Charlie Nutt, NACADA Executive Director
Each year, the impact of NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising grows on our members, the profession, institutions, and the globe. What is exciting about this impact is how so many of our members are actively involved in the work that the association is doing, which clearly demonstrates that our association continues to be a grassroots association that works closely with the NACADA Board of Directors and Executive Office in changing the face of academic advising in higher education. I want to outline for you just a few of these collaborative efforts.
For the past two years, the Professional Development Committee with the leadership of Chair Teri Farr and the Core Values Revision Task Force with the leadership of Jayne Drake and Joanne Damminger have both worked diligently and for many hours to produce the NACADA Core Competencies for Academic Advising and a revision of the NACADA Core Values. What is very important is that both of these groups spent a great deal of time at the NACADA annual, regional, and international conferences as well as at the NACADA institutes and special open webinars to gather insights and recommendations from members across the profession and the globe on these important documents. So not only were the members of the groups involved in these projects, but also thousands of NACADA members and members of academic advising communities worldwide had an active role in the development of these core competencies and core values. These will now have significant impact on professional development programs across higher education and on the success and degree completion of students across the globe. The outstanding work of NACADA Executive Office Staff Liaisons Leigh Cunningham, Maxine Coffey, and Cathy Swartz provided the needed support to each of these important projects.
As President Zahorik stated in her article, the NACADA Board of Directors (Dana Zahorik, Nathan Vickers, Dawn Fettig, Amy Sannes, Brody Broshears, Shannon Burton, Karen Archambault, Kerri Kincannon, and Patti Griffin), has taken very seriously its primary responsibility of guiding the association for the future by working closely with the NACADA Council in focused work on the association’s strategic goals. The Board has created benchmarks to be achieved in five to ten years for each goal and strategies to measure the achievements of these goals. The Board will now communicate the goals, benchmarks, and measurements to our leaders of the NACADA units, such as our regions, commissions, interest groups, committees, and advisory board, who will be actively involved in assuring we as an association meet these important strategic goals. Once again, this ensures that leaders and members will work together to move our association forward with the help of the NACADA Executive Office Staff who all serve as liaisons and support to our various leadership units.
NACADA has continued to expand our partnerships with other associations and entities focused on student success, completion, and academic advising. During the past year alone, NACADA has worked with groups such as the Achieving the Dream, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), Complete College America, The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS), The National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, The Reinvention Collaborative, and Tyton Partners. This work has resulted in joint projects such as webinars, important publications on student completion and graduation, shared professional development activities, and other efforts supporting academic advising across higher education. Once again, these partnerships have included many of our members and leaders, including our President Dana Zahorik and leaders Brett McFarlane, Karen Sullivan-Vance, Theresa Hitchcock, and Vanessa Harris just to name a few of the many individuals actively involved in these partnerships. In addition, the collaboration and support of our Executive Office Staff members Jennifer Joslin, Wendy Troxel, Marsha Miller, and Maxine Coffey has been instrumental in these growing partnerships.
I am particularly excited about our continued work with the Tyton Partners on the Drive to Degree Survey. In its third year, the survey reached more NACADA members as well as other academic advising leaders in the field to provide data on the academic advising experiences of students at institutions across the US. This survey has ensured that NACADA is an active partner in reaching out to institutions concerning the status of academic advising and has involved hundreds of NACADA members and leaders who reviewed questions and gave valuable input to the survey’s development as well as were involved in the pilot of the survey administration.
Last, our association’s strength has its foundation in the amazing work being done in our regions, CIG and administrative divisions, and the NACADA Journal Editorial Board. The work of these divisions represents thousands of members across the globe who are providing quality professional development, research, publications, and networking that strongly impact our profession and student success. With leadership of Vice President Nathan Vickers and Council Members Nicole Kent, Rodney Mondor, Erin Justyna, Rebecca Cofer, Brett McFarlane, and Cecilia Olivares, the growth of NACADA in all ways is truly from these grassroots leaders and members. Additionally, the partnership and support of the Executive Office Liaisons is instrumental to those groups, including Rhonda Baker, Maxine Coffey, Leigh Cunningham, Peggy Goe, Michele Holiday, Jennifer Joslin, Dawn Krause, Dayna Kuhlman, Diane Matteson, Marsha Miller, Jennifer Rush, Elisa Shaffer, Cathy Swartz, Wendy Troxel, and Farrah Turner.
Clearly, NACADA is growing in our impact across the world that is directly connected to the work of thousands of members, leaders, and the partnership with the Executive Office Staff. Thanks to all of you across the world.
Charlie Nutt, Executive Director NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising (785) 532-5717 cnutt@ksu.edu
Cite this article using APA style as: Nutt, C. (2017, September). From the executive director: Impacting student success, the profession, institutions, and the globe. Academic Advising Today, 40(3). Retrieved from [insert url here]
