On March 22 to 24, UWI St Augustine hosted its first “Academic Advising and Mentoring (AA&M) in Higher Education” virtual symposium. With a focus on “A Caribbean Context”, the three-day event brought together representatives from higher education institutions from throughout the region for the evolution and expansion of this vital area of student services.
The AA&M symposium included four paper sessions with 15 presentations; and two panel discussions – “Interrogating Well-Being in Higher Education” and “Academic Advising in Shifting/Vulnerable Contexts”. The keynote speakers were Dr Sandra Reid, Deputy Dean for Clinical Programmes and Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at UWI St Augustine’s Faculty of Medical Sciences and Professor Jerome De Lisle, Director of UWI St Augustine’s School of Education.
In her keynote address on the opening day of the virtual symposium, Dr Reid made a powerful statement about academic advising and mentoring, and the change that must take place:
“If we aim to maximise student success and live up to our institutions’ visions and missions, we have to go beyond the hard numerical indices and focus on the equally important non-academic indices like mental health, confidence, social support, and resilience, all of which have tremendous impact on student outcomes.”
She added, “In other words, we have to look at student well-being.”
Traditionally, the focus of academic advising in the Caribbean has been supporting students in the areas of course selection and registration. That narrow focus is now being expanded and The UWI is taking a leading role.
“As our student population grew and diversified, it became clearer that to support students successful navigation of university from matriculation to graduation, good academic advising had to include other kinds of conversations about career goals and future aspirations, extra-curricular and co-curricular activities, and the support systems that were needed when non-academic issues negatively impacted students’ academic performance,” said Symposium Planning Committee Chair, Mrs Lynette Joseph-Brown.
Mrs Joseph-Brown, who is the Programme Officer in the Office of the Deputy Principal, said a paradigm shift was taking place:
"What we have, colleagues, is a growing community of persons interested in ensuring that we change the culture of academic advising and mentoring where this is needed.”
In his presentation, “Diverse Realities, Experiences and Challenges of Delivering Academic Advising”, Professor De Lisle looked at “difference and diversity” in the academic advising process. He pointed out that not only had the student body become more diverse, but the advisors themselves, and the institutions of higher education were diverse in terms of values, cultural beliefs, disciplinary theories and other areas.
In line with the general consensus of the symposium, he said academic advising was moving beyond “narrow” perspectives focused only on academic processes, to different dimensions that included academic guidance, pastoral (a point of contact for students experiencing personal difficulties), and employability (helping students think of future career goals and preparing for work).
Professor De Lisle, citing Professor Vincent Tinto from Syracuse University, a leading scholar on student retention, stressed the importance of multi-dimensional academic advising in preventing students from withdrawing from university.
“People don’t drop out just because they are doing poorly,” he said. “They drop out because they are not fitting well in that environment and they drop out because of personal factors.”
Also speaking on this issue, Dr Reid revealed that she had intimate experience with the effects of personal difficulties on the performance of students. As Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, one of her responsibilities was meeting with students whose programmes were delayed because of failure or setbacks.
“Being the psychiatrist that I am, I naturally interrogated the circumstances of their setbacks. The results were eye-opening,” said Dr Reid.
Between 2016 and 2019, she met with 222 students. Of those requesting a leave of absence, the two most common reasons were mental or physical illness (29 percent and 22.6 percent respectively from a total of 62 students). Of those who failed, 42 percent (out of 104) gave the reason as non-academic or personal reasons.
“From this experience,” said Dr Reid, she became strongly convinced that “there was a need to focus on student well-being, and a different kind of engagement with students was necessary”.
She developed a holistic approach to academic advising and mentorship. Currently, this method is being implemented at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, said Dr Reid, explaining that it “is a work in progress”.
Both participants and the symposium organisers pointed out that new approaches to academic advising and mentorship will take time and effort. The three-day AA&M however, is an outstanding step and important milestone in the process.
“This is a unique moment for academic advising and mentoring in our region,” said Deputy Principal of UWI St Augustine Professor Indar Ramnarine. “Many in the higher education field worldwide have written extensively about the importance of academic advising and mentoring. The benefits all point to better student achievement and learning, higher student retention and ultimately, an overall positive student experience.”
Of the benefits of the symposium, Professor Ramnarine said, “I hope that it also provides the impetus for more research into academic advising and mentoring in the Caribbean region. This research can feed into the best practices for our region and for our students.”
The virtual symposium had a host of speakers from within UWI as well as other institutions. Scientists, social scientists, student services professionals, administrators, education specialists, mental health experts, alumni representatives, performing artists, members of the Students Guild, and students themselves participated. Dr Maurice Smith, University Registrar of The UWI, chaired one of the panel discussions.
The symposium utilised an interactive platform that allowed for more engagement between participants.
“We wanted them to have a more interactive experience,” said Mrs Joseph-Brown.
Over 160 people took part in the AA&M symposium, the product of two years of work (it had been initially planned for 2020 but was postponed and restructured as a virtual event because of the pandemic) by the 20-member planning committee. Mrs Joseph-Brown said the experience was very positive and boded well for the future of academic advising in the Caribbean.
“The energy was really remarkable. It was a wonderful team.”
