Academic Advisor Senior - Advising Training and Development

Overview

Academic Advisor Training and Professional Development (Academic Advisor Senior)

 

The Advising Training and Development Senior Advisor position will coordinate and design training and professional development programs through close collaboration with the Executive Director of UAEA and Academic Advising Administrators throughout the statewide system. This position is responsible for the design, development, delivery, implementation, assessment, and maintenance of all training programs and resources. The training program will support the onboarding needs of new advisors and the professional development growth of all advisors throughout the statewide system.

 

The UAEA training and professional development program will incorporate the comprehensive knowledge of the job responsibilities and practices that contribute to improving student success through academic advising. Training will be aligned with Appreciative Advising, best practice standards, and competencies articulated by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), the Council for the Advancement of Standards (CAS) in Higher Education, and other adjacent professional organizations. Training will leverage and promote the centrally coordinated support for USU’s decentralized advising system. Training will be delivered through a variety of methods, including synchronous, asynchronous, virtual, and in-person. The position leads the coordination of the yearly USU Advising Conference. This position reports to the Executive Director for University and Exploratory Advising.

 

In addition to the training role, this position will support the overall mission of University and Exploratory Advising. University Advising is the centralized support unit for over 100 academic advisors across 30-plus campuses. University Advising works to bring the USU advising community together through standards of practice, centralized advising initiatives, leadership, and communication coordination.

 

This position is eligible for hybrid telework within the State of Utah.

Responsibilities

Advisor Training and Professional Development Specialist (70%):

• Lead efforts to provide campus-wide training and professional development for academic advisors, positioning advisors to understand and promote student development, persistence, and completion.
• Incorporate Relational, Conceptual and Informational components of advising in training and professional development.
• Serve as an expert resource by being aware of and up-to-date on all content applying to academic advising. This knowledge is consistent with, but not limited to, software knowledge, policies, and procedures of all advising roles, as well as customer service skills, persistence, retention, and completion initiatives.
• Assist in developing and maintaining documentation regarding advising processes, systems and resources.
• Coordinate with Student Achievement Collaborative, Student Affairs, and Academic and Instructional Services units who interface with advising to ensure advisors have up-to-date information related to these units and resources for students.
• Implement strategies for advisor growth. This could include but not limited to summer book club, guest speaker event invites, etc.
• Onboard new academic advisors: Collaborate with the supervisor to develop a training schedule for new hires that consists of Appreciative Advising, technology systems (Degree Works, Achieve, Inspire for Advisors, Banner SSB, Banner INB), Designating check-in times for new hires to revisit questions, concerns, feedback throughout the training process.
• Responsible for the ongoing assessment of training/professional development efforts.
• Serves as an active member of leadership committees in the academic advising community.
• Assist in managing and developing processes/initiatives that support and are heavily utilized by the advising community.
• Assess advisors frequently to determine and assist with efficiency, best practices, etc.
• Assess student feedback by conducting surveys, focus groups, etc.
• Sit in on appointments and assess what the advisors find went well, challenging, and need more training, etc.

Provide Advising Support for UAEA and Other Units (20%): 

• Supports advising units when there is an advisor departure, or extended leave using institutional and unit best practices.
• Advises a small caseload of approximately 30 Bridge Program students.
• Assist with walk-in 1:1 advising services during high-traffic times.

Provide Systemwide Leadership Coordination (10%): 

• Serve on committees as assigned by supervisor.
• Organize and facilitate the USU Advising Conference.
• Support the Executive Director in co