Note: The following information was e-mailed to commission members on 6-29-04.

TO: Advising Graduate and Professional Students Commission members
FROM: Virginia Hueske, Chair

Dear Commission Members,

Everyone at NACADA is hard at work getting ready for the 2004 Conference in Cincinnati. I'd like to bring you up to date on matters important to our commission.

AWARD
Congratulations are in order for our fellow commission member Stephen E. Maizlish, Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor at The University of Texas at Arlington, who will receive the award for Outstanding New Advisor in the Faculty Advising Category. It's good to see a Graduate Advisor recognized in this category. Congratulations, Stephen!

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Please take a look at the list of presentations being made by our commission members this year on the NACADA web site at http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/NationalConf/2004/tracks/gradprof.htm. The interests of our commission members are varied and important to Graduate Education. Our thanks to all who are taking on this responsibility!

ISSUES
We will have ample opportunity at the conference to discuss among ourselves advising issues that are important to us as advisers and to our commission.

• Our Commission Meeting is scheduled for October 7, at 3:15 p.m., in Room 266. We will conduct the business of the commission and make plans for the future.
• A session titled Building Organizational Bridges Among Graduate and Professional School Advisers is scheduled for October 9, at 10:00 a.m. This session is designed to provide an opportunity to dig into graduate and professional student advising issues in as much depth as possible, perhaps identifying areas for further research and publication.
• Hot Topics, a round table discussion, is scheduled just before the end of the conference on Saturday, October 9, 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m., will give us all an opportunity to continue and wrap up discussions and plans for the future.

The following is an attempt to list some issues important to our profession. Some of these were expressed in a short but exciting exchange on our list serve in March. Some were expressed in our 2003 Commission meeting in Dallas. Please think about these issues and suggest others that are important to you. As we explore and understand our profession, we will develop areas for research as well as greater understanding of what we must do to enhance our efforts for our students and our professional lives.

Our Constituents:
Who are our constituents? A short list might include:

• Master's, Phd, Professional students
• Our university, college, department administrators
• Our departmental and program colleagues
• How do our constituents perceive us? Are these perceptions correct,adequate, useful?

Nature and Needs of our Constituents:

• What do Graduate and Professional Students need?
• Are our students fresh out of undergrad, returning for more education, changing careers?
• What are our students' most salient advising issues?
• How can we best facilitate their academic careers?
• What are our needs as faculty and/or professional advisers?
• How does what we do compare with our undergraduate adviser colleagues?
• How does working with graduate students compare with working with undergrad students?
• What does the future hold for graduate education?

Communication:

• How can we do a better job of knowing each other and knowing about the jobs that each of us perform?
• Some very interesting people introduced themselves during the list serve discussion in March. How can we expand on this, make the information available, and use the information for the greater good of our commission?

Research:

• Can we identify research questions, paths, and funding important to our profession?

Building on our foundation:

Please revisit our report for last year and consider how to implement some of the good things we considered. How can we move forward?
http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/CandIGDivision/Post-ConfReports/2003/AdvGrad-ProfStudentsPostConfreport.htm

Our image:
Check out the next issue of the NACADA newsletter Academic Advising News. There'll be an article about our work.

REGIME CHANGE
Finally, it is time to be thinking about a new Commission Chair. As soon as possible, we must begin to identify people who will be interested in being elected Commission Chair for the 2005-2007 term. Please consider taking the helm. Our commission is a wonderful collection of very interesting people working in one of the most important areas of higher
education--graduate education and research. Our Commission has grown and is strong. We are poised to do very interesting things and need a chairperson who can guide us on that path. If you are interested but have questions, please contact me at avvh@mail.utexas.edu and I'd be happy to discuss this position with you. For more information, you may also want to visit the Commission and Interest Group Division web site and review the Commission Chair Handbook (links below).
http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/CandIGDivision/cigdivinfo.htm
http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Commissions/handbook.htm

Looking forward to seeing all of you in Cincinnati in October! As usual, we will get together for our annual Commission Dinner. If you have suggestions about the time and place, please let me know!

Best wishes,

Virginia Hueske
Advising Graduate and Professional Students Commission Chair

Graduate Program Coordinator, Department of Advertising, The University of Texas at Austin
(512) 471-8130

avvh@mail.utexas.edu