Training, Technology, and Leadership - Adventures in Advising

In this episode of Adventures in Advising, Matt and Ryan sit down with Weston Rose, Senior Program Manager in the UT System Office of Academic Affairs, for a lively conversation about advising, innovation, and what it really takes to support student success at scale. From his journey as a first-generation college student from a tiny Texas town to leading systemwide advising initiatives, Weston shares how creativity, technology, and a strong practitioner lens can transform advisor training and professional development. Along the way, the conversation explores mentoring, career pathways, system-level leadership, and bold ideas for the future of academic advising, with a few side trips into pickleball, skyscraper office views, and Montreal travel stories. It’s a thoughtful, energizing episode for anyone who cares about advising, leadership, and building better support for students.

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Transcript

Ryan Scheckel  0:13  
Well, hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Adventures in Advising podcast. As always, with me is Matt Markin. My name is Ryan shekel. Matt. Are things going doing all right?

Matt Markin  0:27  
Trying to, I mean, this episode is my time. Starts listening to this. It's probably second week of May, but we're recording this in April. I know for many of us, it's a registration time.

Ryan Scheckel  0:39  
So it's busy. Yeah, we, we had the opportunity recently to sort of articulate that feeling of how, you know, student activity increasing and and the effect that that has on our day to day. And just, you know, I know that advising season is year round, that there's not anything special about course registration as it relates to the work of academic advising, but it definitely changes the tone when there's lots going on and and I'm just glad that we have this chance to step back from it a little bit, to connect again with with someone who's been on the podcast before, but to spend a little bit more time with our guests, I hope everybody who is in the midst of their busiest seasons perhaps finds some some value in that as well. We want to bring our guest on, Matt?

Matt Markin  1:35  
So but before we do that, and this news to you too, we just hit 75,000 downloads of the podcast. So, hey.

Ryan Scheckel  1:44  
Hey, that's amazing. Yeah, we, we talked before about the idea of milestones and, and I'll say this, I know that the numbers do reflect real human value and benefit and and I have experienced it myself roughly, roughly a year now, since I recorded my first podcast episode as full time co host, and in that year, my life has been enriched, that's for sure.

Matt Markin  2:16  
Yeah, well and however many guest hosted episodes he did prior to that, sure, but of course, the bittersweet news that by the time this episode's out, it's already been a couple episodes since it was already announced, and now I'm thinking about it. Our guest is now going to find out about it right now that the podcast is ending in its current run on episode 200 which will be January of 2027, so now let's bring on our guests and be like, hey, what do you think about that? Welcome, Weston.

Weston Rose  2:51  
Hi Ryan and Matt. Thanks so much for having me. And congratulations on your recent milestone.

Ryan Scheckel  2:57  
Yeah, seasons and milestones and look this stuff, not to get too poetic about life, but we've all had these moments, you know, these transitory moments. I've even offered the idea that advisors are somewhat like time travelers. We're looking ahead in the future, dealing with stuff in the past. We're here in the now and and being on this podcast has heightened that sense of wait. When is it right now? When am I so but where we are is getting to talk with Weston. Some of you might remember from Episode 165, Weston is on a panel of colleagues from the UT System, and I just so thrilled that we get to spend a little bit more time just talking with Weston individually. He is a senior program manager in the Office of Academic Affairs at the University of Texas System. Weston provides support for the regular agenda and consent agenda for the academic affairs committee of the board of regents meetings. Also coordinates multiple system wide initiatives related to the P 20 education pipeline, student success, Student Affairs, faculty affairs, including the nomination process for Student Regent and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board student representative and the regents outstanding teaching awards. And look for those of you who are like, wait, what? Just know that at the state level, the governance structure, whether we end up focusing on that or not. I think everybody who does academic advising should understand their governance structure in their state as it relates to higher education, and Weston certainly does so. Since 2016 he's supported the UT System Academy of distinguished teachers, provides project management for the system's advising initiative, which was the thrust of our focus on that podcast episode in the panel there and CO led the development of fundamentals of excellence in academic advising, e learning training modules that launched last September in 2025 it also received the 2026 tech same. 10, which is a state Advising Association, outstanding innovative advising Technology Award, and the podcast episode title, if you're wondering, is advising at scale, rethinking advisor professional development. Weston supports the momentum on open education resource initiative. Serves as a supervisor for the academic affairs intern through the UT System, internship and law clerkship programs, and is a content publisher for the Office of Academic Affairs, developing and managing web content. He joined the system in 2016 so 10 years is where we are at now. And you know, has been a research communications manager for vice president of research scholarship and stuff at the institutional level, University of Texas Austin, Media and Communications Specialist for graduate studies at San Houston State University, and edited a yearly magazine focused on graduate student research. But you began your career as an academic advisor and lecturer, teaching developmental English and composition one and two to undergraduate students. Weston received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Sam Houston State University, certified professional training and performance through the idle Academy for instructional designers, and her certificate of completion from UT Austin's full stack web development boot camp in 2020 and in 2021, Weston completed a board internship program through I live here. I give here and leadership Austin's emerge cohort program that helps aspiring leaders and young professionals identify the leader within while developing skills and building relationships that lead to high impact. So Weston, thanks for being here again. It's looking forward to our conversation today. Thanks so much great to be here. Well, in that panel episode, you know, we were focused on trying to make sure we we talked about the program and and we only got to briefly introduce the panelists. So can you tell us more about your higher education journey, especially sort of that origin story of how you started and how you got to where you are now?

Weston Rose  7:09  
Yeah, it would be my pleasure. Well, I am a first generation college student. I come from a very small town of about 400 people. It's called Gause, Texas. It's near the Brazos River, there are no stoplight, no gas station, no high school. So very tiny, and for me, in high school, it felt like college was such an unattainable goal. So I was lucky enough to do some Google enrollment classes. In high school, I went to community college at blend college for a bit before transferring to Sam Houston, State University and higher education has been so important and transformative in my own life, I wasn't quite sure what I would end up doing over the years. I thought at various times I might become a lawyer. I thought that I might become a college professor, but what ended up happening was I really worked as a staff member in various capacities. So it started when I was an undergraduate. I got a job as a student assistant in the Department of English, where I one of my jobs was to advise students who were pursuing English majors and minors. And then later I was a graduate student again in the Department of English. I worked as a tutor in the Writing Center. I also began teaching those developmental English courses that you mentioned, and then I was an adjunct and an academic advisor before really moving into being a full time staff member in the Office of Graduate Studies, where I learned a lot about graduate advising, but I also began working on a lot of communications role work, such as doing that magazine about graduate student research. That was a really fun project. But I also really enjoyed creating trainings. I started creating trainings for graduate students who were writing their dissertations. Even though I have not written a dissertation, I have written a thesis, and I've been through the IRB process. So I was pulled into do these seminars for our PhD boot camps for people who were in their PhDs for a long time having trouble finishing their dissertations. I began doing some in person trainings, but also developing video educational videos that we put on YouTube. So in a strange way, even though it might feel like some parts of my bio are unconnected, in a way, it all ends up being tied together. And having been at the system for 10 years, I really enjoy finding places where I can add value, and for me, that often takes the shape of working on training and development, working with technology, developing digital tools.

Matt Markin  9:55  
Yeah, so you kind of dabbled in quite a few different things, but like you said, they're all kind of connected. And and I kind of think that you know you through your time, you've probably worked with and met with various individuals that maybe have helped you out. And I was wondering if you can maybe, as you look back, reflect, were there any mentors that have shaped how you think about higher ed and the work that you do?

Weston Rose  10:21  
Yes, I've been really lucky to have so many mentors, and I won't be able to name all of them here today in this segment, but I would really like to point out my thesis director. Her name is Dr. Helena Almari. She's a linguist at Sam Houston State University, and she really taught me a lot about the rigor that is required and research and and really I've always admired her work ethic and her approach to higher education. I also really need to I owe so much to Edgar Sanchez. He's a good friend of mine, and also he helped to get me hired as an academic advisor in the advisor the centralized advising center there. And really he's the one I shadowed when I was training. So I felt like he taught me to be a good advisor. He taught me how to conduct an effective advising session, how to operate all of the technology banner. You know Degree Works, so I owe him so much. And I also need to set a my former supervisor, Dr. Kandi Tayebie, who hired me as the media and communication specialist in the Office of Graduate Studies. While I had never written a magazine before, at that time, while I had never published web content. At that time, she took a chance on me and really had an enormous impact on my career. She taught me so much about higher education, so much about how to even run, I would say, an awards program, which has been part of my career, and even how to communicate effectively through email. One time I took her an email I had drafted, and she crossed out most of it and left a few sentences and said they're not going to read this. Keep it really short, and every time I write an email, I think about her. So I also just really need to shout out some of my mentors here at UT System, especially my supervisor, Dr Rebecca karoff, who is an associate vice chancellor for student success, I've learned so much from her about how ut university system systems operate, and also how to build trust with institutional colleagues and just various aspects of student success, especially, I would say, open educational resources more recently.

Matt Markin  12:39  
that's very cool. And Rebecca was on the previous episode too, on the panel, and email, when you mentioned the email and that they crossed out mostly everything, I had a similar situation, and the person told me, and they were like, a journalism major or background, and they're like, Don't bury the lead.

Ryan Scheckel  12:54  
Yeah. And you know, there's so many times, I think, especially for people who have many thoughts to figure out which is the lead, you know, which is the most important thing, because it's, it's hard sometimes, when you've got so many thoughts and so many experiences to draw from, to be like, I want to make sure, I want to get it all out. And I think that brevity is not just a skill, but it is sometimes a talent too. You mentioned your role where you're at now as a senior program manager at a system level, and I know a lot of our audience members are gonna have a general sense a little bit of what institutional or system governance might look like. But can you expand a little bit more on like what your day to day is like? What are the responsibilities of your position to help us learn more about what it looks like there?

Weston Rose  13:58  
Absolutely well as a senior program manager, effectively, I'm a project manager who supports a portfolio of multiple programs. Sometimes those are recurring programs. For example, we have an awards program, the UT System regions outstanding teaching awards. So I manage the nomination process, manage the committee that reviews all of the applications, support our Executive Vice Chancellor by providing him with recommendations made for the awards. And basically, when you're a project manager, you're responsible for everything you you know. You make sure the trains run on time. People are getting paid you make sure that you're meeting milestones and deadlines. So that really makes up the bulk of my work. But because of my background in communications and instructional design, I also end up being pulled into some really interesting projects where I create a lot of digital content. Sometimes that may be. The E Learning Modules, as we mentioned on this podcast and the other one, it also might look like animated videos. I've been delving into video editing and animation, some graphic design. I also have a strong background in English. My my degrees are in English, so I do a lot of copy editing. I make sure that our web content is up to date, it's accessible. So what I like about my job is that it's varied, and I get to really participate in a lot of different ways, sometimes as a lead with a lot of autonomy, other times as a team member, where I'm contributing one piece and really taking direction from leaders themselves. It's really creative, and it allows me to not get bored, because I have many different things to do it on any given day.

Matt Markin  15:51  
Yeah, definitely sounds like Yeah. It's always got something to do. I know Ryan and I were interested, because you have a background in advising, you were an advisor. You have had direct experience working with students, so we were kind of wondering with your role now, has your work working, or your experience working with students shaped how you look at advising now at the system level, you know, are there moments from your advising days that still influence the decisions and what you work on today?

Weston Rose  16:25  
I would say that after working in a number of roles and offices at the campus level and at the university system level, for I've been in higher education for over 15 years, I feel like I Bring a strong practitioner lens to my work and my experience as an educator, as an instructional designer, as a communications expert, it all works synergistically. I remember when I was graduating from college at the time, that was the Great Recession, and there were so many people struggling to find work. And that was also around the time that the iPhone, the smartphone, was so popular. And I was really just fascinated by the way that a smartphone combines all these various elements we used to have, you know, a phone that was separate from your computer, that was separate from your compass or your clock, and now they're all rolled into one thing. So I thought, Well, for me to be a strong professional, I need to be dynamic. I need to have multiple elements that that makes me useful and that makes me creative, and I feel like my various experiences allow me to do that here, but in particular, working with students, working with faculty and staff members, I feel like one of the ways that I've certainly brought that to bear and my recent work is in the development of the E Learning Modules, while I was responsible for developing curriculum for all of The modules, along with all of my other team members, we each took one module that we were the lead of, and mine was conducting an effective advising session. I felt really confident that I could contribute as a subject matter expert in this area, because I've conducted academic advising sessions myself. But it was also really important that I listened to my fellow teammates. So my colleague John Jackson at UT Dallas, had a great breakdown of how to conduct a 30 minute session, you know, the first five minutes or intro, how to handle this and how to budget time so that you have enough time to transition to your next session. So I really do think that coming from a campus level, at the at the system level, makes you really strong as a professional.

Ryan Scheckel  18:48  
So I mentioned it's been about 10 years, and you know, a lot has happened in those 10 years, certainly, but I'm curious what it was like. I mean, I've only personally been at one institution. I've changed roles in my institution. But what was that transition like, moving from your campus based role to the system and having that new perspective on this work?

Weston Rose  19:15  
Well, thinking back to that time, I remember feeling how different it was when I first got here, because again, I came from a very small town. I came from a small town of 400 people. Then when I went to Sam Houston State University, that itself is still a fairly small place. And Sam Houston State University is not necessarily a small institution. The last time I checked, there were over 20,000 students. But at the same time, you tend to know many people across campus, and those people met me when I was 19, and you know, I was there for about a decade, so I really felt like I grew up there, and I had so much time to develop a lot of social capital. But when. I came to UT System, the main differences I noticed between the system level and the campus level were one. They're not students in the same way. Yes, we support students and I would say faculty, staff institutions as a whole. But campuses are such a unique environment, they feel like a microcosm a small city with all these various aspects, the library, sports complexes, gyms, etc, but we don't have students walking across campus or living where we work. We work in a skyscraper in downtown Austin. So that lack of students felt jarring at first. It also, I would just say, the way that people behave and dress is a bit more formal, a bit more corporate, at least, that's how I interpreted it at first, and that's largely a result of the fact that many people who work at the system level might have professional degrees as lawyers. They might interact with as a state agency, they interact with the legislature. So it just has a very different feel than a campus, which I would say is a bit more relaxed, a bit more youthful, in a sense, because you have those students. And I would say, if you were coming from a corporate sector, you would not think that a university system was corporate at all, but coming from a campus level and working at a university system, it does feel a bit more corporate and different. But there are many wonderful things about working at the system level, and I felt like once I was able to find ways that I added value and I could bring that practitioner lens to bear, that's when I really began to hit my stride.

Matt Markin  21:43  
I want go back to, like, the evening modules, because, you know, we've mentioned a few times already on this episode, we were kind of referencing the previous episode that you were on with the other panelists. So for those who didn't catch that panel episode, hopefully they'll go back and actually listen to it. But can you describe those modules and the history behind it?

Weston Rose  22:03  
Of course, it would be my pleasure, I would say first advising, along with finances and belonging are part of a student success framework that's been in place at the University of Texas System for the last 10 years. In terms of our advising work, my supervisor, Dr karoff, convenes the UT System, academic advising, Leadership Council monthly at UT System. We don't see ourselves as top down. We don't tell our institutions what to do. We recognize their individuality, their different regional workforce needs and student populations. So we have a much more, I would say, collaborative relationship with our institutions, and we really work to, I would say, from the bottom up, to listen to them and to follow their lead about what they need and how we can best add value and support them. And in terms of the academic advising Leadership Council, what we heard about two and a half years ago was there was this need for, I would say system wide, a standardized system wide training for academic advisors. That's not to say that there isn't onboarding training at our institutions. There is, but some of it is a bit more static, in the sense that it might be just text, there aren't videos, there aren't graphics. It's maybe not as visually appealing or engaging, and it might not even track completion. Also, other ones reported they didn't really have any formal training. It might look more like shadowing. So we thought, well, here's a gap. Here's somewhere where we can provide value. So we identified volunteers from the academic advising Leadership Council and formed a small working group. I co led it with my colleague Angie Barrera, who was on the last podcast episode. She's from UT, San Antonio, and she's really a leader in academic advising in Texas. So we spent about a year and a half writing the curriculum, creating the E Learning Modules, along with our instructional designer, who is also from UT, San Antonio, we partnered with the Office of Academic Innovation there to help us host the host the training on an LMS, because we don't have an LMS at UT System. And after we piloted the prototype with approximately 50 advisors from all of the nine academic advising, I'm sorry, from all the nine academic institutions. We got that feedback. We enhanced the product. We ran it past the academic advising Leadership Council again, and we ended up launching it in September of 2025 and since then, of our system wide academic advising population, which is about 720 individuals, we have had at least 327 enrollments. That's approximately half of our advising population with 120 micro credentials earned because one. Thing I may not have mentioned in this episode is that it was important for us to have academic advisors walk away with something once they completed the training. So we developed a micro credential, which basically verifies the skills that they learned in this training and that they can download and put on their LinkedIn profile, they can put on a portfolio or on their resume, and it's verified in the third party. So after we did that, we were so proud. We've presented at least a couple of times last October at the Texas Conference on Student Success, and this February at the 2026 Texan conference in San Antonio, where we were also fortunate to win the 2026 tech sand, outstanding advising, outstanding innovative advising Technology Award. So we feel really humbled by that, really proud of the work we've done, and I think that we're going to meet our goal of having all advisors, system wide, complete the training and earn the micro credential by this September.

Ryan Scheckel  26:04  
Yeah, that would be again when you just said the words, not all training or onboarding structures or efforts track completion, and it's just one of the things that sometimes new perspectives are so valuable to offer that concept, there's definitely completion. Doesn't necessarily mean learning, or I get all that kind of stuff, but yeah, we assume that somebody completed something because they started the work. And I think that that's a fascinating concept. You know, I know there's a technology component, in the sense of, it's delivered on a technology platform. It's using multimedia, that sort of stuff. But I you know, just in general, in a very simple sense of technology innovations, is there any particular place that you have seen technology making like a really big difference in advisor training and development?

Weston Rose  27:09  
Certainly, I will say that effective training and development really stems from identifying clearly the root problem that you are trying to solve, and also, can that root problem be filled by a knowledge or skills gap? If that's what you're addressing, you can solve it through training. If not, training is not an effective solution, training is also effective when you when you draft clear learning objectives and when you follow adult learning theories, and also when you're collecting data, because I think that sometimes people think I've created a training. It's out there, it's done. I don't touch it again, when, in fact, it's a living and breathing thing. So you're you're developing the training, and you're looking at the data to see, ultimately, I wanted to change a behavior. I wanted to fill a knowledge or skills gap. Do I see that advisors are doing that? Are they able to apply the skills that we've taught them in this training? And if you notice areas where you're not you go back and you adjust the training. Having said that, I think that what technology does effectively is to enhance our training, whether it's in person, virtual, or if you're developing those e learning modules. So recently, I attended an instructional design workshop on producing consistent and thematic images using AI. And it was tool agnostic. You could use copilot, ChatGPT, it didn't matter what tool you were using. And I would say, 10 years ago, when I was working as a communication specialist, it was really cumbersome when you needed icons, when you needed images, it was actually kind of difficult. You might have to hire a graphic designer or do some of it yourself. You might have to purchase a set of icons and then open them up in Adobe, in Photoshop and then really remove the background. But these days, technology has advanced so much that we can create those custom images, maybe not necessarily faster, because you might have to continue to prompt AI to get it just the way you want it. But you can do it very cheaply, if literally no cost, and you can customize it in a way that it hasn't always been as quick to do. I also really want to point out, in terms of animation, that's been a huge barrier, too. And I used animator, which is a subscription based platform, to create the animated video content for our modules. It reminds me a lot of Canva, in the sense that you don't need to be a graphic designer to use Canva, and you don't need to have a background in animation to use animator. So what technology has done, I think, has democratized content creation and made it accessible and easy for trainers. Owners and also instructional designers to make sleek products, and I would say, at a much lower cost and much more customizable. I also think that with AI now, you hear so much in instructional design and learning development spaces about by coding. You hear that a lot in other places too, but you're able to without knowledge of how to be a coder, even though I do have some background in coding, you can use, you know, certain tools like Claude, and you can really spin up learning experiences that are so customizable to what you're trying to do. And in some ways, it's even beginning to break down, I would say the authoring tools. So for years, articulate has been the industry standard for creating those e learning modules. It's a lot like PowerPoint on steroids. You can develop the E learning modules, and then there's also a way to track it. But with technology at this point, I think we're almost getting to the point that we might not even need authoring tools to create those learning experiences. So we're living in a really revolutionary time, and it I would say technology is definitely enhancing what we can develop in terms of training.

Matt Markin  31:18  
I was mentally jotting down a lot of what you're saying. I'm like, I need to look that up later with this next question. I mean, I think it kind of relates to what you've been talking about with this last answer, but this is more of a general question. So general answer, because every institution is different, whether they're a single institution, are they part of a system? But is there any other type of advice you might give a higher ed leader advising leader who wants to be innovative. I mean, you've mentioned quite a few things, technology wise, but that and they that might may save them time, but they might still feel constrained by time or by resources or even by institutional structures.

Weston Rose  31:56  
Well, I do want to acknowledge that those difficulties are real and valid. So, you know, it's it is very challenging to innovate when you are constrained by time, by resources and institutional structures, but it's not impossible. So I would say, first, you know, have faith in yourself and take it slow. But my main three pieces advice are to be resourceful. I think that most institutions use products like Microsoft, Adobe, Google, so you do have so many tools that are already paid for by your institution that you can use in these unique ways to solve problems. And I would say there are so many low cost and no cost tools to even think about. So even if you do have to pay for a product, I paid for Animaker, and I paid for it out of my own pocket because it wasn't very much money. So I did it for a few months as I developed the animated video content, and then I unsubscribed, and I still have the video content available, so I would just think really hard about what problem you're trying to solve and what tools you already have at your disposal. And if you don't know something, what knowledge do you need to gain in order to solve that problem. So right now, we have so many AI tools that can really work as a tutor for us, to help us solve particular problems. And I always pull back on YouTube. I love you know, when I have a particular issue, I always go to YouTube, if not AI to figure out how to solve it. My next piece of advice would be to find your allies on your campus or in your field. Partnerships with the right people are really powerful. And in my experience in higher education, there are so many people who are passionate about helping students, who are experts in their fields and who are genuinely kind, people who are very generous with their time. So if you can build trust with your colleagues and assemble the right team who have the right set of skills that is such an important asset when it comes to innovation, in spite of the barriers. And finally, I would say, demonstrating ROI to leadership is a really important thing to keep in mind. We know that academic advising is critical in terms of student success, and yet, in in terms of researching the impact, there are some real barriers that exist. Researchers don't always have access to the data that exist in academic advising units. That could be because not all of the technologies used are open to them. It could be, because sometimes there is reluctance to be the first one to go ahead and announce like, how well our advising unit is doing. Because, you know, Comparison is the thief of joy. But I do think that being able to collect. Data is really important, and being able to clearly show how academic advising has an impact on student success, on retention graduation will really help you effectively start to break down some of those institutional structures and to argue persuasively to perhaps get some more, you know, people hired so you have a bit more time to innovate, or perhaps to get a bit more money to send academic advisors to, you know, conferences, or even to develop training.

Ryan Scheckel  35:33  
good advice. You know, you mentioned the briefly, the sort of like pillars or the frameworks of the advisor, training, development, you know, the foundation, fundamentals of excellence, of belonging, and finances and and, like the concept of student success. And I think sometimes ROI can be proved there. Certainly I don't know that advisors are going to change the financial outcomes for our students, but helping them better understand the financial realities of their academic choices, but delivering a sense of belonging a meaningful connection. I think that there's some ROI possibilities there, too, beyond just those typical measures of of retention and completion and that sort of stuff, you have a unique point of view. Though, we've established that even though it's not on a campus, you've been there, and not just as a student, is do you feel like there's a particular concept or innovation, whether it's in higher ed in general or advising that more institutions should be paying attention to. From from your point of view.

Weston Rose  36:49  
I do. I've been thinking a lot about this, actually recently, these days, people are so focused on AI and in general, and I think they're also very focused in academic advising communities in terms of career advising, which is really interesting, because I remember, for almost a decade, I've been bringing up in various contexts the importance of career advising, as in academic advising sessions and academic advising spaces. And I just feel like, over the years, people were not ready to hear that. Sometimes people are just not ready for new ideas. And now suddenly, you know, it's dominating the conversation. So I've been thinking, Well, what else has been on my mind that you know might be really innovative. You know, in a year from now, maybe a few years from now. And it might not seem terribly innovative, but to me, I think it is, and it could just be because of my background, but I think that institutions have an opportunity to really staunch some of the advisor attrition nationwide. It's very hard to to to retain advisors, and partly this stems from the low pay and the lack of career ladders, which should absolutely be addressed. But I also want to point out another community, which are adjuncts or lecturers. These are often people who also struggle to make ends meet, who are often looking for a foothold in the institution, because at least my experience being an adjunct, some of the difficulties were that if you lost even one class, if it didn't make the enrollment, you would lose your health insurance. And we were not it varies by department. In the English department, there are many adjuncts, but say, in the Department of Political Science, there might only be one. So it really depends on the department or the field when you're talking about adjunct lecturers or adjunct faculty members. But for many of them, they are even working at multiple institutions just to make ends meet. And I think there's a great opportunity to create more stability for adjuncts and to really fill that attrition of advisor turnover, which exists because advisors, well, if you're in a rural setting, you might struggle to hire people because they would have to move, you know, to the middle of nowhere. They might not have any connections there, so they might not want to do that. The other struggle when you have a more urban setting is that often there are multiple institutions of higher education, so your academic advisors, you're sort of competing with community colleges and with other institutions who might pay them more. So I think one of the ways that institutions could maybe work a bit more effectively and efficiently, that would be a win, win for everyone, would be to carve out a space that creates a role that is effectively part time adjunct and part time academic advisor, and it would allow, I think. For people to earn a bit more money and to have a bit more stability and maybe even career ladders, it would also help to maybe potentially break down those silos that still exist between departments and centralized advising units. And I think that overall, many adjuncts, I don't even think, consider going into academic advising. The reason I did just happened to be because one of my good friends worked in the Academic Advising Center. I had done a little bit of academic advising myself, but even so, with the little advising I did in the English department, becoming an academic advisor was a true education. There was so much I learned. I had never heard of an International Baccalaureate degree. I learned so much about, you know, transfer policies, reverse transfer there is, it's a academic advising truly is a profession that deserves to be respected, and I think that there could be a possibility to strengthen it by, again, maybe carving out a space where you could have a unique role, where people could still teach classes, but also work as academic advisors and give people a bit more respect and dignity and economic stability.

Matt Markin  41:15  
Makes sense to me. Hey, Weston, What's it like having that view? Well, for those that are that are only listening to the podcast, Wesson has an amazing window view of downtown the city.

Weston Rose  41:30  
Yes, I we worked in downtown Austin, and we have a we're very fortunate. We moved into our building in 2018 and I had never worked in a skyscraper before, so the first thing I did was take a picture of my view. It's really great. We work on the 16th floor, and so you get a wide view of the city of downtown. And really love our office space. Really fortunate for it.

Matt Markin  41:54  
I'm jealous, and enjoy that view every day. I'm assuming you do so you're mentioning, you all being awarded having that recognition for the work that you were doing with the modules, which congrats on that. That's amazing. But you were also recently elected for a two year term as treasurer for Texan. What's been your experience within Texan and and what are you looking forward to in this new role?

Weston Rose  42:24  
Yes, thank you so much. We were very honored by the award. And I've been a part of tech Sam for the last, I would say, two or three years. I think one, one thing about working in various disciplines in higher education, I will say that I don't have a terminal degree. It's been in the back of my mind for a while to get a PhD or Edd, but I have not had one, and sometimes, as a staff member, it can feel a bit odd in higher education. I'm not trying to be negative here, but I just mean that higher education is so focused on students, as it should be, that's our focus. Faculty member also, the faculty members also play such an important role. But if you're not a student and you're not a faculty member, sometimes it can be a bit awkward, because it's like, where's my place, where's my niche. And I feel like I really found that with Texan so Texan is the Texas academic advising network. It's a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting academic advisors in Texas. It's similar to the national organization NACADA, but this is our regional organization, and the minute I started attending conferences there, I just felt very welcomed. I think that that's a great thing about the advising community, is there's so many. It's a caring profession. So you just find so many people who want to help you. They're very kind, they're very down to earth. And I felt like, these are my people. This is my place. And after I attended my first conference there, where I was just observing attending sessions, I thought, well, now I want to start presenting. So I've presented the past two conferences last, last year, in 2025 I was a co lead on the advising, I'm sorry, on the volunteer committee. So my co lead, Tasha, and I helped to identify volunteers for the conference and make sure they got to the right places on time. And then this past year, I thought, well, I want to give back to tech stand. It's given me so much, and I feel like as part of my work, I have supported budgets. So for the Academy of distinguished teachers, every year I I help the treasurer, whoever they may be, develop treasurer's reports and manage their budget to make sure they forecast they you know, they spend money in ways that they're not. Overdrafting, you know, manage their funds. They do have some revenues from or royalties, I should say, from a book that they published a few years ago. So I thought, well, here's a way that I can contribute. And I was fortunate enough to be elected our current president, Sam Murdoch says that the treasure is really the heartbeat of tech Sam, which I didn't know when I ran for the office, but it's a very important role. We have to maintain our nonprofit status. We have to make sure that people are paid on time. There's a lot of work leading up to our annual conference that will start in September, but right now, what I'm really looking forward to in this position is just finding ways that I can maybe provide efficiencies. I feel like that's one thing that I add to an organization, is like, I really like problem solving, and I really like thinking about what's an opportunity that we haven't thought about, that we can make this better. How can we connect things and improve things? So I've already been thinking about some ways that we can save a bit of money, that we can create some efficiencies. I'm actually working on my first Treasurer's Report, which is due next week in our executive board meeting. So just thinking of some ways that we might apply for grants or maybe even create new revenue streams, and I'm really excited to pitch that next week.

Matt Markin  46:25  
Ryan, did you know Sam was president?

Ryan Scheckel  46:27  
Yeah. So look, I'm just gonna say there's a chance that for people who know Sam, there's a chance he tells every other officer position that they're the heartbeat of the organization, not to say that treasures aren't important. I do genuinely appreciate the folks who, number one, are willing to serve in any capacity, volunteer or elected. You know, more forward facing and more inward facing for organizations, it is genuinely a treasure that to find an organization in your professional field, where you feel like that's a home, for sure, but yeah, you know, sometimes being in the state means that the interaction with the state organization, you get to know some folks and and I'm glad to know another person in Texan know Weston more Absolutely.

Matt Markin  47:22  
Weston, last episode you were talking about, you started up pickleball. How's are you still doing it?

Weston Rose  47:28  
Yes, I am. I broke my wrist in September, so I was out of commission for a few months, but I picked it back up in late January, and I've been going pretty much every week. I had to take a little time off recently because I went on a short vacation to Montreal over Easter and it was really fun. I hope if anyone's ever interested in going to Montreal and Canada that you go. It's a really beautiful city, so I'm eager to get back to it, but just a little tired after flying back on Monday, I had to get up at three in the morning to catch a flight, and got back to Austin around three in the afternoon. So it's just been and then working on, you know, Tuesday, it's just been like, I'm so eager for the weekend and ready to catch up on some sleep.

Matt Markin  48:16  
Ryan knows all about traveling.

Ryan Scheckel  48:19  
Yeah, it was recently in McAllen, and I, when I booked my flights, I had in my head, I need to be at the airport at seven, and then it was when I was there. I was like, no, no, my flight leaves at seven. I wasn't up at three, but, but I'm glad for the weekend coming to Absolutely.

Matt Markin  48:37  
Hey, Weston, thanks so much for being on the podcast, guys. I mean, lot of great information, a lot of tips that I think, whether it's an advisor, Administrator, so many folks could get, get some benefit from everything that that you've discussed today. Thanks so much again.

Weston Rose  48:53  
Thanks for having me. Appreciate you guys.