Academic advising plays a pivotal role in helping new university students adjust to a new environment, clarifying expectations, strengthening the affiliation with the university, interpreting the higher education experience to students and making the overall learning experience both enjoyable and successful. As students’ progress in their programs of study, advising continues to play an important role in helping them make sound decisions about courses’ selection, internship, project selection, career goals and paths, etc. Effective advising is also a key to student retention and success. This implies the need for an effective institutional-wide advising system that not only involves academic advising but instead considers how all different forms of advising and support services (career, personal, academic, etc) work in a seamlessly manner to support student success.
Accordingly, and as in the case of any profession, academic advising requires professional development opportunities which support academic advisors to continuously develop and grow their advising knowledge and skills to enable them to promptly respond to the dynamic environment of Higher Education and to the changing nature and needs of 21st century students.
This two day ‘hands-on’ program aims to identify the broad range of understanding, knowledge, and skills that support academic advising. It will acquaint participants with different strategies, tools and techniques to enhance their advising practices and consider how technology may be exploited to offer a better advising experience.
The workshop will reflect academic advising as a sub-set of a broader support system that is to be set by universities and which requires interdepartmental coordination in order to support student success.
