As this year’s NCAN national conference was virtual, we were sure of one thing: the annual advisor learning community would reach many more professionals. In fact, we estimate there were more than 140 professionals present and ready to learn and engage
with like-minded peers.
I was fortunate enough to co-facilitate this space, with NCAN and Advisory Task Force member, Dr. Erin Almond, director of KIPP Through College - Jacksonville.
NCAN Member Benefits 101
The learning session kicked off with reiterating to some and introducing to others, the value and benefits of NCAN membership. Here are a few of the member benefits we highlighted:
Professional development. Regularly scheduled webinars feature important updates and highlight best practices from experienced NCAN members. NCAN-hosted webinars are archived here (you must log in with your member account to access the archives). And don’t forget our on-demand and recently upgraded e-learning platform, which is free to access for members.
Communication and education. Our weekly newsletter Success Digest (SD), provides NCAN members with timely, digestible news from the field. Let us know if you’re not receiving SD and we can get you signed up. We also have a host of other resources,
including NCAN publications, practitioner tools, blog features, and more.
Policy and advocacy. Want to learn more about NCAN’s federal policy priorities and expand your own knowledge of advocacy best practices? Well, NCAN has your back here too. Check out our policy priorities here as well as this collection of advocacy resources, both of which can help members with their advocacy efforts.
What's Working; Where Advisors Could Use Support
We then transitioned to group discussions, so that professionals in attendance could learn and hear from one another. We posed the following questions:
In your current role, what are you finding yourself grappling with in supporting your students during the pandemic?
How do you manage all of your current duties in a virtual environment?
What has been a successful advising strategy that you’ve used during the pandemic?
What areas can NCAN and NCAN members support you in?
Generally, we heard that a great majority of professionals are still figuring out what’s the best way to reach students in a virtual environment. Some even expressed that students are “zoomed out,” and as a result of that some advisors have decided to
take it old school and simply call students.
An important piece to note here is that the mode of communication you use to reach out to students is not a “one-size-fits-all,” and students’ situations and needs are going to vary. It may require some trial and error to figure out what works, but it’s
a strategy to finding a happy medium. Consider, tiering your communications by phone call, text, email, video call, or vice-versa; mix it up. Whatever the magic sauce may be, make sure it’s consistent.
As for managing role and responsibilities, we learned that professionals have found it helpful to lean on their colleagues and peers in the workplace. This could span from anything to brainstorming new outreach ideas to serving as a sounding board. Reimagining
and retooling the work was another theme in the conversation. Professionals discussed making use of scheduling applications for advising appointments to stay available and organized. As you may be familiar, practitioners are using Calendly, Google
(Google Hangouts, Google Classroom, Google Forms), Remind, WhatsApp, and GroupMe, to name just a few.
Overall, we learned that one of the most successful approaches to engaging students is to allow them to share which type(s) of outreach they prefer. This is the essence of meeting students where they are.
As we all know, students are experiencing higher levels of stress and uncertainty, so it’s important to have check-ins with them, validating students’ feelings and perspective. Students’ current life situations could be inhibiting their engagement, so
take time to figure out what’s going on. It allows space to create positive well-being and build relationships.
Others advisors in the virtual room expressed using social media on a regular, weekly basis to engage their students; Facebook live on Tuesdays, Twitter on Wednesdays, and Instagram on Thursdays, for example. Once again, a consistent schedule and variety
of options for students to access timely and relevant information has proven to be effective.
Stay In Touch With NCAN
NCAN values hearing from our members and knowing how we can best support you. Our virtual door is always open, we’re either a phone call or email away. Be sure to check out the many resources we offer, right on the NCAN website, from essential websites for students and professionals to our most recent and past publications.
Want to lend your voice and perspective to the field? Consider joining the Advisory Task Force. You can learn more about the task force and find the interest form here.
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