Student Choice Awards for Holistic Advising

Background

Advising and student support services are essential to students’ progress in college. Advising is often one of the only regular, structured, and focused touchpoints that institutions have with their students. When done well, advising has been proven to be one of the most significant determinants of students’ success. Strong advising environments can provide a safe space within higher education where students’ voices and motivations can be heard, personal stories can be shared, and campus climate issues can be unearthed, particularly for racially minoritized and poverty-affected students. Recently, the term holistic advising – looking at students through not only a purely academic lens, but rather as a whole person – has become a central design element in student support services.

Given institutions’ unique student populations, history, culture and context, advising looks different at each institution. The Advising Success Network believes that advising encompasses not only the advisor-advisee relationship, but also the advising office and reporting structure, advisor and student roles, faculty and staff pedagogies, and technologies.

The Advising Success Network also believes that all institutions should provide a more holistic student experience and address historical inequities for Black, Latino/a/x, Indigenous, Asian, and Pacific Islander students and poverty-affected students. Holistic advising redesign can help institutions identify, implement, and/or refine equitable, high-quality, and effective institutional practices.