Beyond the Unspoken Rules: Navigating the Invisible Map - Adventures in Advising

What happens when a two minute self portrait becomes the doorway to deeper reflection? When advising slows down just enough for students to breathe? And when feminist pedagogy quietly reshapes the way we listen? Guest host Matt Plescia sits down with Hannah Stubley from Hamilton College for a conversation that blends theory, creativity, and heart.

Hannah shares her journey from growing up in a small factory town in upstate New York to studying Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and returning to her alma mater as a holistic advisor. Along the way, she explores:

• ✏️ Why she begins advising sessions with a silent two minute self portrait
• 🌱 How feminist pedagogy lives beyond the classroom and into advising spaces
• 🐢 What “slow scholarship” looks like in a fast moving institutional world
• 🎓 How first generation students navigate hidden rules and unspoken expectations
• 🎶 Why playlists, bookstores, and campus talks matter more than we think

This episode is a reminder that advising is not just transactional. It is relational. It is creative. It is deeply human.

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey, welcome back to the Adventures in Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and we have another guest host episode, and we got Matt Plescia. Matt, welcome back. Hey Matt, thanks for having me again. Yeah, I was trying to think like you've been on twice already, you've been interviewed, you've guest hosted, and you're coming back on to do another guest hosting gig for this podcast, and it's been over a year. What's new?

Matt Plescia  
What's new? So I did another cross country move. I went from Logan, Utah, working at Utah State University, and now I'm in upstate New York. I'm in Clinton, and I am working at Hamilton College. So yeah, another move across the country, working in a different institute.

Matt Markin  
Well, I'm excited that that you're back and everything's going well for you. And you know, when I reached out to you, I said, Hey, do you want to come back on a guest host? You were like, absolutely. And I said, Do you have anyone in mind? And you said, in fact, I do. So I'm going to jump off, bring on your guest and have a great conversation.

Matt Plescia  
Sounds great. Thanks, Matt. I'm gonna go ahead and introduce my co worker, Hannah Stubley. Hannah works as an Alex advisor at Hamilton College. She holds a master's degree in Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies from the University at Albany, where she focused on feminist and narrative theories. As an Alex advisor, she is passionate about working with students as they integrate their personal narrative and academic journeys. Hannah previously worked at Herkimer County Community College as an academic success coach and adjunct instructor. Outside of advising, Hannah could be found reading a good book, listening to the Dave Matthews Band or playing or planning rather a fun weekend itinerary. Hannah, I'm so glad that you're here today.

Hannah Stubley  
Thanks, Matt. I'm happy to happy to be here.

Matt Plescia  
I also want to share with the viewers. I don't believe you missed any episodes of the podcast as well. So this is a really, this is really big thing. So we're just going to jump into some questions. So as I mentioned, you are a Hamilton alum who returned to the institution to work as an advisor. Can you share a bit about your path from being a student here at Hamilton to studying Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies at Albany to now working as an Alex advisor?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I'll start with my my trajectory, actually from high school and how I became a college student, and then circle that and into into now, yeah, I grew up in a small factory village in upstate New York, and I often tell this story. When you're sitting in a high school cafeteria and looking out the window, you see two things, right? You see the smokestacks of a local arms factory. And on certain days, especially if it's hot out, you can also smell it. It's a very visceral sense. And then you also see a cemetery. And in warmer weathers, you can in warmer weather, you can hear it right, like there's bagpipes and bugles playing, playing taps, right? So when you're sitting in your high school, you're seeing what you think might be your trajectory high school work in the factory, or some blue collar work and then the cemetery, right? So it's really, it was really hard to imagine what life after high school could be deviating from that trajectory. But I always knew I wanted to go to college. And I think, like many first gen students and many narratives that we hear, especially even on this podcast, think about college and in a very utilitarian sense, like, Oh, if I'm going to go to college, I'm going to go into a field that will pay a lot of money so you can pay off your student loans and, like, live a quote, unquote, good life. So I followed that path. My first semester of college, I went to a pharmacy school in Boston, and I absolutely hated it, right? I loved living in Boston and loved being in a city, but college wasn't what I thought it should feel like. I had one class that I really loved, an expository writing class, and unlike all of my peers who loved Chem, I was most excited about this, this writing course, and I wanted more of that, right? Like, I didn't quite know what college would be like, but I knew I wanted, wanted more of that. So that winter break, I returned home, told my parents, I'm like, yeah, like, I want, I want to be someplace else. And my mom, I'm really thankful for this. She, you know, took me to my local community college, and was like, you're going to sign up for classes for the spring. And I was a little reluctant, but when I got there and I looked at the college catalog, I saw classes like women's history, Intro to gender studies and women and lit, and I was like, Oh, wow. Like, I had no clue that these classes were. That even existed, right like mine, totally blown. I thought there were typical majors like history or math or science. So Herkimer County Community College really, really opened, opened my eyes to this, this field of gender studies. And then when I was a student there, right before I graduated, I also had the opportunity to travel to China, so it really, really opened my world. Prior to traveling to China through my community college, I had never even seen a passport. And so it was, it was really transformative in in many ways. And then spring of what was my sophomore year in college, I transferred to Hamilton College, which is actually 20 miles from my hometown and about 20 miles from community college. And Hamilton is beautiful in a sense. It has an open curriculum, which means there's very few requirements, graduation requirements, so you get to take a lot of courses in many different disciplines to really explore the breadth of the liberal arts. And I remember when I toured Hamilton and then was accepted, I was just like, oh, wow, the open curriculum really lends us this really cool learning environment within the class, because everyone within a particular classroom is taking that class because they want to, not because they're required to, and just that that shift in dynamic of class environment was was fantastic. And at Hamilton, I continued my studies of women's studies, and then after graduating while on to get my master's degree in Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies. And yeah, this, this, it's just given me a different lens to which I approach my advising, work and life.

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, thank you, Hannah. And like, I just want to, you know, share with the viewers as well. You know, you and I have talked about this. We're both first gen students. Kind of shared, like, a similar experience there too. Like, I'd never been out of the country. You and I actually went to London to advise some of our students. I had never seen a I'd never had a passport between before two months of being at this job. So it's interesting, and then it opens up, you know, your perspective, but kind of goes into the next question here. Many of us come into advising through really different paths, and there isn't a single right way to arrive in this work of advising. So your background in feminist and narrative theory feels especially unique to me. How did those academic frameworks shape the way you came to understand advising and the kind of advisor that you wanted to be.

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I love that question, Matt. And I also love that we were able to travel to London to visit our students who are, who are over there. I think one of the really cool things about working at a college campus is the intellectual community that we become a part of, right? And that was something that I really sought out in the work that I wanted to do. And, yeah, after, after grad school, I worked at a coffee shop for a bit, but I still, I still engaged with academics. I still presented at conferences and read and thought a lot, and then really put it back home and started working at community college, where I went and yeah, really use this lens of feminist theory to approach approach advising. As an undergrad, I took a class called feminist perspectives on class within the United States, and in that class, we read an article called The hidden curriculum by Jean anion, which is actually where you know the the term that we often hear, the hidden curriculum, is actually defined. And that class really opened, opened my eyes, and that particular article, it made me really reflect on my hometown experience, right? Like in my high school, I was implicitly being trained to be an obedient factory worker, right? All of our decisions that we made in high school were kind of taken from us, like even the color of folder you had for each class, red folder for science class, green folder for history class, yellow for math. You know, we really followed the schedule of a bell. And so having that aha moment in that class of like, Oh, wow. Like, this is how I my education was up until this point really helped me become more critically reflective and think about how I approach questions, or think about questions, or even exist in the world, and really made me rethink what education means, and also who can be a knowledge producer on a college campus. And I think that's part of like a feminist ethos is right? Like everyone who is on a college campus, even in a staff capacity, like ourselves, we engage in knowledge production, and I truly enjoy that.

Matt Plescia  
Great thanks for sharing, Hannna. And then this next question I really love because, you know, I got to shadow you as I was like onboarding here in Hamilton. So you often talk about working with students as they integrate their personal narratives with their academic journeys. What does that look like when a student walks into your office for the first time?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, thanks, Matt. I love that. I love that question. Yeah. So when a student walks into our office or our building for the first time, we really try to disarm them, right? We greet them at our kiosk. Matt and I both are upstairs, so we get a lot of steps in. We walk and it's, it's truly great. And then once they enter my office, I actually I invite them to draw a two minute self portrait on an index card. And this is an exercise that I'm borrowing from the MacArthur Genius Award recipient graphic novelist Linda Berry. She when she teaches a class, she takes attendance by having students draw a two minute self portrait. And I just thought it was a really cool way to to start off an advising appointment with some creativity. And also it's a little unconventional, because it also means the first two minutes of my sessions are silent, and it just sets a, sets a different tone. And yeah, it's, it's, it's been, it's been a fun way to I just started doing this last spring semester. So this, this will be a full year of doing, doing this exercise.

Matt Plescia  
And so when I had shadowed you, you know, for the first time, and encountering that, I, you know, stay, I was, you know, not taken aback, but I was, you know, I was like, this is interesting, and like, I want to learn more about it. So how did you first encounter her work, and what made you want to bring that practice into your own advising practice?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, so in our in our broader division, so Matt and I both work as Alex advisors, and Alex stands for advise, learn experience, and at Hamilton, advising is really special and unique, because students have multiple advisors, right? They have faculty advisor who they go to for academic related questions, discipline related questions. When students come in, they're assigned an advisor in any department, but then spring of sophomore year, when students declare they're assigned a discipline specific concentration faculty advisor. Students also have career coaches to help them think about skills, interests, values related to vocation. But then they also have Alex advisors, and we're here as holistic advisors to help students really connect and reflect on their whole college experience, you know, inside of the classroom and and outside of the classroom. And so we're situated in a really cool place where we get to connect with colleagues from all over the all over this wider Alex division, and also wider campus community. And with within that, there's a program called a work in progress group, and you can propose an idea, and you write a proposal, and if it's accepted, you and a couple of colleagues essentially get to have lunch six times in an academic year. So this work in progress group that I proposed was reading Linda Berry's book, syllabus, which is syllabus notes from an accidental professor, and I had colleagues from I had our director of fellowship advising our director of the quantitative and symbolic reasoning Center and our director of community outreach. So four people in four different offices, reading this book in tandem throughout the course of a year, really afforded us the time and time and space everyone is busy, and I know oftentimes people say, oh, like, Let's have coffee or let's have lunch, but being this group, like we actually put that on our calendar and stuck to it, and so I really appreciate that time and space to have these conversations about syllabus with with these wonderful colleagues. And so that's where we first really encountered and interacted with Linda Berry's work. And I was like, Oh, how can I incorporate this into advising? And yeah, it's, it's been, it's been a lot of fun, and it's also really lent to really great advising conversations. A lot of times, students, when I say, oh, like, you know, I really like to start off my session with, you know, invite you to draw a two minute self portrait. And sometimes the first, the first thing I hear is, I can't draw, or I'm not an artist, or, Oh, I don't know. And so after they do their portrait, we kind of unpack that, right? And it really gets into unpacking perfectionism, right? A lot of our students, I forget what the statistic is right off, but the majority of our students come from the top 10% of their graduating class, right? So they've had to achieve a really high level their whole lives just to get here. And so they're used to just this, this mode of perfectionism, and so having that conversation of like, oh, I can't, but then doing it anyway, right? It's been really, really fun, and it also aligns with this broader initiative that's on campus called fail better, where we've been having conversations all. Year about failure, reframing failure, using failure as a tool for for growth, and thinking how we can can learn from from failure. So it's been, it's been a really cool entry, entry way into, you know, really meaningful advising conversations.

Matt Plescia  
No, I love it, and I remember, like, you know, shadowing that first student. And I believe someone even doodled. So like, you know, that was great. Like, you know, you just invite them have that space. And I was like, looping it in my mind to the appreciative advising framework. I'm like, this is definitely a disarming, like activity. So I really love the work that you're doing there and how you're incorporating your advising. You did touch on one of my questions, so I am going to skip over here. Have there been any student responses or moments from that exercise that have really stayed with you since you've incorporated this? 

Hannah Stubley  
I mean, there's been, there's been really countless moments, and I think one was from a recent conversation with a student a few weeks ago, where the returning student and upper class student, and they've done the exercise several times. So they they expect it when they when they come in, and you can tell the students who return are excited to do this. And they their self portrait. They drew themselves as a young person, right? And they wanted to reflect back on like, you know, telling their younger self how far they've come, right? Their first gen student. So really, having those, those cool conversations. And then we extended it further to think, you know, what are you going to tell tell your future self? And there's this exercise I really love from that Debbie Millman, who is who runs the podcast, design matters, and teaches at a design school, and she has this exercise that I believe was a Milton Glaser exercise, where she asks students to imagine a day in their life in like, 10 years, right? And literally journal like, what you imagine your whole day being right from the time you step your feet on the ground, out of bed, to the time you go to bed, like everything, right? Like you get up and, you know, make a pot of coffee, or where you go to work, or who you're living with and where, who, what type of person you are, right? And I really think that that gets at the ethos of holistic advising, right, having these big picture conversations of not only who are you as a student, but who are you as a person, and what kind of person do you want to become, and how can we, you know, help you, help you in that way. And I think one other thing to add on the index card self portrait exercise is that the index card has two sides right? So the one side, I asked students to draw a two minute self portrait, and then the other side. This is part of a cool initiative from our Alex advising office. Is we have a question of the season, and this was actually inspired from a couple of summers ago, our team had the opportunity to go to the Nakata summer advising Institute. It was in Syracuse, which is right up the road from us, and we were talking with Wendy Troxel, who was our faculty member. We were talking about assessment, right we have Advising Student Learning Outcomes. And we were chatting about what are ways we could capture artifacts of student learning within the context of advising. And Wendy was like, oh, like, you know, I've been thinking about this, like, idea of, like, a question of the month or question of the week, and we really took that idea and and have have run with it, and it's, been really, really fun. It's kind of evolved into a question of the season. So the first quarter of a, first half of a semester, we'll ask all of the advisors will ask our students the same question, and then the second half of the semester, same thing. And one of our colleagues, Logan, will go through the data and, you know, code it and create this really beautiful report, and then we share out to the campus, you know, what students are learning and thinking in the context of our advising conversations. And it's, yeah, it's been, it's been a really fun thing to be a part of.

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, no, um, and I, you know, I'm still new to that. And, you know, be being safe, being able to see that, you know, go out to the campus community and hear their thoughts. It's great, before we shift, you know, conversation a little bit. What do you plan on doing those just really fast with those note cards that you're holding on to?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, so I've been keeping the note cards of the self portraits, and I'm telling students that in their senior spring I will hand them back a stack of note cards in our in our one of our final advising sessions. So the cool thing about Alex advising too, is that we follow a student for their whole four years on campus. Is. I'll give them back a stack of index cards, and we'll, we'll reflect on that. And I actually have some students who want to reflect on a previous self portrait in the current appointment. So it's been fun to have like something material, right? Like something something tangible, to like pull out and and chat about and use as a mode for reflection.

Matt Plescia  
Thanks for sharing. Hannah, so I'm gonna switch the conversation up a bit. Jump into something else here. So feminist pedagogy is often discussed in classrooms, but less often in advising spaces. What feminist principles feel most present in your advising work?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, thanks for this question that I I really, I really love it. Yeah, I think that feminist pedagogies really go hand in hand in the in the context of advising, and I know also, a few years ago, our team had the opportunity to do the Nakata module on on one of the modules on creating, like, personal philosophy of advising. And this was a really cool exercise to think about. You know, how do I want to approach advising, and how can I bring my academic background into into this work? And I think feminist pedagogy is really, really align. I think one of the tenets is, for me, critical self reflection, right? Just like being really aware of yourself and also the space that you're situated in. For example, I work at predominantly white what has what sociologist Eduardo Silva would call a historically white institution, right? So thinking about that in the context of my advising space, like on my walls, it's really important to me to have art that's from people who are at the margins, right? So I have art that's featured by people of color, queer people, and often just like local artists that show my ethos to to advising. And I think I think having symbols like that are small nods to students who may sit at the margins as a sense of a sense of belonging, right? I think small, small things like that really, really matter. I also think feminist pedagogy is aligned with engaged pedagogies. And I really like to bring a lot of Bell Hooks, his work, into my my advising practice. I think one of her quotes from teaching critical thinking. So she has a series of books we often hear about Teaching to Transgress great, great work, but in that series, is also teaching critical thinking and teaching community. And in teaching critical thinking, she talks about not like conversation as knowledge acquisition in our daily lives. So in the context of advising, I invite students to come in and have a conversation. I say you can either come in with questions that you want to chat about, or if you don't have anything on the agenda, that's okay, too. And sometimes that can even be more generative, right, like sitting and having a general a genuine conversation. Oftentimes, you know, maybe a week or even month after an appointment, I might see something come through the campus email, or see a local event and send it a student's way and say, like, oh, like, you know, we chatted about this, you know, the last time we met, and I thought of you, right? So, really, really reframing our daily and valuing our conversations as knowledge acquisition. And I think that also extends to beyond the academy too, right? Knowledge acquisition happens when we're outside of the walls of the ivory ivory tower. And I also think this term by Sarah Ahmed, listening with a feminist ear can also be extended to advising, right? So I'm listening like a lot of advising is listening right? Like deep listening, active listening, and I think listening for, you know, things that students are saying to to help them either reframe, right? Sometimes there's negative self talk, especially first gen students who who might operate from a deficit mindset and helping the reframe, or also helping students think about how they can advocate for themselves right in spaces on campus. So, yeah, so listening with a with a feminist ear.

Matt Plescia  
Thanks for sharing that Hannah and then jumping into our next question here. Just want to be mindful of time. So advising is a relational practice that brings together institutional knowledge, care and trust. How do you think about building collaborative and affirming relationships with students while helping them navigate the college environment. I know you might have touched on some of that, so.

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I think this really goes back for me to, you know, concepts of an engaged pedagogy. Not only are students learning like I'm learning right, like I'm learning. Way than alongside students like all day, all day long. And I think that that's one of the things that I really love about this role.

Matt Plescia  
And I know that you I love that you've said that because we are constantly learning from our students. And, you know, we are all lifelong learners, in the sense, in that case, too, I wanted to, you know, mention this as well. You presented your work at spaces like NACADA and the National Woman's Studies Association, communities that do not always overlap. So what have those interdisciplinary conversations taught you about the possibilities of advising as both relation, relational and scholarly practice?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I think that the one thing about advising is, for me, it transcends disciplines, right? It really transcends boundaries. And I think that it's really cool for scholar practitioners to think about, you know, how can we do this work and also make it visible to folks who aren't just within our world, right? Not to just the other NACADA nerds who are listening to the podcast every week like ourselves, right, which is also fantastic. But how can we show that advising actually is a discipline, and there is scholarly grounding behind the work that we do each day? So I think it's a really exciting way to, you know, showcase, showcase that work outside of, you know, where it's situated.

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, no, I think that's really important work that's being done. And I think any advisors out there listening to definitely encourage them to, you know, start taking part of this work as well. So shifting gears here a little bit. You've mentioned slow scholarship to me, before and slow scholarship is often described as a way of resisting urgency and valuing reflection. What does slow scholarship mean to you when you think about advising?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I really love to think about slow Scholarship, which, which is a movement that has come out of other slow movements, such as slow foods, slow fashion, and it's really about slowing down, valuing our time, rethinking about how we think about time, and in our relationship to time. There's this really great article that I always refer to, and it's, it's called for slow scholarship of feminist politics of resistance. And it's really cool, because this article is also a co written article by maybe eight to 10 different scholars. So I also think that's like an ethos of slow is this like radical collaboration, right? And also, when you collaborate with that many folks, it takes longer, so, like, it's really meta. So I really love this article. But within that, they say we situate slow scholarship within a feminist practice that positions self care in the creation of caring communities, of finding ways to exist in a world that is diminishing, right? And I really love that, and I think that that can be really extended to to advising in a whole bunch of you know, create creative ways and even smaller, smaller ways. In this article, you know, the scholars talk about counting things differently, right? So, like, what does that mean in the in the context of advising and working on a college campus, to me, that means showing up to events during the work day that happened on campus. Right? There's tons of great talks, and often when I go to these, there's students, right? And then oftentimes I'll see a student at a talk, and then when they come into my office, we talk about what we learned in that space. So I think that showing up in different ways, and counting, what we think of of work just differently, is this part of this, like, slow ethos.

Matt Plescia  
I think it's super important, you know, attending those events and being able to, you know, have a student come back to your office and be able to, like, reflect and just take the time. And so that leads me into, how do you intentionally create space for slowness, reflection and meaning making within those advising conversations, especially in institutional environments that tend to often move pretty quickly?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I think that's a I think that's a great question. And I had a student the other day, after they did the two minute self portrait exercise, they came in, and they were like, all, like, go, go, go, go, go. Then they sat down and, like, did the two minute self portrait exercise, and that's actually really an act of slowing down. And the student was like, Oh, wow. Like, that was a brain break, and I needed that. And just like, two minutes, right? It's almost a meditation in in a sense. So I think that that's, that's one way to intentionally create that space. I think another way to think about it is doing things like going going to the library, right? Like, instead of, like, you know, if you're going to get a book, you know, we can get our books delivered, but like, you can go to the library and pick it up. And I think like browsing. The stacks and stumbling across other books for your research is is an active of slowness, and it also can manifest in other creative ways. A few years ago, my colleague Kevin and I, we had a podcast that we named radical hope after Kevin gannon's book. Radical hope, not a podcast, excuse me, a radio show, and we would ask our students and our colleagues, what are songs that give you a feeling of radical hope, right, especially in like these uncertain times. And for one hour a week, we would go over to the radio station on campus, and, you know, make, you know, play our playlist. And I think that that's a creative way to think about approaching slow and, yeah, just just thinking about time. I think after the pandemic, we've seen a whole bunch of books on time, right? Like 4000 weeks rest is resistance, how to do nothing, slow productivity. There's just so so many. So we're really in this moment where people are shifting their relationship to time, and I think that that all is is related to just lowness.

Matt Plescia  
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, that radio show was before my time. So my question to you is, do you still have that playlist around somewhere.

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I can share that. We're happy to share that with you, with you later.

Matt Plescia  
Appreciate that. Hannah, yeah, so moving forward, one of your core interests is class and higher education, particularly in first generation students. So I kind of want to go into this too. From your perspective, what parts of college still feel most hidden or assumed?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I'm a first gen student, and I think a lot of a lot of things still seem hidden for first gen students, in particular, whether it's, you know, knowing which spaces you can go to on campus, which is any space, but it might not feel that way, right? Sometimes campuses aren't designed to, you know, make it feel like you're welcome in all spaces. I also think office hours, right, that that's a common conversation we have in in the context of advising, is our students, you know, talking with their professors and going to office hours, because we know that that's how that this, like, networking can happen for whether they find research or other experiential learning opportunities, yeah, and even, even how students address advisors, right? And I think advisors are a great way to practice, you know, before faculty, right? I tell students, I'm like, Hey, I'm like, you can come in and, like, practice a conversation that you hope to have with a faculty member, because we're really, like, a judgment free free zone, so that that scaffolding. And also, like, if someone, you know, sometimes someone will address me as, Oh, Mrs. Stubbly, and I'm like, oh, like, you can just call me Hannah, but if you're talking to a professor, you might want to say professor you know, pleasure, right? And just like small little things, like talking to students about small little things, and also without any any judgment.

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, that is so timely. In my conversation with a student yesterday, they were like, I'm like, afraid to go to the office hours. And I'm like, well, let's practice it here. I'm like, you know they're here to see you succeed. We all know that that's, you know, the why we do the work we do. And yeah, that that hidden part, and definitely, you know, concept there. So in your book review of the hidden curriculum first generation students of legacy universities, you reflect on how institutions often expect students to navigate unspoken rules on their own. How does that scholarship show up in the way that you work with students day to day?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I think that that book by Rachel Gable is really great. One of the things that she talks about is how first gen students and continuing gen students perceive themselves, and oftentimes first gen students come in with this deficit mindset of thinking like, Oh, I'm not fill in the blank, like I'm not good enough. I'm not or I don't have the experience because I didn't go to a quote, unquote good school where continuing gen students like come in with this confidence and that, and they just approach the institution in a different way. And I think that this book, The Hidden Curriculum, was really in conversation with other literature on first gen students. Another great book is called geographies of campus inequality, by Liz Lee, who is actually a former visiting professor at Hamilton when I was a student. She's great, and Janelle Benson, who's great, down the road at Colgate. And they situate first gen students into different, what they call geographies, in four different spheres, which they call, I believe, there's work, hard, play, hard, hard, multi sphere and disconnected. And a lot of. First gen students at institutions like Hamilton are fall into what they call the disconnected sphere, which means they don't have many interactions with faculty or staff, and they spend most of their time in their dorm room. And so I think that that really translates into the conversations and the questions that we ask and advising, like, one, one question I ask, I would say, every student, but I think it's particularly helpful with first gen students, is like, Hey, I'm like, outside of class, like, where do you spend the most time on campus? Because this, this gives you, this is that listening with the feminist here. This gives you an idea of like, Oh, they're in the room all the time, right? And then your your, you know, signals go up, and you're like, you'll ask other questions and kind of see if there's other ways you can help them get integrated into campus, whether it's, you know, going to clubs or activities, or, you know, helping them set goals of like, Oh, before the next advising appointment, I hope to go to an office hours, or, I hope to speak in class. So I think that, I think that being up on, up to date on this literature really helps the helps the questions we ask.

Matt Plescia  
Yeah, no, thank you for sharing and like, you know, when you said, like, be intentional with the questions we ask, like, you know, making a goal of, like, doing something like, you know, maybe just like, even like, a student going to, like, say, Dov and grabbing a coffee. I know they'll usually find me in line over there. So that's another great thing about us working at a small liberal arts some colleges. You know we run into our students, but you did touch on this. But if you don't mind diving in a little deeper when advising first generation students, what do you find yourself being especially attentive to, whether in language pacing or the kind of questions that you ask?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I think that one thing that I pay particular attention to, and this is based on my own lived experience as as a student. You know, here is I, I didn't engage in like research or experiential learning opportunities. And that was one of the things that, like, really drew me back to work at Hamilton, and also work in this role, is to, like, help fill that equity gap of helping all students be really plugged into, plugged into campus, in in ways that they find meaningful. And so yeah, listening for, you know, what they're what they're doing outside of the classroom, especially, right? We know that firsthand, students might not have the social and cultural capital to, you know, learn how to access these different clubs or networks. So being really intentional about helping them get into these, these spaces is something that I really, really think about.

Matt Plescia  
And I think it's awesome that, like, you know, our students are partaking in undergraduate research. Like, you know, I've had a conversation with a student that's already participated in undergraduate research before even coming to Hamilton. So these are opportunities that you and I did not have. So I think it's great that we're intentionally doing that work, but outside of advising, because I like to, you know, let people know that we are humans too, and I like to let my students know that as well. I'm sure you do too. Outside of your advising, you spend your time, whether it be in the Adirondacks, exploring used bookstores and going to hear live music. How do those spaces of creativity and ultimately, rest support the way that you show up for students in your day to day work.

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I think that, I think that's a great question. I used to for a while, I was on the well being advisor and retention committee, and I really love the work that those, those great folks do within within their Cata but, yeah, I think that, you know, sustaining ourselves like sustains us in in our work. I think having having fun, you know, like, whether you know I love, you know, going to going to concerts and, you know, find stumbling upon used bookstores in my travels. I think that if you have fun outside of work, that that really translates to work, right? And that sustains you in in the in the day to day again, like one thing I love to do is go to talks on college campuses. So I'm that nerd who looks up, you know, every college campus within like an hour or so driving range to see who's who's giving a talk, when or where. And I think that just keeping up on on on the literature, and having fun and seeing that, seeing the people who I'm reading speak right, really helps you engage in it in a different way. And I think that really shows up in shows up in your in your work.

Matt Plescia  
Yes, and we do have a shared interest in live music, and you have given me many places to go which I am going to be taking that out. So just to go back into that, what sustains you in this work and helps you remain curious, present and open with students. Now, you touched on that a little bit right there. But can you dive a little deeper?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I think, I think just engaging in the intellectual community of advising at large, listening to this podcast, I think is really cool, because it's like, free professional development, going to different NACADA sponsored, you know, talks like, I love, I love doing that, and it's great meeting advisors from from different different places. And I think even just engaging in in work that might seem unrelated, right, like the Linda berry work, but like trying to tie it to what we do, I think that that that just opens up my my curiosity and just having those having conversations with with students. Right each week, we do as advisors, we do proactive outreach to our cohorts of students. And I really try to create a narrative, like, right in my email, I might mention a book that I'm currently reading and a quote from that, and like, weave that in. And then that also is an entry way to a deeper conversation with a student who may have read that book or like, Oh, we're actually reading that book in a class this semester. And it's, it's really cool to say, see these little ways to spark that curiosity.

Matt Plescia  
Thanks Hannah. And then for advisors who are interested in bringing creativity or feminist pedagogy in their practice, but are unsure where to start? What feels like a gentle entry point?

Hannah Stubley  
Yeah, I love this question, and I'm going to refer to Adrian Marie Brown, who has this great text called emergent strategy and the the ethos of emergent strategy is like small, intentional, often interconnected acts can have transformative change, right? So I would say, start small. One of, one of Adrienne Brown's tenets of emergent strategy is small, is all and for me, like that extends to everything I do, right? Like both professionally and in my life outside of work, right? It's the small things that matter the most, at least, least for me. And I think the small also snowballed, right? So doing a two minute self portrait on an index card. I also think comes from, you know, I worked at a community college. I think it comes from that DIY ethos of, when you work at a place where you don't really have a budget, you start small, right? Like you learn how to create with nothing. And so I think that just like starting starting something, starting small, and then that that can grow, and even something small is is deeply, deeply meaningful, yeah.

Matt Plescia  
And we definitely can both relate on that maybe was not that budget there, and you know how to be creative and come out with those outlets. So I really do appreciate that. And you know, as we're wrapping up here, I'm so glad that you were, you know, be able to be on the podcast today, but I do have one last question for you, if you had to describe your advising philosophy in one sentence, this doesn't have to be for a CV, but you know for yourself, what would it be?

Hannah Stubley  
that's a really good question. Again, small is all right, a small question, but a big one. Yeah, I love that. I think for me, it would be creating a warm, inviting space where deep listening and good conversation will happen, and hopefully it's a little fun.

Matt Markin  
I love that. Well, Hannah, thank you for joining us on the adventures advising podcast today. You've taught me so much since I've been here in Hamilton, and I look forward to working with you each and every day. It's been a pleasure. But to our listeners, thank you for joining the adventures advising podcasts. Yeah, thank you.