Faculty Biographies

Jennifer L. Bloom is a Clinical Associate Professor and Director of the Master's degree program in the Higher Education & Student Affairs Program housed in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies at the University of South Carolina. Prior to her appointment at the University of South Carolina in August, 2007, she served as the Associate Dean for Student Affairs & the Medical Scholars Program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her doctorate in Higher Education Administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995.

Dr. Bloom is the current elected President of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) for the 2007-08 term. She serves on the Board of Directors of NACADA (2005-2008) and previously chaired the Advising Graduate & Professional Students Commission and the Member Career Services Committee. She received the NACADA Outstanding Advising Administrator Award in 2005 and University of Illinois' Campus Academic Professional Excellence Award in 2007.

Dr. Bloom has co-authored two books. The first book, Career Aspirations & Expeditions: Advancing Your Career in Higher Education Administration, was released in 2003 and co-authored by Nancy Archer-Martin. The second book, The Appreciative Advising Revolution, was released earlier this summer and it was co-authored by Bryant Hutson and Ye He. Her research interests include appreciative advising, academic advising, career paths in higher education administration, leadership, and change management.

Phil Christman has 28 years in higher education most recently as a consultant in Advising & Testing at Malone College in Canton, OH and the Academic Advising Center at Tulane University, New Orleans. His previous positions during his 23 years at Malone include Director of Advising & Testing, and Director of Recruitment. He also served as Chair of the Liberal Arts major and was an adjunct faculty member.

Prior to coming to Malone, Christman held positions in Admissions, Registrar, and Financial Aid. During his tenure at Malone, he personalized the registration of new students, whereby new students and parents sit down one-on-one with an advisor to register for their first year of college. Last year 88% of parents joined their student in this comprehensive advising appointment.

Christman earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from Bloomsburg University (PA), and his Master’s and Ph.D. in Community Counseling from Kent State University (OH). His interest in the study of subjectivity has led to presentations at the International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity (ISSSS), as well as NACADA regional and national conferences.

He has research interests in counseling and retention issues and has presented and written on a variety of topics: Narrative Advising , a structured model designed to help students’ access solutions to life problems from previous life events; utilizing Q methodology to better understand students’ perceptions contributing to college graduation; Holland’s Code – a way to examine how academic advisor might assist career discovery; Advising Administration within the small college environment; and faculty advising issues.

He has been involved in NACADA at multiple levels, as a presenter, former Chair of the Small Colleges & Universities Commission, Nominations & Election Committee, Strategic Planning Committee, Organizational Structure Task Force, National Awards Committee, Academic Advising Administrator’s Committee, and Secretary of the Board. Phil is currently completing his second three-year term as a member of the NACADA Board of Directors.

Rusty Fox is Vice President for Student Development Services at Tarrant County College Southeast Campus in Arlington, Texas; that campus' Chief Student Affairs Officer.  In that role he supervises the managers and teams of Registrar, Counseling, Testing, Library, Instructional Media, Graphics, Health Services, Disability Support Services, Campus Learning Center, Writing Center, Student Activities and Events, Student Organizations, Disciplinary Actions, and the college Orientation program for a campus of 12,000 students. During the previous 10 years he served as Dean of Student Development at TCC and Oklahoma City Community College; and before that as Director of Advisement and Counseling at Oklahoma; and Coordinator of Academic Advisement and Adjunct Faculty member at Brookhaven College in Dallas.

Fox earned his B.A. in Speech Communications from Texas A&M University-Main Campus and his M.S. and doctoral coursework in Counseling from Texas A&M University-Commerce, where he was named an Outstanding Alumnus this past year and where he also completed intensive post-graduate work in crisis intervention and clinical supervision of master and doctoral level counselors-in-training. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Capella University. 

Fox has twice served as the national chair of the Two-Year Colleges Commission and as faculty for the NACADA Administrator’s Institute.  He is a member of NACADA’s Consultant’s Bureau. He and Dr. Margaret C. (Peggy) King co-authored the Community College chapter in Fostering Student Success in the Campus Community. And he authored the chapter on One-to-One Advising coming in the new 2 nd edition of Academic Advising: A Comprehensive Handbook due out this year. Having joined the faculty of this Institute eight years ago, he has enjoyed facilitating workgroups on ethics, career theory, student development, counseling, supervision and advising administration. Fox is the Recipient of the 2007 Service to Commission Award for the Two-Year College Commission.

Wesley (Wes) R. Habley has held numerous positions at ACT, Inc. and is currently the Principal Associate and Coordinator of ACT's Office of State Organizations. He received his BS in music education and M.Ed. in student personnel from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, and his Ed.D. from Illinois State University in educational administration. Prior to joining ACT, Habley served first as an academic advisor and later as the Director of the Academic Advisement Center at Illinois State. Habley also served as the Director of Academic and Career Advising at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Habley recently published two chapters in Fostering Student Success and a series of four reports based on ACT's national retention study, What Works in Student Retention? Habley is co-editor of the first and second editions of Academic Advising: a comprehensive handbook . He is the editor of the monograph on ACT's third, and author of monographs on ACT's fourth, fifth and sixth National Surveys of Academic Advising. He contributed chapters to Developmental Academic Advising and Faculty Advising Examined . Additional published material has appeared in the NACADA Journal , The Journal of College Student Personnel , NASPA Journal , NACADA Monograph Series , the Jossey-Bass New Directions Series, and several monographs published by the First Year Experience Program at the University of South Carolina.

Habley has delivered more than 400 presentations at meetings of professional associations and has served as a consultant or workshop leader at more than 125 colleges in the U.S., the Middle East, and Canada. He originated the NACADA Summer Institute on Academic Advising in 1987 and continues to serve on the faculty.

Habley is a charter member, past president and past treasurer of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). In 2006 Habley was named Director Emeritus of the Summer Institute and in 2007 the Summer Institute Scholarship was named in his honor. He is the recipient of NACADA's awards for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Academic Advising and Service to NACADA.

Jennifer Joslin is the Senior Associate Director for Advisor Training and Development at The University of Iowa Academic Advising Center. In her 14 th year at the Center, Dr. Joslin coordinates year-round developmental programming for 41 advisors. When she’s not implementing programs for her colleagues, she is advising a small caseload of students and coordinating the Advising Center ’s Learning Outcomes committees. When she’s not coordinating training and development, she is the UI Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Staff and Faculty Chair and a member of the UI Diversity Chairs Council. Dr. Joslin sits on the Vice Provost’s Task Force on Diversity and the Associate Provost for Faculty’s Task Force on Mentoring.

In addition to her work at the University of Iowa , Dr. Joslin serves NACADA as the 2006-2008 LGBTA Concerns Commission Chair. Her commitment to NACADA also includes serving on the Content Review Board for the Foundations of Academic Advising CD Series: CD3, Understanding Cultural Identity and Worldview Development (2006-2007) ; the Editorial Board for the Special Populations Monograph (2007); Commission Division Representative for the Emerging Leaders Program Development Team; the Content Review Panel for the Academic Advising Handbook (2nd Edition); chapter author of Advising Special Populations: LGBTQ Students in the Special Populations Monograph (2007); collaboration with Frank Yoder as a chapter co-author for the New Advisor Guidebook: Mastering the Art of Advising Through the First-Year of Advising and Beyond (2007); and co-chair with Pat Mason-Browne and Kathy Keasler of the 2006 NACADA Region 6 Conference. Dr. Joslin presented two webinars for NACADA in 2008 – "Shared Responsibilities: What Advisors and Administrators Need to Know to Better Assist GLBTQA Students" with NACADA VP Casey Self, and "Ensuring Advisor Success: Mastering the Art of Advising through the First Year of Advising and Beyond"  with Advisor Training and Development chair, Patricia Folsom. Both webinars were, coincidentally, in the words of Leigh Cunningham, “the best Webinars we’ve ever done!”

Jennifer Joslin earned her PhD and Masters degrees at The University of Iowa in Health and Sports Studies and her undergraduate degree at Occidental College in Diplomacy and World Affairs. When she’s not reading Jane Austen, she is a Master Gardener intern for the Johnson County Master Gardener Program.

Nancy S. King is Vice President for Student Success and Enrollment Services and Professor of English at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. Prior to this position, Dr. King was Associate Vice President in Student Affairs, Director of the CAPS Center, and the coordinator of the New Student Experience program at KSU. Dr. King holds a B.A. in English and Psychology from Mercer University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Georgia State University.

Dr. King is active in numerous professional organizations and has held leadership roles in many associations. She served as president for the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) from 1997-1999. Other leadership roles in NACADA include: Public College Representative (1987-89), Chair, 1992 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, and Vice President for Member Services (1993-95). She has published in the field of academic advising and freshmen seminar programs and serves frequently as a consultant to colleges and universities in the area of advising, freshmen-year-experience programs, and student success. Dr. King has made presentations on these topics at state, regional, national and international conferences. She has also published and presented on the topic of collaboration between student affairs and academic affairs. She is a contributing author in Academic Advising: A Comprehensive Handbook published by Jossey-Bass in 2000. Dr. King has been a fellow in the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ Academic Leadership Academy and is listed in Who’s Who in American Education.

At Kennesaw State, Dr. King has served on and chaired many committees including Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee. Dr. King is the chartering advisor of the KSU chapter of the Golden Key International Honour Society and is a member of a National Advisory Board for Golden Key. She was selected the Outstanding Administrator at Kennesaw State in 1988 and received the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award from the Student Government Association in 1992. Dr. King was the recipient of the 1994 Betty L. Siegel Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Leadership, and Service, presented by the KSU Alumni Association.

Marsha Miller, a NACADA member since 1988, joined the NACADA Executive Office staff in 2002 as Research Coordinator and now serves as NACADA's Assistant Director for Resources and Services. 

Marsha was a peer advisor in the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia.  She earned a Master of Arts degree in Learning Disabilities at the University of Iowa and a Master's degree in Counseling from Emporia State University. Marsha worked at Cloud County Community College for fourteen years in various capacities. She taught developmental skills and education courses, served as ADA compliance officer, advised education majors and undecided students, and was Director of Student Services at a branch campus. Upon completion of her duties as Chair of the faculty committee charged with restructuring Cloud's advising and academic support services, Marsha was appointed as the first director of Cloud's Advising Center that received the NACADA Outstanding Advising Program award and the Noel-Levitz citation for Excellence in Student Retention.

Marsha has presented at national conferences of various student affairs organizations, published articles, served as an advising consultant, received outstanding teaching awards, and co-authored chapters in the NACADA monographs Advising as a Comprehensive Campus Process and Advisor Training: Exemplary Practices in Developing Advisor Skills.  

Rich Robbins is an Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bucknell University.  Rich received his B.A. in Psychology from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, his M.A. in General Experimental Psychology from West Chester University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno.  Rich served as a full-time psychology/behavioral sciences faculty member for four years, followed by a move into higher education administration and adjunct teaching for the past 12 years.  His initial exposure to academic advising came as a Graduate Assistant Advisor while at West Chester University.  Rich has developed advising programs at two separate institutions and headed advising programs at four institutions, receiving the NACADA/ACT Outstanding Institutional Advising Award in 1998 and the NACADA Research Grant Award in 1999 as well as several campus advising awards. He has served as Chair of the Kansas Academic Advising Network, Chair of the NACADA Research Committee, and has been a member of numerous NACADA task forces, advisory boards, and committees. He is a past member of the NACADA Journal Editorial Board and a current member of the NACADA Board of Directors. In addition, he serves as chair of the NACADA Summer Institute Advisory Board, and is a member of the NACADA Academic Advising Speakers and Consultants Service, having performed consultations at ten institutions over the past seven years. Rich previously served as the elected NACADA Administrative Division Representative and member of the NACADA Council. He was a facilitator at the first two NACADA Administrators’ Institutes, co-chaired the first NACADA Assessment Seminar in 2004 and served as a faculty at the 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 Assessment Institutes, and was a faculty member at the 2006 and 2007 NACADA Summer Institutes. Rich has over 80 presentations at professional conferences and numerous NACADA Journal book reviews and articles.  In 2004 he served as editor for the NACADA monograph Giving Advice to Students: A Road Map for College Professionals, and is a co-author of the 2005 NACADA CD Guide to Assessment in Academic Advising. Rich also serves as a manuscript reviewer for the peer-reviewed Journal of College Student Retention and regularly acts as a professional reviewer for textbooks in various areas of psychology. His teaching interests include introductory psychology, health psychology, medical sociology, research methodology, and parapsychology, while his areas of emphasis in academic advising include evaluation and assessment, retention, undecided students, high-achieving students, research methodology, and grant writing. And, by the way, he is a black belt in taekwondo.

Remy R. Sotto is a counselor at Pima Community College and currently focuses on working with transfer students and student athletes. As a counselor, she teaches courses such as College Success Skills, Becoming a Master Student, Making Career Choices and Transfer Strategies. Prior to this position at the College, she has served as Student Services Coordinator for a Title III grant and as an academic advisor. Ms. Sotto has expertise in technology in advising/counseling and advising distance learners. Ms. Sotto has authored a chapter on Technology Delivery Systems in Academic Advising - A Comprehensive Handbook, published by Jossey-Bass (2000). She has also authored chapters in NACADA monographs on "Interactive Video Advising" and "Maintaining Communication Linkages: Two-year to Four-Year" (future monograph). Remy has presented at national, regional and state conferences, including NACADA, the League of Innovation, and NASPA. For NACADA she has served on a variety of steering committees, advisory boards and task forces in the areas of technology, professional development, distance education, diversity, webinars and membership.

Ms. Sotto received her M.S. in Counseling Education at San Diego State University, M.S. in Physical Education at University of Arizona and B.A. in Physical Education at University of California, Davis.

Patrick Raphael Toney serves as an Academic Advising Specialist at Bowie State University ’s Academic Advisement Center in Bowie, Maryland. As a NACADA member, Patrick serves as a committee member of the Faculty Advisor Training Video Committee.

Patrick has been employed in a variety of administrative and instructional positions for the past 14 years. The time spent over these years has also resulted in an Academy of Health Sciences diploma in medical equipment repair (35G) from the United States Army and a B.A. and M.A. in English, with an emphasis on teaching from Jackson State University . Prior to his current position, he served as the Retention Coordinator of the School of Arts and Sciences at Bowie State University , where he managed assigned projects for an ACCESS AND SUCCESS grant—provided by the Maryland Higher Education Commission.  In the School of Arts and Sciences, Patrick worked with members of the Model Institution for Excellence Initiative (MIE), a program funded by NASA and supported by the National Science Foundation. MIE Initiative promotes student engagement and academic persistence.

As Retention Coordinator, Patrick assisted both the Associate Provost for Educational Affairs and the Dean of Arts and Sciences in managing information and data to produce materials and other reports on student attrition and academic persistence.  In addition, Patrick managed and coordinated retention efforts as a member of the Retention Advisory Board .  Professional experience includes a very diverse array of leadership training from participating in the fields of Fort Knox, accompanying BSU cadets through the difficult Officer Training Course in 2005 too “the debates” of Freshman Seminar.

In the Language, Literacy and Culture Doctoral Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Patrick concentrates in Language, Culture and Power in Organizations and Communities.  He hopes that participation in this program will assist him in his career goal to apply research in teaching and administration to enhance the educational, social and economic opportunities for all people, particularly in the context of higher education. In addition to his academic pursuits, Patrick is a member of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), United States Golf Association (USGA), and former member of Troops to Teachers of the Department of Defense (DANTES).

Patrick Toney presented at the 2006 Historically Black Colleges' and Universities' Retention Summit. The title of his presentation: "Improving Graduation Rates at HBCUs: The Role of Social Class Differences in Academic Performance and Degree Attainment--Understanding the 'Haves' while Lobbying for the 'Have Nots.'"