The Role of Faculty Advising, Mentoring, and Gatekeeping as Social Support for Undergraduate Communication Sciences and Disorders Students

Purpose Social support may be provided by undergraduate students' family and friends and by other members of the campus community, including faculty. The purpose of this review article was to review the existing literature about the roles of faculty members as advisors, mentors, and gatekeepers who provide social support for undergraduate students. Social support is a buffer for stress, and current undergraduate students are more stressed than their predecessors. Method The study is a narrative review of the literature about faculty as advisors, mentors, and gatekeepers. The concept of social support and its relationship to students' stress is explored, followed by a discussion of faculty advisors' roles, knowledge, and skills and a synthesis of literature about prescriptive, developmental, praxis, and appreciative advising. A discussion of faculty as mentors who focus on students' experiences before, during, and after college and as gatekeepers who look for signs of students in distress concludes the review. Conclusions Faculty may provide social support to students inside and outside the classroom as advisors, mentors, and gatekeepers. Assuming these roles means faculty must consider students as whole people who have needs and experiences beyond academics. Students' stress was clear in the literature before COVID-19, and their concerns and needs are exacerbated during the pandemic. Additional research is needed to identify effective advising and mentoring programs for communication sciences and disorders undergraduate students. Increased institutional support for and recognition of the time, resources, and training faculty need to serve in this expanded role is also critical as faculty members attempt to manage their own stress.

Eliciting Understanding of Faculty Advising Role Using Caritas Processes

This study aimed to elicit faculty understanding of the advising role with nursing students in a baccalaureate program. A developmental advising centered pre/post survey were used with a caring workshop to present tools to faculty for use during advising encounters. Content and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Three themes emerged: Empirical means are useful for determining student motivation; providing a supportive role was central to caring; and self-reflection helps students see the reality of situations. Developmental advising, in conjunction with a caring science philosophy, has the potential to provide a formal approach to advising for nursing faculty.

Validating Faculty Advising Through Assessment

Faculty members take on the role of primary advisors on many small campuses. Many report feeling underprepared for the advising role. Assessment of academic advising can raise the awareness and perceived importance of advising and provide helpful feedback for practitioners. We developed a 14-item online advising assessment used to evaluate four important domains of advising: academic advice, advisor availability, advisor as personable and interested, and advising about vocation. We used this assessment to evaluate advisors who participated in an advising workshop designed to enhance their relational and conceptual advising skills. Student evaluations of advisors before and after the workshop showed significant positive differences. We recommend this assessment for advising improvement and as a means of evaluating workshop efficacy.

Redesigning an Undergraduate HRD Program With Stakeholder Guidance

The Problem Curriculum for students of human resource development (HRD) has evolved every decade and must continue this adaptive pattern to match the workplace. However, little research seems to be available to guide development of undergraduate HRD programs. Fewer than 100 publications seem to have addressed HRD curriculum. Of that group, few have focused on the undergraduate level. Consequently, this article provides an overview of the process of transforming the undergraduate curriculum for students at a major southwestern university to adapt its fit to the changing work world. The Solution The article summarizes the process steps, the curricular changes, and the framework for continuous curriculum change for an undergraduate HRD program. Change may be incremental and continuous or punctuated by major redesign efforts. The latter require input from all stakeholders to generate a curriculum that is relevant and engaging. Details of the design process from the current case can guide other programs working on redesign, including the decision-making process, the rationale, and the choices about courses to include or modify. The Stakeholders The procedure for preparing the plan for the curricular changes involved a wide range of stakeholders, including current students, faculty, advising staff, and alumni. Each group provided unique inputs from diverse perspectives which were integrated into the final plan. The outcome of the redesign work affected members of all the groups, such as the increased relevance of coursework for the students, the graduation of more qualified students for employers, and the empowering effect of involving faculty.

Assessment for Faculty Advising: Beyond the Service Component

The faculty plays a critical role in the academic advising process in higher education settings. On the basis of a review of current literature on faculty advising, we propose a paradigm shift from assessment of faculty advising to assessment for faculty advising that extends the consideration of advising beyond the service component. Building upon an overview of the faculty advisor role, we unpack this paradigm shift and discuss aspects to consider to enhance the quality and assessment for faculty advising in terms of advising content, process, and impact. We highlight faculty engagement in the scholarship of academic advising to recognize faculty advising as more than faculty service responsibilities.