Register NOW for these NACADA professional development events.  The Clearwater Beach Hilton Hotel is located beside Pier 66 on the Gulf of Mexico.  We look forward to seeing you in February 2006 at this wonderful location.

• Ethical/Legal Issues in Academic Advising Seminar - Warm, white sand beaches are awaiting you in Clearwater Beach, Florida!  Join us February 2-3 to take advantage of this opportunity to meet other colleagues who are facing the same challenges you are at your institution. This seminar will look at FERPA, the ADA, common law theories, case studies, identification of core ethical principles and much more. Click here for details.
• 4th Annual Academic Advising Administrators' Institute - Information has been added to the Administrators' Institute web page. Click here to find last minute information on the plenary sessions, concurrent sessions, schedule, and Action Plans. The Administrators' Institute will be held February 5-7 in Clearwater Beach, FL.  We are looking forward to the fourth Administrators' Institute and to providing an opportunity for participants to enjoy Clearwater Beach this winter!
• 2nd Annual Assessment of Academic Advising Institute - The Assessment Institute is set up on three different levels to meet your needs. Visit the updated Web site for information on the levels of assessment being offered at the Institute, the faculty, and to see a tentative schedule. The Assessment Institute will be held February 8-10 in Clearwater Beach, FL.  Join other colleagues as they work through the process of making Assessment a success!

It is critical that you book your sleeping room as early as possible. The deadline for receiving the discounted hotel rate is January 19, 2006, but there will be another group in the hotel during this period, so sleeping rooms may fill much before the deadline.  Visit Hilton's reservation site today!

Plan ahead for these NACADA professional development opportunities:

• Regional Conferences - Check the Regional Conference Schedule for more information.
• State Conferences - Check the State Conference Schedule for more information.
• Effectively Engaging Faculty in Academic Advising Seminar - June 22-23, 2006 in Portsmouth, VA.  Learn more here.
• 20th Annual Academic Advising Summer Institutes - June 25-30, 2006 in Portsmouth, VA and July 30-Aug. 4, 2006 in Madison, WI.  Learn more here.

It's not too late to apply to the NACADA/Kansas State University Graduate Certificate Program in Academic Advising and register for Spring online courses:

EDCEP 835 Foundations of Academic Advising - Instructor: Charlie Nutt

EDCEP 838 The College Student and the College Environment - Instructor: Adrienne Leslie-Toogood

Online classes meet from January 12, 2006 through May 12, 2006.

Last day for ENROLLMENT is January 26, 2006.

For more information, visit this web page.

The final slate of candidates for the 2006 NACADA Leadership elections is available on the NACADA web site. Each candidate's platform statement will soon be linked to her/his name on this list for your review.  Additional details on the 2006 elections and online voting procedures will be sent to members and will also be available soon on the election web page.

NOTE: Only those individuals whose NACADA memberships are current and paid in full as of Friday, January 27, 2006 will be eligible to vote in the 2006 elections. If you know of individuals whose memberships expired on September 1, 2005 who have not yet been renewed, please encourage them to complete this renewal immediately to secure their voting privileges for NACADA's future leadership.

Watch for the December edition of NACADA's quarterly e-Publication, Academic Advising Today, which will arrive in your email boxes in mid-December.  Some of the articles you can look forward to are:

• "Outstanding Advising Awards: Tips on Putting Together a Successful Nomination Packet" by John Mortensen (Utah State University)

• "Attendance at the NACADA Academic Advising Administrators' Institute and Assessment of Academic Advising Institute Produced Results" by Suzanne M. Trump (University of the Sciences in Philadelphia) and Janet Spence (University of Louisville)

• "NACADA Academic Advising Summer Institute Scholarship Winner Reflects on Her Experience" by Bonnie Alberts (Black Hills State University)

We have also been reviewing manuscripts for the February edition, and among those accepted for publication are:

• "What if They Still Don't Get It?" by Tina McNamara (Marquette University)

• "Advising the Major - the Job Myth" by Andrew Colby (University of New Hampshire)

• "Advising in a Different World" by Susan Boland (Tidewater Community College)

We are now discussing article topics for the June edition. If you are interested in sharing your thoughts with your colleagues in this format, check out the Guidelines today!

• In the November 16 edition of Inside Higher Ed, NACADA past-president Eric White is quoted in "Filled to the Brim" explaining that colleges and universities have to "balance largeness with up close and personal. Small freshmen seminars, and a constant push, starting in the summer before freshman year, to get students in touch with advisers have helped students find their niche right away."  White is also quoted in "Getting More From Your Schedule Than Fridays Off" in the November 4th edition of the New York Times.

• The Chronicle of Higher Education article "Half of Seniors Took Courses Elsewhere Before Enrolling at Current College" found that students who participate in first-year seminars are more likely to see an academic advisor.  Find this article in the November 11, 2005 issue of the Chronicle online or in your Library.  (Note: you will need a Chronicle password to access this article online.)

• "Strong Advising Key to Student Retention" in the November 7th edition of Community College Week quotes Laurie Schreiner (Azusa Pacific University) as saying that "students leave because they are unsure of their futures." Schreiner cautions academic advisors "to pay close attention to students' interest and to focus on possibilities instead of problems."

• The article "College freshmen face major dilemma: Indecision about courses of study can prove expensive" at MSNBC.com is based upon interviews with NACADA President Jo Anne Huber (The University of Texas at Austin), long-time NACADA member Michael Leonard (Penn State), and NACADA Vice-President Jane Jacobson (Iowa State University).

You may recommend (spotlight) articles recently published in national, regional or statewide non-advising publications for listing here by submitting information to the NACADA Executive Office via this web page. 

The 2005 Membership Drive was very successful.  A BIG NACADA thank you to all who participated!

2005 Membership Drive recap:

• Jennifer Knutson (Walden University), Danay Phelps (Texas Tech University), and Nancy Lapp (University of Toledo) won free registration and two nights hotel accommodations to a NACADA event. 
• Grand Prize #1 went to Susan Ohrablo (Nova Southeastern University), who won airfare, registration, and two nights hotel accommodations to a NACADA event.
• Two tickets to an Elton John performance were awarded to Mae Fitchett (Rollins College), as Grand Prize #2.

Through the recruitment efforts of these and many other NACADA colleagues, 100 new members were added to the NACADA member roster during the 2005 Membership Drive, pushing current membership to almost 9,000!  For a list of those who participated, click here.

NACADA members are the greatest testimony to the benefits of a NACADA membership. So spread the word and take advantage of NACADA's new membership drive, New Member Blitz for 2006, beginning January 3, 2006. Look for details about this membership drive on the NACADA homepage on December 15, 2005. Let's make NACADA 10,000-member strong by 2007.

A great way to network with your colleagues is to join a NACADA Commission or Interest Group (IG). Members can choose any combination of Commissions and IGs - up to a total of four (4) selections - in which they would like to have official membership. This official affiliation primarily identifies those Commissions and/or IGs for which you would have voting privileges, receive periodic electronic newsletters and updates, and be eligible to hold an elected or appointed position within, such as serving on a committee or serving as chair. Please note that you can be informally involved with as many other Commissions or IGs as you like, such as joining list serves, attending meetings, etc. We encourage you to review the available Commissions and Interest Groups and join those of interest to you.

If you wish to change your preferred Commission and/or IG choices, you can easily do so by completing the online form. If you previously made your selections but do not recall which Commissions or IGs were designated, you can simply indicate your current preferences via this form and previous choices will be replaced. Please be sure to include the requested identification information so the appropriate member record is updated. 

NOTE: Your official Commission designations as of Friday, January 27, 2006 will determine the Commission Chairs for whom you will be eligible to vote in the 2006 elections.

At the National Conference in Las Vegas, many of you signed up for the Commission and Interest Group list serves either at the CIG Fair or on signup sheets circulated at the annual meetings for these groups. The task of updating these list serves accordingly has now been completed.  For instructions on posting messages to the list serves, please visit this web page and click on the link for the applicable list serve(s). Instructions for subscribing and unsubscribing to these list serves are also available on the applicable web pages. Your observance of network etiquette is encouraged and appreciated when communicating via these lists.

Thank you for your interest in and participation on these list serves!   Remember - these list serves may not be used to promote commercial products, programs or services.

To help minimize the number of e-mails you receive that are generated from List Serves, you might want to consider setting up each of your list subscriptions for the "digest" mode. All you need to do is send an e-mail using only the following command in the body of the message, where "listname" is the list's ID (such as N-ADVADMIN for the Advising Administration Commission list serve):

SET listname DIGEST

Leaving the subject line blank. Be sure to delete any signature lines and/or turn off auto-inclusion of your signature file before sending the above command. (LISTSERV treats signature lines as commands and will send error messages saying "unknown command".)

Should you set the digest mode and then decide later that you prefer the original format and want to turn off the digest mode, follow the same procedures as outlined above, but include the following command in the e-mail body:

Set listname mail

Note: A downside to using the digest format is that, each time you reply to the list, all of the history that is there gets posted to the digest every time. It could make the digested e-mails too long to bother reading unless you can convince other subscribers to edit their e-mails to remove all of the history.

The 2006 Awards Call for Nominations, including nomination/application criteria, deadlines and forms, is available online.   All information and forms can be accessed on the NACADA National Awards Program web site.  The deadline for the receipt of nomination materials for most award categories is March 6, 2006. Please closely review the applicable information in the 2006 Awards Call before submitting your final nomination materials, as there have been changes in the criteria for certain awards. Refer to the 2006 Call for Nominations on the Awards web site for more detailed information about all award categories and applicable eligibility criteria and submission procedures.

Please consider submitting a presentation proposal for the next National Conference, Diverse Advising for a Diverse World, October 18-21, 2006, in Indianapolis.

If you have theories, techniques, ideas, or practices to share that address higher education's academic advising needs or promote the advising profession's role in enhancing student learning and development, or if you have done an extensive literature review, please consider submitting a proposal.   Advisors, administrators, faculty, counselors, career development specialists, researchers, graduate students-we want to hear from you!  We earnestly encourage novice as well as experienced presenters.

The Call for Presentation Proposals was mailed to all current members in late November. View it on the Conference web page.  Proposals are submitted online. The submission deadline is February 10, 2006.

Visit the publications webpage for information on these new member-produced publications.

Guide to Assessment of Academic Advising CD

Career Advising: An Academic Advisor's Guide by Virginia N. Gordon

Peer Advising: Intentional Connections to Support Student Learning Monograph

Foundations of Academic Advising CD 1: What is Academic Advising?