is really impressive, is the engagement and that kind of effect on our community and our field. Like I've said before, I'm just glad to be a part of it and to keep it rolling.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and we're super thrilled for this episode, and in a little bit, we'll be interviewing Jeff Elliott from Purdue University. But first up, we're going to learn more about the NACADA institutes, and we have some returning friends and a new friend to the podcast. Let's go ahead and bring them on. So we have Dana Zahorik, Kyle Ross and Jennifer Rush. Hello, friends.

Kyle Ross  
Hello, good to see you again. And happy six year anniversary of the podcast. That's awesome. Also, time flies. Where did six years go? Time is an illusion?

Matt Markin  
Yes, for sure. So Kyle and Dana, I want to ask you this question now you're kind of on this podcast talking about the institute, so different role than previous episodes that you've been on. So what led you to becoming Institute, an institute faculty member?

Kyle Ross  
Take it away. Okay, fine. So I became a faculty member when I stepped into the role of executive director of NACADA, but I was really intentional and thoughtful about like, would I be effective as a faculty member at any of these institutes? And so it arrived at serving as a faculty for the Institute for academic advising that is typically hosted in the summer, as well as the assessment Institute. Because a lot of my background and training has been in change management, leadership, and that's where I feel like I can best serve the institutes is delivering that content. So grateful to always have the opportunity to talk to people about, how do you navigate change? How do you process people's feelings, thoughts and reactions as they're going through that together? How does that tie into assessment? How does that tie into your general advising practice? And so I've been in serving as faculty for a couple of years now, and love every opportunity I get to do so. Dana?

Dana Zahorik  
So I was president in 16-17, and when I finished up that leadership opportunity of a lifetime, I was searching for something else to do, and I just found so much value in the connections and networking and the group think that I wanted to be part of that even more so same thing. I'm also part of the consultants bureau, and while we're working with individual colleges defining gaps and problem solving, I loved it, the fact that we could all come together as a group of administrators. And there's many times where somebody has a solution to something that you are trying to figure out. And I may be faculty, but I'll tell you what I come home with. Take homes every time we implemented gray days for our advisors, which is like allowing advisors one day a month to just work on projects like that's an appreciation project that was a takeaway for me one year, and it's I've shared it with other people, so it's just such a huge networking opportunity. So I enjoy leading, but I also enjoy learning just as much.

Matt Markin  
Thank you both and Jennifer new to the podcast, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in NACADA?

Jennifer Rush  
Oh, sure. Jennifer Rush, I am the Assistant Director of the Institutes. I also help out with the region conferences. Been with NACADA for over 16 years now, and my main focus has always been the institutes and working directly with the faculty.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, it's fantastic to have you all on and and I I had a chance early in my career, maybe before I was really ready for it, to participate in an institute St Pete Beach, Florida, long time ago. But I also got to do a couple summers ago in Madison. Get to return to the institute format, as you know, someone who's familiar with it. I appreciate that structure so much. But how would you all describe the NACADA Institutes?

Dana Zahorik  
I can start us off with that. Depending on if you're brand new to NACADA events, or if you've been to the annual conference, you'll notice this is like a smaller format, a little more intimate, so the smaller participant format just a. Allows for that additional networking. You have the ability to create an action plan that meets your own needs. So you can come to the institute, have a something that you want to address, and then it's like a group think tank. If you've ever been to a conference and you have something that you want to address, and you get home, you set your materials aside, and then you just never do it. We start the work there, and that's what I like. So I actually come to the institute, I talk about what I want to address, and we help you figure out what are the resources you need, what kind of support do you need? So our goal is to really create that foundation and the network that you need in order to be successful and carry out your action plan. So it dives down a little bit deeper. So between the NACADA Executive Office expertise, the faculty and some other participants, and our fearless leader, Jen, who keeps us organized, we create like a huge learning network where people have a safe space to just share the good, bad and ugly, to help problem solve so and the learning doesn't stop there either, because it continues, because you've made so many connections. I've reached out to so many people afterwards, and they've done the same, just to create some of those connections and not happen, to reinvent something that's already figured out.

Kyle Ross  
Pretty sure Dana's reading off of my talking points, because she mentioned a lot of the things that I was going to share, or she's psychic, one of the two. And so a couple of things I want to add there. For comparison, our region conferences are around 400 to 800 attendees, depending on the region location our annual conference typically around 2500 to 3000 attendees, and the institutes will be around 100 to 200 attendees. So emphasizing that opportunity for really intimate networking and connections in this part of the institutes. The other piece of it too is that the content is developed and led by faculty who have deep expertise in their respective areas that they're presenting on and engaging with attendees on. And so rather than choosing from hundreds of sessions to attend. There's about anywhere from nine to 15 sessions that are developed and led by faculty who are selected for service in that role.

Matt Markin  
Awesome and as an example, like for this February, there's two different types of Institutes going on?

Kyle Ross  
Yes, we have our assessment Institute and the Administrators Institute, so the assessments to deep dive into all aspects of the assessment cycle and how you can develop a new assessment process, or if you're looking to refine one. And then the administrators Institute is developed for people who are whether you're new or really experienced as an advising leader, whether you're managing one unit or program to an entire institution's advising structure that administrators institutes for you to really hone in on your leadership and have that place to network with peers and colleagues around similar issues that we're all facing in higher education.

Ryan Scheckel  
So we've got some roles identified administrator and being involved in assessment. There's also the sort of the Summer Institute is a little bit more general in field, is that the right way to characterize it?

Kyle Ross  
Jennifer can correct me where I go wrong this one. But the Institute for academic advising really serves for your foundations to academic advising, whether, again, you're new to advising or you've been longtime experience, it's an opportunity for you to either learn all aspects of advising or dive more deeply into different areas that you want to refine around and your competencies and your skills and abilities. So I always say that one's like the foundations of academic advising Institute. When people are asking me about that one.

Jennifer Rush  
I would say the Summer Institute is a week long program, as opposed to a two and a half day program, so we have the time to cover an umbrella of topics related to advising, as opposed to focusing in on one specific topic, like the assessment and the administrators Institute.

Matt Markin  
Now you've already mentioned some of like, the differences between the institutes and, let's say, a region conference or annual conference in terms of attendance, but do you still have people that kind of mix it all together, that an institute is going to be a conference, or they're the same thing?

Jennifer Rush  
We do, and I think it's kind of important to define the differences, and we Dana and Kyle touched on a lot of them. One, it is faculty driven, as opposed to peer driven. Two, there is a set curriculum that we follow. Three, you guys do walk out with an action plan. These are extremely intense working institutes. We get you started at 8am we let you go about five and you will have homework more more than likely to come back to the next day. And another key aspect between conferences and the Institute is the institutes have what we call working groups, or small groups, where you are paired, you're grouped with similar institution types. And. Throughout the entire event. So you have a core group of participants that you can form a networking with. And then at the end of the institute, when we do present our action plans, they give you feedback on that. So you get a chance to present and get the feedback on an action plan. And then you have something you can just take right back to your campus and start to implement and that's that's a key differences between a conference, which you just choose your sessions. Go learn from your peers. These are experts, faculty in the field. We go through an extensive hiring process and intern process before they can become faculty, just to ensure that they know what they're talking about.

Dana Zahorik  
I was just gonna follow that to say, if you're wondering, Am I in the right role to attend this we have a lot of new and aspiring advising administrators, and that was me when I first came in. I didn't have the title that matched necessarily what I did. So we and we also had a lot of people say that was something they wanted? So this year, we created a session specifically for new and aspiring advisors so they know how to be successful leaders. So that was kind of we do, that we have that curriculum like Jennifer mentioned, but we also ask a question with our track B folks. We ask of what keeps you up at night? And it was always such a great feedback loop, because we listen for themes, and every year it's different. You know, one year, you just heard the exhaustion of the multiple roles that they were all playing. And then one year, you know, it can be what's going on with, you know, politics or administration, and the next year it can be your covid 19 students and how they're academically underprepared. We just follow what the needs are of the audience, and we're also a little bit of a support group, right? When you bring a whole bunch of us together, and we're seeing some similar struggles, that's where we get that new energy to go back to campus and address those things, so.

Ryan Scheckel  
it certainly sounds like you know the institute can focus on topics, but also be flexible for each of you. Is there someone ideally that you think should be attending these institutes?

Dana Zahorik  
I was gonna say, I think I put in my notes here too to remind people. So it shouldn't just be, it should be the decision makers too, right? So I can come in my role. But sometimes if, if some of the decision makers invite them to come along with you. It's a beautiful thing when you see teams and how they are building each other up and inspiring that helps. Because if you're creating a plan, which we help you figure out where some of those hiccups might be, you can create a beautiful plan, but if you don't have the support and the voice and the leadership to implement those things, so bring them along. Beautiful thing. We've seen it unfold nicely.

Kyle Ross  
I want to echo that, because it is really powerful for those who make the decisions and have the budgets to really see and learn from their people on their teams. So with the Institute for academic advising, I've worked with a couple of groups that brought in a whole advising office or whole department or key constituents from across their whole institution to come together and really dive into a problem and practice they were trying to improve around at their institution. And one of the most helpful pieces was having that key decision maker there. Because rather than them saying, Okay, well, we have this plan, we hope to get support from instead of having that mentality leaving the institute, that decision maker to be there and say, Nope, we have the budget for it and we're going to do it. Or, Yes, I support this, those answers in real time, and then that person was being able to say, Wow, I had no idea that this is how it works. Or this was really informative. So I always recommend bring people of all levels, and bring people of all range of expertise, new to have been in advising for 1525, years, because there is always going to be something helpful to every single one of those attendees at these institutes. Now, the assessment Institute and the administrators Institute more focused on leadership and assessment, but I would say that that still applies there too, where, if you are a person who's brand new to assessment, come to the assessment Institute if you want to learn more about it, if you've been conducting assessment for 20 years, great. Pick apart one piece of your assessment plan you currently have in place, and look at refining that and engaging with your peers and colleagues across the world. Want to talk about that, and so I'd say new to experienced all kinds of levels, all are welcome, as long as they have an interest in that specific topic that's being addressed.

Dana Zahorik  
Can I add one more thing? Go for it. So track b2 we've had a lot of conversations about advising administrators play these multiple roles you are, you know, having conversations about enrollment management, you're talking about financial aid retention. And so we have broadened that scope to make sure that we're addressing all the intersections of advising for that that track B conversation, so that if you have attended in the past. Based, and you're intrigued by this, you may want to sign up, because of the curriculum is different, and hope to join us.

Kyle Ross  
Dana, can I jump in there and ask you to clarify what's track a versus track B at the administrators Institute? 

Dana Zahorik  
Why yes. So with the track B, that is like an institution wide, sort of management and leadership, and the we have in the past have done the topic related, and then the track a it could be a individual or a team, but you're creating your own individual plan, and you'll be similar what Jennifer said, or you're going to be with a group of two year folks, or or your college, or private colleges, we try to get you in a group of people so that you can share similar situations that you're trying to solve, and it's like a mini consulting both at the end of the second day, Jennifer consultations track a folks will then have the opportunity to meet up with some of the faculty. You get 15 minutes to say, here's my plan, here's what I'm hoping to solve. And that 15 minute conversation provides you additional resources that you may need, including some of the NACADA journals, or we may refer you to the clearing house, where there's some great research and articles, but we make sure, yeah, track B also does the consulting. Thank you. But it's just a great opportunity. Plus, in addition to all that, if that's not enough, you also get the concurrent breakout sessions that you can pick from that kind of align with your plan that you're hoping to achieve.

Matt Markin  
And then, with a couple of the institutes coming up in February, what's, what's the cost of it, and where are they going to be held?

Jennifer Rush  
Okay, the assessment Institute is going to be February 4 through six, and the administrators Institute is February 9 through 11. They are both going to be held at the Kansas City Marriott Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, a cost for a Nakata member through January 20 is 1175 a non member would be $1375 after January 20, it goes up to $1275, and $1475, respectively. So I would suggest getting your registration in before January 20 to save a little bit of money, but same hotel for both, that just makes it easier on those of us who are planning. We don't have to pack up and ship and unpack and reset everything up. But it's also ideal if you want to attend both institutes, which we do have a handful of people that do that, and it's not unheard of for people to attend both.

Ryan Scheckel  
Back a couple summers ago, when a team of folks from my institution were able to go to Madison, we were benefiting from, sort of the leftovers from a state initiative on advisor, training and development, so we had some funding that could support that activity. So there's going to be someone listening this who's like, I want to go, but how? How do I get the resources and the commitment, and how do I secure the funding to do so, any recommendations?

Dana Zahorik  
So I think I do this with my own professional growth plan. I do try to tie it to, like my annual review whenever I can, if that makes sense. And then if you tie your project to the strategic priorities of the college, and they can see that you're the work that you're doing at the institute is going to provide a new ROI. So for example, there was a group one time that was creating a student success class that academic advisors were leading, and the data, in turn, ended up increasing retention rates. So you could create an ROI on that to show how many additional people you retained per credit, and calculate that out so you could really sell it by use of your own data.

Kyle Ross  
One thing that kind of also goes on a piece of advice I have for anyone who's attending the institute is to come with a problem in mind that you're looking to improve around. Sometimes we get folks who attend the institute not knowing what to expect, and they leave wishing that they had identified that topic in advance, so that they knew what they're coming in with to frame their mind around, what assessment activity are they really trying to create, develop or maintain, what goals they have for their personal and professional growth, or what goals they are trying to accomplish around their whole advising unit, or just for their team. So if you identify that problem practice from the get go, then that helps you advocate to other folks that have the event, have the decision making authority over the budget to send you to say, here's what I'm why I'm going. Here's what it is I'm trying to accomplish. And it also serves the institution, because at the end of the day, I'm going to walk away with this action plan that I'm already on, step one or two one to really target that area. That aligns with maybe it's the institution's strategic plan, maybe it's a critical issue that the institution identified that that team needs to be responsible for tackling.

Jennifer Rush  
And we actually have on our website a download of a templated email that you can send to your supervisor decision makers that kind of explains all of that for you, and each one is customized to this event. 

Matt Markin  
Great advice. So last question, and because we have the assessment Institute and the administrators Institute in February, let's sum it all up. I want to hear your best 32nd to one minute pitch on why someone should attend either one or both. So I'm gonna, let's start with Kyle, and then we'll go to Dana.

Kyle Ross  
Didn't practice this one enough yet, but let's see how I do if you're looking for a place for intimate connection, networking with peers and colleagues across the world who want to dive deeply into advising, leadership, administration and assessment look no further than our winter institutes offering this February for the administrators Institute and the assessment Institute, where you get to identify a problem practice that you're trying to resolve for your home institution, and then really develop that action plan in consultation with faculty who are experts in the field and have developed the curriculum really thoughtfully and intentionally for you to get the best and what you need out of that time, hope to see you there. That was a bad run through, but hey, I did.

Matt Markin  
And it was 37 seconds. Awesome. All right, Dana, let's go.

Dana Zahorik  
That was pretty good. So I would just say there's a high likelihood that somebody else at the Institute has been or has experienced similar challenges I mentioned earlier. I have few original ideas. I've stolen them from other NACADA members, so my advising model I adapted from Palo Alto Community College. Thank you. Palo Alto University of Kentucky, UC Davis borrowed me training materials so I didn't have to invest as much time and energy, because fellow and Nakata members are very generous with sharing their material, materials and practices to help define your gaps and address.

Matt Markin  
And 32 seconds there, awesome. I think maybe people are sold on wanting to go and hopefully be able to get the funding to go as well. But Dana Kyle, Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and sharing about the institutes. 

Kyle Ross  
Thanks for having us. Good to see you and happy six year anniversary.

Matt Markin  
Really looking forward to this one. I know this is someone that we've had on our list for a while now, and that is the wonderful Jeff Elliot. And Jeff is the Executive Director of University undergraduate academic advising at Purdue University with over 25 years in advising and student success leadership, Jeff's current work focuses on advisor development, equitable systems for students, and the ethical integration of artificial intelligence, a topic that Ryan and I have chatted about quite a bit on this podcast, in higher education, with an emphasis on the use of AI to support academic advising. Jeff holds a PhD in higher education administration and recently, recently completed a one year term as a Nakata board member. He also served with Nakata as a state liaison, a region conference chair, a region chair and an ELP mentor. Jeff, welcome to the podcast.

Jeff Elliott  
Appreciate it. I just, you just said 20, more than 25 years. And even though I wrote that, I like you said, Brian, like sometimes you're faced with the reality of the time you've spent in something. So that was that was interesting to hear, but it's exciting. It's kind of fun. 2026 and a conversation about AI, this is about as as good as it gets.

Ryan Scheckel  
Keep you young, won't it?

Matt Markin  
Well, I just kind of read your bio. It just reminded me of how we first met, because it was on here that you've been a region conference chair, and I swear we met in 2019 very briefly at the annual conference, at a region conference session or prep session for the following year. So time definitely flies.

Jeff Elliott  
Yeah, wow. Okay, I forgot about that. I just, you know, the people I know all tend to sort of the how we met, the origin stories all blend together over time, and I just have to operate on faith that we did have a an initial introduction, and not one of those where you're around somebody for so long, you realize you know each other without ever actually been being introduced so well.

Matt Markin  
Just yesterday, I was asking Ryan. I was like, I think, I think I remember when I met Jeff. I was like, have you met Jeff before? 

Ryan Scheckel  
And I was like, Look, we've been in so many rooms together and snippets of conversation here and there, and it's nice to focus, you know, and have these moments. What it makes me think of if, if I'm thinking about resolutions for 2026 it's. Uh, be more intentional about the the relationships you build and and make sure you spend focus time. I'm a little bit of a collector. I like new ideas, new perspectives, and so sometimes that can lead to a little bit more surface level conversation. But I'm going to try to go a little bit deeper in 2026.

Matt Markin  
So Jeff, of course, this isn't adventurous and advising without asking you this first question. You know, yes, we've read your bio, but can you expand on it? Give us your origin story in higher ed?

Jeff Elliott  
Well, in higher interesting, because my experience as an undergraduate has a lot to do with how I, for most of us, how I got here, but I started out many, many years ago as a student who was going to college, because I just sort of had an implicit expectation that I was going to go. I'm from a small rural town in the south. You know, there was two groups of people, the ones who planned to stay there and the others who were going to college planning to go off. I had no idea which one I was. I just knew that not staying there part was the only real priority, and and I spent four, I say, four years as a spectacularly failing BFA student. I suggest to anybody who's been in advising for a significant amount of time, if you haven't done this, go, pull your own undergrad transcript and read it the way we read student stories. And that's and, you know, what I saw was somebody that's clear, like, what was missing was a lack of direction. There was, like, Doug Reynolds of University of Tennessee. I always like to say, when you look at grades and see Porsches and Pintos, it was just, it was either A's or it was D's and F's, and so I was in and out too. I was I took a semester off. My school invited me to take a semester off after another year in, as in and out, and I just struggled, and it didn't strike me until I took a gen ed class out of frustration, just because I didn't know what else to do. My gosh, what a common story this is. And an instructor, I wrote a paper, and the instructor said, you know, you're a good writer. You know, have you thought about this? And I hadn't, but after that, we followed up with another conversation. It's first time anybody asked me why I was going to college. And so four years in, first time anybody asked that. And so it's a curious route, but I did end up eventually getting a bachelor's degree in English, and then I decided I wanted to go on and get a PhD and be one of these English professors. And went to Tennessee for my Master's back in 98 and learned that I, at the time, did not have the academic discipline to do a PhD in the humanities, just I don't have that brain and but I discovered because my previous institution didn't have this kind of guidance as a part of my assistantship working in the Writing Center, and I was blown away by this idea of people whose jobs it was to just work with students and like help people figure things out. So I went to Stephen F Austin, state in Texas for my first job, is the director of the Writing Center and Assistant Director of the the Academic Assistance Center there. Then I moved back to Tennessee. I worked for five years at a community college, and then off to back to UT and and that's there where I spent 10 years really kind of leaning into what it meant to not just be involved in that kind of student support, but to be really intentional about the control opportunities we have to guide it, and to really do something. You know, as a person with a space in leadership, I was very fortunate to be at Tennessee under the guidance of Ruth darling, former president and all star in NACADA. Well, I say fortunate. Don't ever be sitting next to her when someone and you work at Tennessee and the region, the state rep or liaison is unavailable to finish the term, and so they I'm sitting by her, and they go, we need a volunteer. Well, I work at Tennessee, and they use the V word, and I'm sitting next to Ruth. So I was like, great, here we go. And I got up. I said, Yeah, I'll do it. And I went and I sat down, and I was like, I'm kind of excited. I think this will be cool. And this was only my first or second conference experience. And she said, if you decide you want to get involved in NACADA, hold on to your hat. I've always remembered that, because she was absolutely right, is the opportunity. And I think I love the organization because of what a I mean people who and innately want to support others. It's a part of why we do the work we do. Makes for a really great conference experience, because everyone's just got that mindset and and so it's a really long way to say at this point, I've just kind of found my way into advising and learning that. It. You know, my one of my strengths, I think, is getting to know people and figuring out, like, what do you do well, and how do we find a way to get you in a place to do that more? And so now I'm very fortunate to be at Purdue, or actually got that opportunity, and I'm looking forward to talking more about it.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I mean, I certainly we've heard the story of the student who arrives unsure of their ultimate goal, and advising arises on that process, both in the academic and the professional sense, as we learn about ourselves and the world and and I'm interested a little bit in your background, making that transition from the Learning Center perspective to the advising perspective. You know, what did you find really helpful and like transferable from those contexts when you moved that sort of you know, part of the student support dynamic?

Jeff Elliott  
My introduction to advising was the that position at a community college, which was a combination center that provided tutoring and advising services. And I honestly got the job because of my the strength of my tutoring experience and expertise, and the fact that no one else in the room knew any more than I did about advising when I interviewed. So I arrived, I sat down, and I was like, Okay, let's see what we're going to do here. And I think part of the reason that I fell in love right away was how I just kept peeling that onion. I know I spent hundreds of hours on the Nakata site, pouring through things, finding articles, you know, listening to recordings of things, just trying. Because every time I thought that I had figured out exactly what it is we needed to do to be a good service to students, I would uncover something, some other element of it, and and so I think that kind of switch gear switch, because then I had the chance, they split the office up at one point, and the vice president came in and said, You're going to get to choose which direction you want to go. And they were putting tutoring and academics. And like some schools do, they put advising in student affairs. I know I should have waited. I know I should have said, Give me some time to think about it. But as soon as soon as she finished her sentence, I said, I want to go with advising. I liked the idea of the way that you connect with students and and there's a one little nugget of tutoring that I learned in the Writing Center at Tennessee that I always bring back with me, but it's kind of a core way to help people think about how they do what they do. Is we always used to like to tell tutors if you're talking more than half the time, you're talking too much. And I think you kind of ground it that way, to say, like, if you're not giving people that space, because if you're going to be a writing tuner, you got to get really comfortable with uncomfortable silence, and you have to ask a question and then sit and realize they are waiting for you to get tired of waiting and ask or answer it yourself. And so I just think it was an interesting framework for you know what it is that you do to start that relationship building.

Matt Markin  
Love that. And I kind of want to maybe expand upon that with working with advisors, and kind of like your leadership strategies, because you've had various leadership roles and in a previous conversation you had mentioned about you emphasize the value of treating advisors the way we treat students. What does that look like in practice?

Jeff Elliott  
Well, well, okay, wow, I don't think I thought enough about that. That's even when, when it gets posed back to me, because I, when I interviewed for this job. That was a core part of my you know, platform, I guess, that I was using to to make my case for this position. And what I just said was like, look at the end of the day, what we want our advisors to do is recognize the lived experiences of our students, and to recognize that individually, they bring something unique and that they have, and then we have, like, an obligation to help them unpack dreams and things that they want to accomplish and help them, like, figure out where sometimes there's a reality to what they want to do and sometimes there's not, and how you make some of that happen, you know, and really sort of recognizing individual value when it becomes, sometimes very easy to see everybody as a collective. So when you think about it that way, if you're thinking about as somebody who supervises or leads on a campus in the area of advising, it's the same thing like, you know, this is a this is a severely underpaid profession. This is a profession that continuously struggles to justify the value of what it does to university leaders around the country and college leaders. It is a place also where people take on out of just a sense of sort of ethical and social obligation. And a sort of sense of duty towards these students that they work with, and that's a burden. Not to say that it's a burden in a negative way, but we shouldn't acknowledge you take things on when you do that. And I think we have to, you know, be sure that advisors hear us talk that way and recognize that we're not always going to be able to get the salaries up, and we're still sometimes going to have leadership that maybe still needs to be coached, and what, what it is that we actually do, but we haven't forgotten you as an individual. And you know, and I think about how many times everybody that's listening to this has had a conversation with a student, and at the core of the the need for that meeting is to just feel seen and to be sort of encouraged to understand you belong here. You got here for a reason, and you have every right to be here, and we're here for you. So I think thinking about it that way, and then as we think about supporting advisors, also kind of recognizing you. You also need to recognize what they're capable of and raise that bar. And I am someone that I expect more. You know, I don't try to push people too much, but I know what Purdue accomplishes, and I know what our advisors are capable of. We have 275 advisors at this university, and it is a remarkable community of folks who have just a crazy range of talents and skills. And I think they're thinking about it them the way that I would think when I look at an undergrad population. You know how you marvel it? Oh my god. This is a room full of future astronauts and doctors and people are just going to go and be really great members of their community, and they're going to do all these wonderful things. It's the same thing that's happening with the folks we work with, too. So, you know, I don't know that that message is always as clear as it can be, but it it never changes. My my thinking about, you know, how we approach supporting advising?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, you know, I think a lot of people have a conception of an advising administrator, you know, somebody who leads a team of advisors in a advising center or in some sort of administrative or academic unit. And I'm curious when you imagine, or think back of your on yourself making that decision to go with advising in the restructure to now your perspective that's informed by being a state liaison and a region chair and and that kind of stuff. What would you say was the biggest shift for you in thinking about advising, from the individual advisor student relationship to an institution of hundreds of advisors.

Jeff Elliott  
Oh, man, yeah, I I'm still learning. I'm four years in, four and a half or so years in, and I'm still learning that there is no such thing as an effective leadership learning experience before you take the role. And there's, there's a lot that's applicable in my past, but there's more that you just have to learn as you go. And I think like recognizing that is a part of it for me, I really try to be transparent that I I try to be self aware about my my shortcomings and the things that I'm able to do, and I try to communicate that to folks in a way to, you know, not necessarily erode any confidence in me, but to know that I'm so what I'm saying is I I'm never going to try to pretend that I understand everything and I know all of it. And you know, coming back to your question, like you start in as a state liaison, and you're told almost nothing, and then you come in and you sit down with a group of people, and now I'm part of a team, and none of us have been told much of anything, and we figure things out as we go. And one of the reasons that I'm always pressing our advisors to get involved with NACADA is there's a huge value in working together with people who don't owe you anything, and they don't report to you, they can get up and walk out of the room, and it forces you to learn a level of diplomacy that I don't know, that you can learn elsewhere. And so in this job, for example, I have a tremendous amount of responsibility for university advising, but the advising directors in the college just have a dotted reporting line to me and so, and I really try not to, you know, try to strong arm too much of that reporting line. And I realize, like, I am here at the graces of the academic colleges, and I'm here as a service to those colleges. And so, you know, had I not had that progressive experience in NACADA of knowing, you know, as your membership gets I would go from Region Three to Region Five, the smallest to one of the largest, you know, and you're still trying to figure out how to navigate this in a way that you know you can't please everybody. But. You need everyone to know. I'm going to do my best to listen, and I'm going to try my best to find wherever that you know negotiation point is that makes us all, at least makes us all feel satisfied.

Matt Markin  
Oh, yeah, I like how you put it with the negotiation point. Because, yeah, just like you're saying, like anyone in NACADA on these, like, whether it's a task force or a region steering committee, a conference committee. It's all volunteer. They still have their other jobs they're getting paid to do, but there's still an obligation to get what you need to get done with NACADA, and if you're the one that's leading it, you gotta, gotta figure it out and have that diplomacy. Now, let's say you have like a new administrator that's starting out in someone that's going into leadership. Sometimes maybe they feel like they're being thrown to the deep end. You kind of chatted, you know, alluded to that as well, whether it's within NACADA or somewhere else. But what advice do you have like to give someone that's taking their first leadership role in, let's say, advising?

Jeff Elliott  
One of the first things we'll say is come to terms with delegation guilt, and I mean by that, that you're going to have people either reporting to you or working with you, that you're going to need to ask to do the work. And we are all the kinds of folks that are willing to roll up our sleeves and do that work ourselves. And more often than not, if you're in an administrative role. It's because you worked your way through to that and earned your stripes, and you made your way there by doing the work. And it feels, if it feels like you are, you know, if it's something I know I can do like I know I can do it, this thing over here, doing this workflow, taking care of whatever these things are, I know I can do those things. What's the message to the people who report to me, if I'm trying to do all the things that they're they're supposed to be there for and and also like that, it's, it's part, it's your role. And so I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with when they're new to you know, as you go into progressive leadership roles, you're most likely going to be working with more people, and you're going to need them to do more. And I find you know back to the comparison of serving students and serving advisors is experiential learning. It's an opportunity sometimes, to do something they've never done before and and so with that, coming to terms with delegation guilt is also coming to terms with the fact that getting something done is better than getting something done your way. And I think that it's something that a lot of folks, myself included, I'll see you know that is not the way I would have done that, but it's finished, and it is. We're ready to move forward, and as long as it's accomplishing what it's supposed to do, you know, we, we just need to be at peace with that. We've, we're asked to do way too much as it is, to try also to drive yourself into the ground for perfection is the, it's a, it's a lost cause.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I'll, give a shout out to the cult of done. I know we have feelings about cults, but it's a thing on the internet where a lot of creative types talk about the value of prioritizing the project being done, not the project being perfect and and that was something that I keep reminding myself of. You know, whether we think our way is perfect or not, there's some real value in being done with things. 

Jeff Elliott  
say, I know my, my, my master's and bachelor's degrees are in English, literature. I also worked with the College of Arts and Sciences at Tennessee, so in the liberal arts college there, and I, and my, my role during the last part of my time there was to work with the humanities and interdisciplinary programs. I learned so much from theater. I learned like, it's really what a really important thing about theater is it ain't half as bad to the for the audience as you think it is, because you know exactly the way it's supposed to be. You know precisely the way it's supposed to be, but they don't. And I just like, it's amazing. And one of the things I love about the humanities is how much you can return to that and find things that are really practical, you know, useful nuggets. 

Ryan Scheckel  
One of the useful nuggets I got introduced to talking with a prior guest on the podcast was this idea of, like reverse mentoring, the idea that the, you know, we might set up a mentor program with a mentor and a mentee or whatever, and there's this hierarchy and structure and expectation. But I'm curious, you know, in your role in the Emerging Leaders Program as a mentor, what did you learn from your mentees?

Jeff Elliott  
Oh, wow, yeah, I mean, okay, I will say one thing I learned is that, and I think I should probably have already known this is folks will say, I'm fine. I can take care of it. I'll do I got this. And you kind of need to have a little a little bit of doubt there to just say, Well, why don't we go ahead and check in anyway. I would really like to do Emerging Leaders again, because it almost, you almost need to do it twice, because the first time is so much trial and error. I connected really well with my mentee. But then after the program ended, I actually ended up connecting more with a couple of people who weren't. They were just in that cohort. And it kind of happened that, you know, there was something that aligned with something that I knew is about Langham reached out to me about something, and then we started a partnership and a conversation that has been really rewarding for me. And I think, you know, I guess it, there's so much to learn that I almost feel like you have to continually unpack it. A big part for me, I think, was just learning that I feel like that you're you got to continue to define your idea of service, and what, how are you being of service to people, and how do you make that available? You know, one of the things I realize now that I tell people all the time is, if you're going to find a mentor, number one, that's your job. You don't do. You sit around and wait for a mentor to come to you and ask if you want something. That's a what is, that's a needle in a haystack. But you see somebody, and I'm, you know, 15 years into a wonderful relationship with Kathleen Smith, who just because she came to our campus, and I listened and I heard things that really rang true with me. I've never done this. I still don't know what prompted me to do it, but when she was done talking, I walked up and I said, I could really use a mentor. Would you, you know, be willing? And she just handed me her number, and that then off we went, but also that it's your response. Thing I learned myself is the responsibility of the mentee to kind of maintain that relationship and keep it alive. And know, though, then my role then is to make sure I'm available anytime you know. I need to know when you need me, but I need you to know that, like those emails are not interruptions, that text is not a problem, that's just what I'm here for. And so I think I'm still far from good at this, but you know, trying to be sure that people understand that I'm here and I just, I need you to take the first step and tell me what you need, and then I'll take it from there.

Matt Markin  
I mean, at the end of the day, you care, and I think that's what everyone that you're connected to, that you're mentoring, they will they can feel that. They can see that. And I think that's going to be what's most important, kind of switching gears a little bit like so at Purdue, there's something called waypoints, and I was hoping you could kind of share with us a little bit about what that initiative is, and also kind of your personal connection to it as well?

Jeff Elliott  
Yeah, I mean, so waypoints, we have an exploratory studies program, but many institutions do where if students don't know exactly what they want to do, they have an option to enroll and take classes and learn more from advisors who are, you know, trained to help them in that way. But we have a cap on the number of hours you can remain in that program. And we have a highly competitive STEM programs, computer science, mechanical engineering, things like that. And there are a lot of students who really want to do that. The GPA is not cooperating, and they are still, though, they're still okay to stay at the institution, they're just not okay to go into what they really think is their goal. And they're in this spot now because we implemented a new policy a year or so ago that if you don't have a declared program and you're not eligible for exploratory after one year, you are separated from the university. And so to be sure that that's not a devastating experience for students in the past, it had already been generated by the exploratory department, and I told them I'd like to repurpose that and bring it into my office in part to separate it from exploratory so students see like this is a different place that you're in. And so the goal is to tell students we got, we got some hard conversations we have to have, and the and, and I would never want anybody to say it this way to a student. But for simplicity sake, do you want to be an engineer? Do you want to be a boilermaker? Because you may not be able to be both, and we need to figure out which one's more important to you. And so, you know, talk about the personal connection to that. That question that I never got asked about, why are you going to college? It was, there's a lot of there were a lot of values. You know, you develop your values often when you're in this undergrad experience. And I'm kind of doing that, but there's no structure to it. I'm I'm also sort of lost. I only you know, in Good grief, what an exhausting experience it is to learn what you want to do. Through through trial and error, right? Okay, I'm gonna try this one out that didn't work. Try this one out that didn't work eight years to get an undergrad degree. And so for me, what's really important is that, well, students here first is the priority is you. It's not graduation here, if that's what your your priority is, then that becomes ours. But what's important right now is that whatever happens after this, you have a say in it, and it aligns with what you want to accomplish. So the goal with that program is to help these students find something that meets their you know, and we've seen lots of different things. We've seen students who really want to do something, but they don't really feel like that's a good career pathway, and they need someone to sit down with them to say, you know, look, the motion p on a degree has a value on its own. But also, you know, you you invest a lot of the value in your degree. Once you get out of here, you're the you're what's the I always like to say, like, there is no degree that's worth any more than any other degree, regardless of what anybody wants to do. By quantifying salaries, no degree is worth anymore, because individuals possess those degrees, and they invest the value into each individual degree. We want them to hear that and then to understand, like we're here to support what you need. But sometimes we need to unpack some of that. Always, three years of being in a school with no sense of direction and high achieving students, sometimes even valedictorian of their class, who gets here and fails in their eyes, fails two, three semesters in a row. It's a progressive sense of your your your ability that's being eroded, and I haven't forgotten that. I forgot thinking like I'm just I don't even know why I'm doing this. I don't know why I didn't quit. It's a miracle. We know the statistics. By the time I got to year four, if you saw what the pathway was for me, no logical reason for me to have continued, but this, well, there is, there's a reason you don't get to know me. You learn how stubborn I am. And it just kind of happened that way, I guess. But I just don't want to see students live in that space. And if we can beat that whole problem of sunk cost, or they think they have to keep hammering away at something, just because that's what they started with, we can help as well. And I admit, the program is only in the second or third year, and we're still trying to figure out. There are a lot of hard conversations. We've learned that it's a it's a big emotional toll on the advisors, because, to be honest, no matter how we structure this program, half or more of the students who enter it will leave us without a degree. But well, I remember when we first started in, the first advisor who worked with it, I said, you'll be at peace with this if you know that they leave knowing that you cared and it doesn't matter it's not as a representative of the university that you cared about them. And then I told him, I remember saying, I won't, I don't, at the point they get into this program, I don't want program, I don't want you to think about them as students. I want you to think about them as members of a family or members of a community, and think about it that way, to say, like, we need to get away from zeroing in on degree pathway, or you've got to get that that degree. What do you need? And let's, you know, let's reset for you a bit, because you we've all seen and heard those students who come to us after a long period of time and never felt like anybody ever saw them. You know, that's, that's that can be debilitating in the classroom, sure.

Ryan Scheckel  
And you know, on the individual level, I know so many people listening or to this or watching it, or have worked with a student where they've had that feeling of, you know, maybe our institution, our setting, or their experiences just aren't lining up, and that sense of loss that happens with that. But I also know that one of the things that a lot of folks who are part of our podcast audience, one of the things they've experienced is organizational change. You know, things moving, offices being redone, reporting lines, responsibilities, where students are what advantages have you seen moving waypoints, sort of to an institutional level in even though, the few years it's been advantages.

Jeff Elliott  
So help me out again, the advantages in what way?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, you know, you were mentioning it sounded like that. It was part of the Exploratory Studies program, right? And that that that organizational change, sort of bringing it to your office. You know, what advantages have there been in that structure?

Jeff Elliott  
That's a good point. I think, you know, Well, number one, just to be real, we need to stress the severity of the situation that they're in, because there's a one year clock, calendar, year clock, and there's no negotiating that. So I think being able to say this has been asked, you're. Or, I don't want to sound extremist, but it's been escalated for the student to this level. And another is, to be honest, we get a little bit of we can, I can lean a little bit. I can say, like, Look, I know that they're not right at the GPA, but a 10th of a point is that really going to make a difference. We went to one department and said, I know that overall, that GPA number, the cumulative, is not where it needs to be, but we've looked at how they performed in the classes that you have allowed them to take, and they're outperforming the students who you admit it. So is that enough? And I know these departments, I think struggle because the volume of students is just so big. I don't blame anybody for setting metrics and then just trying to abide by them. And that's the point, is to be in a space where I can, maybe I can reach out to the director of a college and say, Can you see this student for one time, just to kind of feel out whether this really is the right place. And you know, as an example in our college liberal arts. There's philosophy major in AI. It's aI ethics. It does require science learning. And of course, AI is created this space now where you don't have to be a technologist to become knowledgeable. And but they did take some coaxing to get them to to to open up to that. And so I think having that ability to hand off in all directions is really a valuable one too. And you know, just between you and me and whoever's listening to this, we also sometimes the ability to say it is one calendar year, but you're just that close. So let's see if we can't bend the rule just enough to get you that one little step closer. And I think the advisors who have done work on this program have consistently said the students are so appreciative that is a truly personal approach to their to where they are.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and you mentioned AI, and I think that's a great segue to talk about that as our next topic. And we know from your bio, part of your current work focuses on the ethical integration of artificial intelligence and higher ed, with the emphasis with the use of AI to support academic advising. You know many institutions are wrestling with balancing efficiency, but also kind of still having that human aspect to it. Where do you think automation fits in with all of this, and where automation should live within academic advising?

Jeff Elliott  
Well, first, I appreciate you isolating it to automation, because I think one big challenge in talking to people who are still learning and moving into the space of AI is that that generative tool that is so and it is truly problematic. The generative tools have all of the problems in the world. Automation is a different animal. It's still kind of in the same skin, but it's still different. And for me, a lot of it is, there's there's there's a lot of administrative work required to be an advisor in Jeff Elliott's perfect world. Advisors don't do any of it. My first, my first, like, two weeks here, I was invited to a staff retreat for one of the colleges, and we want, I wanted to do, like, some little breakouts where we had some smaller group conversations. So I asked my director for operations to pose this question. Say, you're in a meeting with your student, and they just come in and they sit down, power goes out. What are you going to do? And what I heard was a lot of people talking about how they were going to reschedule, and I know, again, in my position, I have a luxury of, like, thinking about what the ideal is, but there's a reality and, you know, and I was thinking like, I don't need a damn computer to help a student talk through what they want to do. But there's no escaping that this whole profession is pointless if you don't have degree progression, and if you don't provide exceptions when they need and you don't do a lot of those workflows. So but what I would like to see is a way that we can lift that and streamline it and make it a lot easier for advisors. And I believe that we have an opportunity to have conversations about those three core competency areas of advising, and to ask ourselves, is the informational a little too broad? Because in this day and age, the technological knowledge that advisors are required to do the job is far more there's far more nuance to it than just fitting under the umbrella of information. And I think that what we're looking at now is, where does it require the expertise of an advisor and that master's degree that we require and those kind of things, and if it doesn't require that to do it, is it really appropriate for an advisor to be spending their time on it? The more important thing for me about this office. Automation. And the reason I dove into it is I can see the opportunity to expand the amount of time that advisors can spend with students, because I believe that a successful advising experience is predicated on trust, and you don't establish trust in 30 minutes. You it is, it is. It must be a continued, reinforced experience. And I think, you know, there are students who will trust you to a degree because you're a representative of their school and they're but they're trusting your professional title and your role. Now trust you. And so I think, like for me, what I see is an opportunity to, I meet with our IT, systems director for AI and automation regularly, and we're always like, where do we find the one to one? Like, where do I get 10 hours off someone's plate that become 20 more meetings with students? And how do we, you know, expand that then in a way that we can not only just purely just for time with students, but more professional development for the advisors is as you get more capacity to build these relationships with students, you learn how complex and confusing human beings are, and that's where that that PD is, you know, learning how to have the hard conversation with the international student who just found out that their visa is expiring, and you want them you know, you know, like, I don't have a say in what international student support is going to do. I don't have a say in that visa process. What do I do? And it's probably too timely an example, but I just, I just really see these automations as a way to step away from what has become an administrative bloat on the advisor timetable and where we sometimes really struggle to have, I mean, just to have. For me, the example that I use over and over again is, if you don't have the time that in the middle of a meeting with a student, they bring something up that needs far more time and attention than what you have in that remaining meeting. If you don't have something beyond that, what I like to call sacred time, like the week after time that you hold that is specifically for that, then we're really making you ineffective in your role as an advisor. And so that's, for me, the biggest part of what we're looking at. I'd love to daydream about some of the things you can do with these generative tools. Like, it's really neat idea of, you know, having some kind of a an AI companion that students could bounce ideas off of. We play around with those kinds of things. I think that's down the road. I think we just can really trim away a lot of stuff, and then as an administrator, of course, I'm just in love with the idea of these predictive analytics and and post analytics that allow us to learn more about, you know, being more effective at what we do. So I know I just got really fortunate to have an opportunity two years ago to hear from some folks on our faculty and from the CEO, I believe it's the Lumina Foundation, and these folks were talking about this thing is coming, and it's real. And I heard enough to believe it and started learning. And I believe there's a tremendous amount of opportunity in that space, but we've got a lot of hard questions to answer, and so I believe by the time this will go live, we will be I'll be rolling out a policy, a university policy, that we are restricting the use of any kind of listening device, AI powered listening device in session for advising, and that that policy was fully informed through studies that we did with our advisors. We had faculty hold workshops with them to talk about what this looked like and find out their concerns. And right now, the idea of having something that's listening in in the current environment and with the the problems that we have about questions about where this data goes and but more important than that, just what does it do to your ability to get someone to open up to you if I walk in the door and you say, Let me press record. So I think we I also appreciate like I'm at an institution that really supports me in learning more and and I'm also in a place that's not that's willing that as long as they know that I'm informed about what I'm doing, they're not pushing me to put things into place just because they're shiny new objects. And I'm just very grateful to our leadership for giving me that latitude.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, I certainly suffer from the shiny new object syndrome, early adopter and love playing with toys and stuff. But I think a lot of people who are engaging with this conversation about AI and its place and higher ed academic advising, they hear the promise. They hear the promise of, we're going to get you more time. We're. Going to get you deeper, more meaningful connections with your students. We're going to let you be more human. But I don't know that we know what the trade off is. What are those automated tasks that we're going to be giving over to automation? And AI in your experience, are there? Are there a handful of things that you see that are like, Oh yeah, these are definitely things I can let go of from an advising role, yeah.

Jeff Elliott  
I mean, well, let's say, for example, one of the one of the things that's that it's not a universal, but at Purdue, students have to get approval from their advisor to drop a class. And philosophically, we could talk about that for an hour, but the but their rationale is that, for example, like international students, their visa is at risk if they make a bad decision on that front. So I respect that, and we still leave that up and running. But does it really take an advisor puzzling through this. What it really is is they want to be sure that students go down the checklist. Are you International? Do you have a scholarship? Do you live in a residence hall? You know, all of these variety of things that can be automated, like that could be a thing where there's a possibility for a student to just be shown before they take an action. These are things that will have possibly a consequence on you if you fit one of these categories. And then, theoretically, you can then direct the student to their advisor, depending on whether that that happens, those kinds of things that are rote processes that I think that just what, basically, when advisors are switch flippers, we can find a way to do something different with that. And one of the other things, though, to turn your question a little sideways, is I've really appreciated now that our IT systems, people are saying we're not so much interested anymore in automating existing processes. We're interested in finding out if we can generate new ones that replace or, you know, and so. And that brings me back to the, you know, my love of the liberal arts, being the guy at Purdue who asked, Well, why do we do that in the first place? And I think that we need to. I think that being able for me, I guess the analogy I use is, AI makes you move the sofa. If you clean your you clean your house, you clean your living room. Did you move the sofa? No, we never moved the sofa, right? But sometimes you got to, and it is ugly under there. And so the AI kind of gives you an opportunity to break these things apart and really look at it and go, my gosh, how many? I mean, I have to meet a metric of a certain number of personnel hours that something could conserve before it will put it on their plate and and it makes me think, then, like, oh, how good grief, how much time, as you know, example, you know, some we tried, we tried calculating things like responses to, you know, the time of year when, what's the last day to drop a class email start firing off? We're looking at, like, across as many advisors as we have, like, 10,000 hours when you try to enter. This is just us, you know, spitballing, what number of hours it takes per advisor to answer those questions? But then it comes back then, and this is another reason why I love this AI thing. It's kind of forced us in if you're going to be sensible and really be serious about your ethics. The next question is, we looked at Microsoft Power automate, that is got enough finesse that it could answer those questions for students. But then we asked students, how would you feel if you sent you an advisor an email asking about something like that? And the response came back, and it was labeled this. Response was generated by AI, and they told us that'd be the last time I emailed my advisor. So you know, as much as we see hours being saved, like, to your point, Ryan, I think that we get lots of promises like, oh, this. Could do all of this, but if the advisors are going to have to turn around and just duplicate the work anyway, then that's not helpful. Or if it undermines our relationships with our students by kind of giving them that impression, I don't have time for you. Then, then it's, it's not, it's not any good to us.

Matt Markin  
Look text messages and emails were supposed to save us too, and that has tripled the work that in time that we do now as we wind down with this interview, which I wish we could go on like for another couple hours with it. But you know, something institutions have challenges with already is that equity gaps? How do you help ensure that, like AI, adoption is, you know, isn't going to widen those equity gaps?

Jeff Elliott  
Well, well, I wish I could say that I had an answer for that. There are some. It depends on the space where you're talking first gen students as an example. I. I you know, there for first gen students as sort of roughly cat fall into the category of first gen, a lack of just basic information about how the stuff is done. Here is a major obstacle, and our insistence on creating our own language in higher ed that then they have to learn in order to navigate college is a problem. And so there's a gap, because in rather than try, you know, it's a you can't do case by case when you're trying to connect with first gen students, because that means then they're there, they're learning by mistake every time, or they're learning by identifying things they don't know. That's that's frustrating. But if there's a place where we could do something to help narrow that gap and close out that that dependency we have on lingo and acronyms and help fill in that space, I think that's, you know? I mean, that's really kind of a simplistic example. I think we I don't know. I don't know. I'm just gonna have to admit. I think the thing that is both frustrating and fascinating about AI is it's changing so quickly, and at the same time, who we are in higher ed is changing currently, and will continue to and as the these, these things come together, I don't know, I don't know what that's going to look like. I think the important thing is that we have to stay focused on engaging with our scholar colleagues who are really digging in deep. I know just enough about AI to be dangerous and to make decisions. I like you say, right? I like to I like to play with the tools, and I like to try new things out. But I need people who are much more knowledgeable about it to tell me what the possible pitfalls are, and to help us also then figure out like the needs of a Purdue student and the needs of a student at Ivy Tech Community College, which is our community college system in Indiana. Those are there are a lot of different needs in the same bucket, and they need different things. If we don't understand better what our students need and what they want and are trying to provide it that way, then we're doing what we usually do. I'm laughing right now about this new initiative that's rolling out here. They're talking about this really great new idea they have about student support, and it's something that we were all doing 10 years ago. But that's the nature of higher ed, is we're very cyclical and we're very reproductive, and we do that kind of thing. And I guess I'm kind of talking around the question now, but I feel like for me, I try to remind myself every time I'm engaged in any conversation, about, AI, where's the trap, or where is the possible problem in that. And as long as I think I'm doing that, I'm thinking about what's fair for students, and what you know provides them with access. The big one now is we know that very few of these students who graduate are going to get out of here and not find an employer who expects them to know something about AI. And so how do you prepare them for that? And I believe advisors are curricular translators. Our faculty are scholars in their areas, and they construct a curriculum that's based on a collective pedagogy, and it is a brilliant collection of everything that's important in their discipline, but when you try to put it on an eight semester degree pathway, it doesn't always click. And there's always, of course, the challenge of Gen Ed, the engineering student who's complaining about having to take a humanities class. How do you explain to them? Well, this actually does have some value to you. And so we're back in that same space now with AI, there will be students who'll say, I didn't want to learn this stuff. I don't trust it. Well, do you want to limit your employment opportunities? It was, whether we like it or not. It's here and and so I think you know, that's, I don't know that's an intriguing part of it. How do we now teach advisors how to talk to students about it as a curricular step?

Matt Markin  
So definitely a continued conversation. It's like reading a monthly comic book at the end. It's to be continued to the next issue. But Jeff, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Jeff Elliott  
Thank you. I appreciate it. I've really enjoyed this. I always love listening to you guys, and I love every time I've had a chance to bump into y'all and we'll definitely find more time again. But, and clearly, this is a topic that I could go on about forever. I have so much love for this profession, and I just genuinely enjoy it. I think anything that gave me a chance to connect with people and to really engage in that kind of strength, support and stuff like that, would probably be a good fit for me, but it's just all right here in this job, and it's just such a cool thing. So I love what you all are doing, and I appreciate you creating space for these conversations.

Matt Markin  
Well, you know, it's only the end of 2026 so you can always. Have you back on later and chat.

Jeff Elliott  
So anytime we talk comic books too, I got the Hulk right back here behind you. It's a it's an interesting one, because this, this is the I carry this around whenever I go, because he's, he's rampaging on a college campus, and then he runs into a statue of Socrates and knocks his head off, and then picks it up and looks in Socrates eyes, and it calms him down. And I don't know exactly what to do with that, but it just speaks to me.

Matt Markin  
So we'll figure it out. We'll do another whole episode just like comment, there you go. Thanks again Jeff.

Jeff Elliott  
Yeah, I appreciate you. Thanks so much.