I just came back from a wonderful conference on college advising at Springfield Technical Community College in Springfield, MA.  The keynote speaker, Susan Koll, who serves  on the Board of Directors for the national Academic Advising Assocition is very   passionate about her work with students.  This came across clearly in her keynote address in which stressed that advising is a collaborative effort.  Good advising takes the whole college working together to support the success of its students.

So often this doesn’t happen.  Various parts of our colleges can work in their own silo, never reaching out to collaborate on behalf of the student.  This can happen between academic departments as well as between student affairs and academic affairs.  Students don’t make that distinction.  What they really need and want is to have one reliable “go to” person who recognizes that while accurate academic advising is critical, a student’s needs go beyond that.  An effective advisor knows this.   While this doesn’t imply that  advisors  have  to be an expert in every area of student development, they do need to have strong ties with other parts of the college to make referrals.

Students don’t segment their lives into pieces.  When they come to college, they bring all parts of themselves as a package.  Our job is to support all these pieces in the name of academic success and that takes “a village”.