Training Future Academic Advisors: One Model of a Pre-Service Approach

Abstract

One of the most important components of an effective advising program is welltrained academic advisors. Traditionally, we think of training advisors after they are working as faculty or full-time professional staff. An on-going, well-conceived training program can provide the continuity, broad base of knowledge, skills, and specific information crucial to sound advising. Another approach to training is t o offer future faculty, student personnel staff, higher education administrators, or professional counselors opportunity t o study advising as subject matter while still enrolled in their graduate programs. Both the traditional and pre-service approaches could address the same basic issues and content areas. While recognizing the uniqueness of each institution's advising system, some of these topics might include an introduction to student and career development theory and practice, organizational systems in which advisors function, advising skills and techniques, and methods for self and program evaluation.' Dressel2 discusses the importance of student advising and the limited view that many faculty hold regarding their responsibility in this area. Advising is a complex process, and though many practicing advisors recognize this, few systematically work at improving their own advising skills. Some advisors are never formally trained after they are on the job but are issued a handbook or printed materials and expected t o learn how to advise on their own. When a formal training program is offered, it is often the newly-appointed advisor's first exposure t o the intricacies of the advising process. When we consider these factors, a pre-service course approach includes many advantages. It can provide an understanding of general advising purposes, policies. and procedures. It can foster positive attitudes and enthusiasm for advising as a process and as a professional activity. It exposes the myths and mysteries of advising,