Boundaries, Balance, and Building Community - Adventures in Advising

In this energizing episode of Adventures in Advising, Imani Hill steps in as guest host to lead a powerhouse panel on advisor well being, retention, and the research that is reshaping the field. Joined by Rebecca Helms, and Chisom “Chi Chi” Anunobi, and Brandon Jones, this dynamic crew from NACADA’s Well Being and Advisor Retention Advising Community dives into the heart of what keeps advisors thriving instead of just surviving. From burnout and boundaries to job satisfaction and institutional responsibility, the conversation gives you the behind the scenes reflections on their latest research brief plus real talk about compensation, caseloads, leadership, AI in advising, and why retention of advisors directly impacts retention of students. The message is clear: when advisors are supported, students succeed.

Check out the Wellbeing & Advisor Retention (WBAR) Advising Community’s most recently published Research Brief: Advisor COVID-19 Pandemic Experiences Research Brief

If you’re interested in following WBAR or joining their steering committee, go here: Ways to follow/join WBAR

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Matt, hello and welcome back to another episode of the Adventures in Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and we have a special guest host today, and that is Imani Hill. And Imani was the first interview that Bri Harvie and I did for the Emerging Voices Podcast, which is a spin off of this Adventures in Advising podcast. Imani, hello.

Imani Hill  
Hello, Hi, Matt. How are you so great to be back. Thank you for having me again.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and you know, I'm sure you'll go into in terms of how this came about. And I just know you had emailed and said, we got this great idea, this great topic, which is near and dear to my heart, talking about wellness, and who doesn't want to learn more about that, and some of the research that's coming out from the amazing work that you all are doing, and I'm just going to turn it over to you, because you have some wonderful panelists that you're going to have a great discussion. So Imani, take it away.

Imani Hill  
All right. Thank you so much, Matt again, for having us so good. Morning, afternoon, evening, whatever time zone you are in. Again, my name is Imani Hill. I currently serve as the Director of Academic Advising and retention at Winston Salem State University, and I'm also a member of the well being and advisor retention committee, also the sub committee of research. So we have three of our other fellow committee members joining us today, and we're just going to talk about a little of our committee, what we do, our purpose, how we meet as a group, and just further information, how you can get involved if you're interested. So I will allow the other panelists to introduce themselves, and we'll get started. So I'll begin with Brandon. Hello.

Brandon Jones  
My name is Brandon Jones. I'm an academic and pre Health Advisor at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. I have my pronouns are he? Him, his, and I have been an advisor for three and a half years.

Rebecca Helms  
My name is Rebecca Helms, and my pronouns are she, her, hers. I am from Troy University down in southeast Alabama, and I work as an academic advisor for students in multiple majors and levels and such. I've been working in advising for about nine years. So yeah, and I've been involved with the well being and advisor retention advising community since about 2020, I think.

Chisom Anunobi  
I go by chi, chi. I am an academic advisor, and I've been an academic advisor for over three years now. I have been part of this team for since 2025 fall, great.

Imani Hill  
Thank you so much all, and I know I shared my role in institution, but I have also been in advising going on nine years now, and I have been in higher education for about 10 so I will also, before we begin our questions, I will just read a brief overview of our committee and for more information there. So the well being and advisor retention advising community exists to encourage advising professionals to value model and discuss well being in self care, this community endeavors to decrease burnout and improve retention in the advising field, well being is a holistic need for students and advisors alike, and self care is a way To ensure that both student and advisor needs are met. This community facilitates discussion about well being and advising, as well as urges administrators and institutions to consider the needs of their advising staff. We are a community that engages in research, explores innovative approaches and offers support. Now I will begin with our first question for our panelists. So why did you choose to join the advisor well being and retention committee overall, and more specifically, the research area?

Rebecca Helms  
Um, I could take this one. I, you know, I joined advisor, well being advisor, attention committee, mainly because it was during 2020, and, you know, we are all feeling burned out. And I felt like maybe they, you know, resources or tips they shared would help. Me, and then there was a call for joining the steering committee, and I wanted to be more involved. And I really loved everyone on the steering committee. Still love meeting new people and their ideas. In regards to advisor well being, I feel like the the you know, like advisor well being is important for everyone, and our virtual programming we put on is great and gives a lot. But I think also our research in particular is important because, you know, like, it's very important in regards to having, you know, research out there that people can use if they're putting a request for different things in their jobs or wanting to do research themselves, and it helps the advising profession continue to evolve, in my opinion. So yeah, that's why I feel the research part is important.

Chisom Anunobi  
Okay, I I decided to join this team because I am deeply passionate about individuals well being in the workspace. I thought this was a great opportunity. I do know that adults, we spend most of our work in working adults spend a lot of their time in the workspace or doing work related tasks, you know, and overall, how you feel, how you're doing, goes into your performance, and how you're performing at work goes into how you are doing overall in your life as well. It's almost like the chicken and the egg. So I did want to contribute in some way into the well being of individuals in the workspace, and I thought this was a great opportunity. I do know that while individual stories are powerful, data gives you weight, and the research team contributes in that way.

Brandon Jones  
And I technically joined the community when I joined NACADA, it was one of the the ones that I checked off in my in my groups. But I joined the steering committee in the summer of 2025 so I'm a relatively new member, just like Chi Chi I was. I'm very interested in kind of boundaries and balance and figuring out how to promote that in myself, and so being amongst a group of other advisors who have varying experiences, I think, is been a big help to me, and I want to kind of give back, which is why I joined several of the subcommittees, particularly research. I at first didn't think I'd be interested in the research committee, because I haven't done any research since I finished my master's degree, but it seemed very interesting. I attended one of the meetings as like, oh, let's, let's figure out what it's about. And as soon as I met everybody on the research subcommittee. I was like, Yeah, this is where I want to be.

Imani Hill  
Awesome. Thanks for sharing everyone. I will say for myself, the main encourager for me to join this area is when I adopted my own advising staff that I would be in charge of supervising so I didn't think of advising self care so much as a frontline advisor, and I believe my focus really shifted when I was responsible for those who were providing the services directly to our students. So it allowed me to continue to be an advocate for my staff and their needs and understanding what would be beneficial to them, to encourage them to continue in their in their roles. So my my staff has increased in my new role. So I would love to continue to build upon my knowledge to administer to my staff and what going along with Chi Chi mentioned, I feel like a lot of us think about our students and such, but don't think about us and we have to be well in order to do well for our students. So that's another reason why I decided to join as well. So thank you so much all. So our second question is going to go into what we have, currently or recently have worked on. So what has our research subcommittee been working on, and what has been the product or what has yielded from that. So I will just begin by sharing our title of our research brief, and I'll allow the panelists to kind of share what they have learned from the research that we've done and go on from there. So I. Our research brief was called measuring what matters at work, job satisfaction and implications for academic advising. So that is the title of that. And our group essentially gathered articles and other previous research around the topic and discuss implications that we found different areas for future research and how it could be applicable to our work on the day to day. So I'll allow our other panelists to kind of share their experience or what they've learned from the research brief that we have recently created.

Brandon Jones  
Guess I'll start. I got involved in the research brief towards the tail end. I was not involved in most of the gathering and documentation. I since I got involved in the summer, we were towards the editing and the the revisions and so me, having a background in the humanities and literature and writing, I offered that's kind of what got me connected to the research subcommittee in the first place. Because I was, I like to edit, I like to write, so I got involved on that part, kind of bringing those fresh eyes to see it as a complete picture, and offering some edits and some suggestions from there.

Rebecca Helms  
I can speak about, you know, what we're touching on with the second question. Yeah, we did a research brief on advising after covid, and that is on our website, our AC nakato web page, and I'm gonna make sure it's a link in our the description for this episode as well. But, um, you know, we just we, we want our research like in particular, with research briefs, which I don't know if any, either of you, described what a research brief is yet, but basically it's like a kind of a overview of research in that area. So like, if you were wanting to pursue researching how advising changed before covid And then after covid, you could use our research brief as like sources that we've done a review of and what the research currently says about that. And then basically you can use deep dive into the sources we used for your own research, but at least you have a glimpse of what that area of research is with our current one on advisor job satisfaction. We're hoping it can help provide a framework that other researchers could utilize and be able to, you know, put into their own advising on advisor job satisfaction, and use our framework in a way, and then, you know, in that sense, move forward with their own research. 

Imani Hill  
Thank you so much. Rebecca, I did want to read at least two of our key takeaways from our most recent research brief. So one is job satisfaction is a complex topic that relates to many aspects of an individual's work experience, included, but including, but not limited to duties, administration, compensation, workplace stress, sense of purpose, opportunities for advancement and workload. That's the first one and the second, evaluating job satisfaction within the field of academic advising can serve as a key metric in better understanding academic advising, advisor turnover and retention. All right, so we're going to flow into our next question, how do we take care of ourselves? So we clearly joined this community and committee because we are very dedicated and focused on our care. So let's talk about some things that we do to take care of ourselves.

Chisom Anunobi  
So for me, I will say taking care of myself starts with recognizing that advising is tasking, right it is. It can be draining. A lot is expected from us. We have to deal with the stress from students, institutional pressure. I know a lot of us know that, and then constant change. A lot is changing. So um, for me, what I try to do is I set boundaries. I try to be realistic about my capacity. I'm someone who isn't. So while I hop on a lot. Of things I'm known to also set boundaries. I am not scared to say no when I know I just cannot, because with a counseling background, I know that you cannot pour from an empty cup. So I hold on to that. And another thing for me is it's hard, but it's something I'm kind of good at, is just accepting that I cannot be everything to everyone at every given time. So those go hand in hand. I'm also very intentional about community in and out of the workplace. I try to have at least one person I trust who I can have conversations with within the workspace and outside of the workspace. I try to build community, because I know that I am more than my job, right? So I try to build community that's one great one for me. And sometimes, when I struggle, I then go back to define purpose. Why did I join this in the first place? Why am I an academic advisor? I try to pull out from my why? Because it kind of encourages me to keep going. Because sometimes you do not want to keep going. I do not want to keep going sometimes, but I have to remember my why, which is caring for the students I we all were college students. I know what it's like to be in college, so that's that's a huge why for me, and that usually keeps me going. So self care for me is less about the bubble backs and, you know, all the fancy things. I love those two, but I also try to go to the core and basics.

Brandon Jones  
First and foremost, I spend, I try to spend as much time as I can with my my spouse at home. I try to leave work at work, something I learned during the pandemic, even though I wasn't in an advising role at the time, it was very, it was very, very symbolic, almost, that I would, whenever I would shut my laptop from working from home, that would be, that would be it for the day, and I wouldn't open that again until the next day. So I had some pretty good boundaries. Definitely, being in advising is very different than the position I was in before, so I definitely lean back on my why as well. If I'm feeling any struggles, I'm first and foremost here to help people, here to help students, and that's why I wanted to be in advising and so other things that I do to kind of balance my life out is I enjoy, to enjoy traveling, not necessarily long distance traveling, but kind of day trips to different places, typically centering around food, because I do Enjoy eating and cooking and all of that stuff. So it definitely it's therapeutic to me to cook and to enjoy the food that I've made. So that's kind of some of the things, in addition to like watching movies and playing video games and doing kind of the typical millennial thing.

Rebecca Helms  
I'm going echo a lot of what the others have said, but I'll just give it you know, in my own words that, like, definitely stepping away from work, I was guilty of, like, answering emails on one weekend, because I'm like, Well, if I get it done now, that's less on Monday, which is not, it's not accurate, because there's going to be something else on Monday that will come in over the weekend that didn't get to and it just there's always something so turning off work is definitely important. Sometimes we may be in that sticky situation where, like, you know, I also teach for the same university. So, like, I can't turn off off my email, because students may email me over the weekend about assignments, but I do really try to filter out and not look at emails that I see from the subject are not advising really. Or I try to look at the ones that are class related only, and I tell them to put in the subject, you know, class, so that way it's not an advising question. I did take off that little I have an iPhone, so I took off that little number. I forget the name of it, but it's like the little number that shows up on your front screen of like, how many notifications or unread emails you have. I turn I took that off completely. So I'm not just trying to go in and clear those so that number is not there anymore. That really helped me not habitually go into my email a lot. Turning off my brain when I'm off work helps a lot if I'm not like grading or doing anything with my classes, turning off my brain completely like just. Doing fun things, like I play my friends and my husband and I play board games. So we meet up and play board games, and I try not to have my iPad up walk great at the same time. Sometimes I do, but I try not to. I try to turn everything off so I could just enjoy the moment going on trips, traveling, you know, because like, treaty said, like, you can't pour from an empty cup if you're not taking care of yourself, you can't take care of your students or your family or anything. So if you are getting to that point of being burned out, there are options, you know, consider talking to your supervisor, or talking to HR, talking to maybe a doctor or medical professional that you see or counselor, just see what options are out there to try to help you stay retained, but also help with your your own health and well being. Because you know, FMLA exists for a reason, accommodations exist for a reason, so utilize those instead of just being like, Okay, I can't handle it. I just need to leave. You know, if you like advising students, and you know you like advising students, try your best to stay, stay in is what I would suggest. Like, like Fred and Gigi have both said, like, what is your why? Are you in the field that you feel belonging? Belonging is another one, like, find some kind of belonging if you have other people on campus that you can turn to and visit, and you know that can be just uplifting. Do that if you don't. I've worked at a satellite campus, so it's like just me and my supervisor, our advisors. So like I reached out through Nakata to find belonging and community being in this AC and other ACS or committees or whatever. So I found my community and belonging that helped me stay through Nakata. But whatever helps you stay I would strongly suggest that you do that and just read up on advisor well being like, there's a lot of articles and a lot of sessions at annual and regionals that talk about advisor well being so definitely go to those if you're at any of our conferences. But yeah, that's that's my take.

Imani Hill  
Thanks so much, Becky. I would say my top two that I have encouraged everyone that I know, from colleagues to my staff. Number one, take your lunch break, whether that is 30 minutes. 45 minutes an hour. I am very strict when it comes to my lunch time. In my lunch hour, our offices have availability wheels on them. So it could say, Do not disturb. It can stay in a meeting, all of those different options. I keep my wheel and do not disturb and I do not look at any emails, nor answered phone calls during that time, I have not always been very diligent when it comes to that practice, as my roles have changed and I have a different level of responsibility. However, I think for all of us in this advising field, whether we continue in a frontline advising role, or we have aspirations of upward mobility administrative level, we still have to recognize that we have to set our own boundaries, as all of the committee or panelists have shared, that's been a common phrase We've heard boundaries. That is one that I stick to. And don't be afraid to have others in your space not care for that everyone, depending on whether you have a contract, a union, non union, right? There's, there have, most of us, we are full time employees. Have some designated lunchtime given to us. So that is something echoing what Becky said, Please utilize your human resources or your institutions resources that they have for you for these incidences where if you feel like you are not able to take that designated break time during the day. My second thing I would like to add on to is not having always an open door policy. So I feel like when we hear that, we think of literal and figuratively, I want to say for mine, it is a literal statement within the culture of our office, as well as other offices. Some most have their doors open or a jar just for having students feel welcome. Some offices prefer their door closed due to privacy or whatnot. But. So I have noticed that when I do have my door physically open more it, it does not relay the message that I might be busy or I may not have the time to actually have a full conversation. So I think that is also important to have your colleagues as well, if you do supervise, have your staff understand what your boundaries are and how you can take care or what you need to take care of yourself, so you can best serve them in your leadership role. So those are the two things that I definitely would love to share out into the universe for all of us, because I know it's very common for us to work through our lunches, and I think 2026 is the year of no work lunches. All right, so we are going to flow into our next question. So I'll just pose the question answer, and then we'll just go off with the rest of our panelists. So how can institutions support advisor well being and retention? So of course, this is just one episode, so we have to limit our response, but I will begin by sharing two key areas that I feel that administrators or institutions can do employing advising leadership that has experience within the field, within the different settings of higher education. A lot of us come from different career backgrounds. Advising is not always our first role in our careers. But I believe if you are at the position where you are responsible for the entire advising operations of a unit or institution or of a college, you yourself should have some experience being a frontline advisor, so you can understand what the day to day grind is, especially during registration orientation, high peak seasons of the academic year. So I think it is very helpful for institutions to be very conscious that they have leadership that understand the roles that they are supervising or that they are leading. The second area is kind of tied to the first. It's understanding what the day to day operations look like for advisors versus their job descriptions. Because I believe that we are our institutions will lay out a job description based on certain parameters that they have to meet, but the actual day to day tasks do not mirror that exactly. So I believe that it's important for our leaders to take a day in the office, whether they want to do reverse shadowing. I think it's important to see what's actually happening in real time, versus taking what you are given on paper to understand what someone's day looks like in their role. So that's my piece, and I'll give it over to the panelists. Whoever would like to go first.

Rebecca Helms  
I could go next. I think how institutions can support advisor well being and retention is definitely looking which is where our research subcommittee kind of comes into play, is looking at the research in the field and the data to see what other universities are doing. If there's been any studies found that can help show the institution or the leadership level that this is what's needed, such as, like, flexible work environment, or, you know, less case loads, doing the research, finding the research, can definitely help on the leadership level, but also that's where we can come into play. Or, like anyone interested in researching, any research put out there on these topics that you feel needs to be a big change at institutions, we need to research it and find data and put that research out there, because that could help any advisor that's advocating at their institution to show leadership. Okay, this is why it's needed, because that's what they want to see. They want to see the research and the data. So yeah, back to the first question of why research is important, or why we joined it is, that's my main reason, is to help put more research out there, get research still being written, because that's what leadership, higher level leadership, wants to see. So yeah.

Brandon Jones  
Yes, I'll definitely second most of what's been said so far. Definitely what Imani said at the beginning with with people in the administrative levels of advising, kind of controlling. What we are in control of, what we do, coming from an advising background, because I would at least hope that they have that kind of either that research background, like what Becky said, knowing what's been happening, knowing what's in the field, kind of in general, but also doing what Imani said, too was shadowing us, kind of coming in during different parts of the year to see what, what our job, our day to day, is like, rather than how we are on paper. Because we all know in every situation that someone on paper and someone in person can be two very different things. I think institutions can promote, especially with advising access to think things like Nakata and going to conferences, so that they don't necessarily have to be all in house. Because sometimes I know, especially right now, funding may be an issue with some universities, but if they're, if they're at least able to some advising director or something, can I share what Nakata is doing, or encourage the use of being a member of Nakata or any other organization as well, just to kind of have where the advisors have access to people and to resources outside of the university, outside of what it's like here, so that one we're able to get These ideas and share these ideas with each other, but and kind of bring them back to the university so that we're all not reinventing the wheel each time we're trying to do some new thing. 

Chisom Anunobi  
I think we all agree that institutions play a very critical role in advisors well being, and we all agree that it goes far beyond the wellness emails or the one off initiatives, right? So this support, definitely, it has to come from a structural level, the structural change that's something we're all agreeing on. It will be nice if institutions listen to the advisors, not just the surveys. But how do we know that the change is being implemented? We need to see things, evidence, data, the data, you just don't tell us that the change is being implemented. It shall show in your attention. It shall end. Retention is not about convincing the advisors to stay. It's about the advisors feeling safe enough. You feel like, okay, I actually feel valued here, so I'm staying that's one way to measure, to measure if it's if the change is actually happening. I think we also have to look at reasonable caseloads. We also have to look at clear roles and definitions. I think Imani said something about that. I was reading lips full disclosure. My audio is not working properly, so I cannot hear all my colleagues right now. So I'm reading some people's lips and hearing some people. And then we need equitable compensation, the money, because our work is constantly changing. We have things always being added to our plates, to our job descriptions, without things being taken off our job descriptions. So maybe the compensation too, because sometimes people are motivated by a lot of things, including money. The money is just something that could help as well. Obviously, leadership matters as well. I see money compensation equals retention. I agree. I agree. But yeah, leadership matters as well. The leaders, managers, supervisors, have to create a safe space where your colleagues can come talk to you and not feel like they will be judged. Maybe, if we create a safe environment, we can hear feedback given in a respectful manner, and then the leaders can communicate to the, you know, higher ups. But then that also is if higher ups also creates a safe space for them, the managers as well. Let's be honest, that's important as well, without rambling and. Longer, I will say surveys. Surveys will be important, but also we need to see actions behind the surveys. So overall, yes, the institution plays a huge role in retention and well being.

Imani Hill  
Great Chi Chi and great Brandon, Becky, everyone, I think we are all on the same page in terms of common themes that we've talked about that would be mostly leadership, empathy and understanding of roles and compensation. I would like to kind of follow up on that as well. I believe at overall, just education is a very underpaid career path. And I believe everyone in academic advising knows that this is not, let's say, a career where you are going to be a multi millionaire. That is not why we're in this field. However, I believe that an academic advisor should have a national base salary regardless of location. I know that is a large, let's say, excuse or reason behind compensation numbers based on regions and school institutions and types and such, but overall, the work that is done is fiscally undervalued across the country and across the board. And I believe that if we are going to really focus in on student success and retention in our institutions, we have to go to the source of those who are serving on a daily basis, because, as Becky mentioned in our side conversation, compensation or retention of advisors is correlated directly with retention of students. And as most of us have worked in the field, we understand that students don't like a lot of change. Students like consistency, and they like familiarity. And when you have advisors or a staff that are leaving at a higher rate, that you are constantly hiring new staff, and students are having to find themselves to build relationships with new people, and also lose the sense of connection that they built with their original advisor, which can ultimately correlate with them leaving the institution. So I think the steps that go into place need to be highlighted at a larger level so we can get the goal of that we all have is to help our students graduate on time and have careers afterwards. All right, so I'm just going to throw in our last bonus question for the group. So why do you think this committee is necessary for higher education as we go into the future? So what are some things that you all see that this committee will really have a a staple in our practice as we go forward. So I'll just begin just so we can just keep the cadence going. I believe with artificial intelligence, AI entering the space of advising, I believe that is it's going to be most important to still focus on the person that is administering the service to the student. We might, over time, have tools to assist us with our advising, whether it be our note taking, whether that be our data collection, but we still are people that service the student. So I feel that I I personally, would like to keep, and will strive to keep the human aspect of our of our practice and of our field. And I believe that this committee is really going to have to stand taller as technology will begin to become more of a support within our within our roles. So that is where I see that. So I'll kick it over to Brandon, and then we'll go from there.

Brandon Jones  
You went, near and dear to my heart there, I've been doing a lot of research in AI and advising and trying to figure out kind of how it can be a support to us, because the human aspect of advising is definitely the most important to me. I'm definitely wanting to continue and build those connections with my students. This is why I wanted to be in advising. I think this committee and our work, especially in. Research can provide more of those jumping off points for other advisors and other people who are doing the research. I think we can also help if they listen, if they read them, the administration, understand kind of what we are about as advisors and how to better help us perform the job that we want to do, which is that connection and the job that they want us to do, which is retention. I'll pass it to Chi Chi.

Chisom Anunobi  
Yes, I will second what everyone has said. I also will add that without intentional focus on well being and retention, we risk losing experienced advisors, right? That's a huge risk, and that affects the students. We're here to serve the students. However, if we do not feel supported, if we are not being helped the way we should be, then our jobs are not necessarily, simply put, enjoyable, and if you do not enjoy what you do, you're likely not going to do it well, even the good advisors struggle, right? So this is why I think this team and the group in general is very beneficial to just help us as advisors contribute. Because who better than actual advisors. You know to actually do the research. We know what we're looking for. We know important factors as well. We know the right questions to ask outsiders can help just as much, but when it's done by actual advisors, we kind of create bigger impact and ask the right questions, the actual right questions, like Brandon said a few questions ago that one thing on paper does not necessarily equate to how it's actually done or the people who are actually experiencing it on ground. So that's how I think this group can be valuable health retention with advisors and retention with students.

Rebecca Helms  
I'm going to echo a lot of what they said about retention. I mean, our jobs as advisors are to retain and help them persist to graduation. Well, us as advisors, we problem solve and we try to figure out, are the students on the path they should be on? And, you know, AI can probably do that, but I'd be afraid of errors, because, you know, institutions, I mean we, as we've been advisors at institutions, policies change frequently. New programs are added frequently. Programs are deactivated frequently. Courses have changed. There's a lot of flux within this, within higher ed, at us, at universities, which is fine, it's good that it's evolving, but we as humans, as people that will pay attention to those changes and know our students, one on one, like, know them, their personality, what they like, dislike, what they've gone through. You know, it's a, I can't really do all that, like, all those skills all together. I don't think it can. It probably can, but I just, I don't think it can have that human element. So keeping advisors, retaining advisors, especially advisors that are a wealth of knowledge we've lost. I mean, layoffs is going on too at some universities, and I know we've lost wealth of knowledge in our records department and people they laid off because they've been here for, like, over 1020, years. I mean, I would say for institutions, if you have to look at layoffs, look at try to prioritize which people are like wealth of knowledge, and you know which ones are not. As you know, may have a different like job within the university. That's not so student facing. Does that mean the purpose of university staying alive or staying open is students persisting and graduating. So, you know, retaining advice is so important. There's also movement to leave the field. There's a whole Facebook group with, like, a ton of people in it, of just people leaving higher education and going to corporate or tech or nonprofits, you know, taking these skills with them. So this really why I think this committee, this advising community, is so important and looking forward. I mean relevance of higher education. You know, there's that, there's a whole conversation out there of like, four year degrees. Are they still relevant? Or should we do more technical and workforce based, you know, certifications? Well, we know from our own experience in higher ed and going through a bachelor's, master's degrees and such, why these degrees are important, but we have to convey that to the students. We as advisors are on the front line to be able to do that, and admissions gets them in the door, but we keep them in the room. So it's just advisors are so important in higher ed. And I just, I emphasize to everyone at every level how important advisors are, and just consider investing into your advising teams. You know, if you're in leadership, definitely find ways to invest in them, whether it be offering flexible work or pay raises or caseload like minimums or maximums. You know, so like you're not burning out your advisors. There's just so much I could speak to this that that that's my whole light rambling.

Imani Hill  
Thank you so much. Becky, thank you all for your time and sharing your walls, insight and opinions on these various areas that we covered. Again. I I'm very grateful for this platform and us having the space to share what we do and what we're passionate about. So to conclude our podcast or episode, we're going to have Becky share just some information about our community or our committee and how you can get involved.

Rebecca Helms  
Um, yeah, so I don't know if I really touched on this, but I'm the AC chair for the well being and advisor retention AC. So I just want to share if you're interested in getting involved in any level anyway, and a lot of these options I'm going to speak to have various time commitments. So like, if you don't have a whole lot of time, but you want to do something, you know, for the you know, well, being of advisors, you can still have a role. So you can join our steering committee meetings. We meet monthly, and then we have subcommittees. So if you're interested in like social media posting or our newsletter, contributing to our newsletter, or the research subcommittee like us or programming, you're welcome to join those subcommittees, and they meet. And we also have book club and regional liaisons that you that are optional. You can email me, and I'll make sure my emails in the episode description. Another low, you know, lower involvement way of getting involved is you can sign up as a proposal reviewer that that's open right now, and if you put health and well being tracked as your preference to review, you'll be, you know, set those sessions, those proposals to review. So any comments or any review you do will be sent to me next, and that'll help me, you know, decide which ones make it as sessions and annual conference. Anybody can submit something small, like an article review, a short article review, if you want to highlight an article research on well being and retention, or it could be a casual article or podcast episode, you can describe why you know what it is and why it's relevant and why you think our AC members should you know learn about it from reading our newsletter. You can submit it, just email me for that. I can let you know how you could do that. You can join in on any discussion or any you know, stay updated on our updates, like programming or sending our newsletter out by joining our Facebook group, LinkedIn group, Pinterest board or our Nakada forum, again, you can utilize it for discussion too. So if you have questions about well being or implementing something at your job, in your role, you can definitely post a question. And trust me, I've seen people post questions and they get like 10 to 12 answers, like within 510 minutes. So definitely, if you need advice, post on there and join our communities. But you can also set well being and advisor retention AC as one of your four ACS in your profile. And that means you'll be getting, like our official emails through executive office, like if you don't want to join any of the social media stuff when we send out the newsletter or any updates that way, you'll get that email from executive office. But we'd love to have you in any capacity. And it was so great talking with all of you about research and well being and advisor retention. It's It's all so important, and I really appreciate. Great having us all having the opportunity to, you know, speak on this podcast. So thank you.