Throughout our professional life, we will always find changes. The key is how we handle change, how we present ourselves to change, and how we overcome the obstacles to change.
What is change and how is it associated with academic advising?
Change is not easy, it never has been and it never will be, but it is essential for all people, companies and organizations if they want to remain competitive in the global marketplace. In fact, Sharma (2008) states that change is often correlated with pain. According to Hechanova and Cementian-Oploc (2012), change is associated with leadership, and leadership aligns people with their vision. As academic advisors or coaches on a virtual or terrestrial campus, we always align our students with their vision. Who would actively want to do something if they knew it would cause pain? That is one of the main reasons why organizations and their followers fail to change: fear of the unknown and the ease of maintaining the status quo. Change can be good, even if we look at this example; Can you imagine life if television never changed? We’d still be staring at the big box that was sitting on the living room floor with those aluminum rabbit ears sticking out from behind. Do you think that these types of televisions would be sold in today’s market? Not with televisions hanging on the walls and projecting 3D images. From this example, change is good and change needs to occur for the elements of life to grow and be sustained.
So let’s examine what happens when we are faced with change. Have I already lost you? Most of the people give up the current activity that causes them distress.
Let’s take a look at the higher education industry and, more importantly, how academic advisors can help students with change. How do students handle change? There are many great theories on how to handle change, such as Kotter’s 8-Step Shift Model gold Kurt Lewin’s 3 Phase Theory of Change, but the best way that I have found through my research is through communication with my students. That’s it: simple communication. This is something we do every day with our students, but we just don’t do it efficiently. Let’s look at Kotter’s 8-step change model and the first three steps. According to Kotter (2007), they are:
Create urgency
Build a powerful coalition
Create a vision for change
The question I want to ask is, “How do these three points work in student advising?” Take a moment to reflect on how we can create a sense of urgency, empower our students to network and use resources, and create a vision for their change. How can we communicate this to you?
According to Lewis, Laster, and Kulkarni (2013), communication has a lot to do with the leadership style and philosophy of the particular institution and whether it incorporates transformational, transactional, top-down, or servant leadership, to name a few. It should be noted that institutions that have successfully made significant changes have had agents of change who understood the power of communication, both positive and negative. Furthermore, Lewis, Laster and Kulkarni (2013) point out that trust is an important component of change and communication. Did you trust your academic or career advisor when you were in school?
When talking to students and knowing how they will adapt from a traditional environment to a non-traditional virtual environment, uncertainty is usually the answer I get. How will this virtual education affect my life, my family and my work? Will taking classes online be more difficult or easier because of the flexibility? A simple explanation would be to ask them what their dreams are and why they are going back to school in a non-traditional setting. What is your “WHY”? During this time, I have found that it is a great opportunity to share with my students stories of personal relevance or stories that relate to the student experience. Additionally, Sharma (2008) uses appreciative inquiry techniques such as defining, discovering, and dreaming to help create focal points that can be used to remove the stressors of change and help overcome barriers that could be affecting change. In this case with students and schools, overcoming barriers is a massive and constant obstacle for professionals in the field, but being able to help our students realize their dreams is worth the little extra work.
Let’s take a look at the defining, discovering, and dreaming phases.
Define phase
The defining phase in student counseling is gaining a complete understanding of what the student is seeking to accomplish. This is the time when we can set goals and expectations about your program and how going to school will help you. Also, this is a good time to talk with students about any other issues they may have, such as time management, learning styles, technology needs and concerns. It should also be noted that Bloom, Hutson, and He (2008) go into great detail about how appreciative inquiry correlates with student advising from the point of view of on-campus counseling and have developed a great program called Appreciative Counseling. . In the definition phase, Bloom, Hutson and He (2008) discuss how to disarm students’ fears and discover their goals. For the purposes of this article, we are strictly looking at appreciative research and how it relates to virtual and terrestrial campus counseling.
Discover phase
This is a great time to work with your students and find out why they are in school. What is your big goal and plans for the future? Some answers you might get would be that they are the first in their family to attend secondary school or they may be looking to get out of a particular situation. The difference I have seen with students during this phase differs greatly from my experiences in the field of counseling on campus. Students in the virtual environment tend to be established adult learners, while on the grassroots campus, the demographic is 19 to 25 years old. Students in the virtual environment also tend to have different goals and dreams, as mentioned above about how to get out of a particular life situation or event. Regardless of the reason they go to school, we must be able to listen and apply their dreams and goals to their study program and devise a plan that will get them where they ultimately want to go.
Some questions I like to ask during this phase include:
So please tell me why you have selected this particular institution and this particular title.
Tell me about a time when you faced a challenge that you didn’t think you could overcome. How did you overcome that and what did this challenge teach you?
Dream phase
This is my favorite phase and it is also an Appreciative Counseling phase. The experience that I have had with this phase has really changed the scope of how I speak and deal with my student population. The questions that are posed during this phase show students that student advisors and coaches really listen to them and that we really care and have a great interest in their success. Some of the questions I have asked during this phase include:
Think outside the box, if money weren’t an issue, what would you do?
ยท Or I like to ask a question about the legacy: why do you want to be remembered?
I have found that students, when asked these questions, are very receptive and excited, as they have probably not been asked these types of questions before. This helps our student population in the virtual environment to grasp something that is tangible and provides them with a plan that is not transactional at all but rather a life plan. It’s very exciting.
conclusion
My challenge for you is to talk to your students and ask them about their dreams and goals. Whether in person or over the phone, get your students involved. Similar to Kotter’s model, establish a sense of urgency with your students to define why they are in school, align them with the right resources, and help them develop their vision for success. These three phases can be accomplished in a 60 minute appointment. I recommend that if you have time to space it out, you make other appointments, but what I have found is that our students are busy enough that they don’t have to sit in an office or on a phone all day. The great part is that you will be surprised at what you find and reassure them as they go from not being an academic to being an academic. Students need alliances and networking associations in the virtual environment and going the extra mile; we can help our students with change management as they begin their journey into the world of lifelong learning.
References
To flourish. Jennifer L, Hutson. Bryant L, him. Ye, (2008). The Appreciative Advising Revolution, Champaign, IL: Stripes Publishing LLC.
Hechanova, Regina and Raquel Cementina-Olpoc. 2013. “Transformational Leadership, Change Management, and Commitment to Change: A Comparison of Academic and Business Organizations”. Asia Pacific Education Researcher 22, no. 1: 11-19. Education Research Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed July 10, 2013).
Kotter, JP (2007). Lead the change. Harvard Business Review, 85 (1), 96-103.
Lewis, LK, Laster, N. and Kulkarni, V. (2013). Tell them what it will be like: Preview the pain of risky change in the initial announcements. Business Communication Magazine, 50 (3), 278-308. doi: 10.1177 / 0021943613487072
Sharma, R. (2008). Celebrating change: the new paradigm of organizational development. ICFAI Journal of Soft Skills, 2 (3), 23-28.
