Kelly Payne & Ann Tschetter UNL Academic Advising Association Conference “The Hidden Student” Spring 2015

  Quickly list three words that describe you as an adviser.  Write down one advising experience that was memorable because of how it made you open up about your own personal experiences? Activity

  Radical  a. Esp. of change or action: going to the root or origin; touching upon or affecting what is essential and fundamental; thorough, far-reaching.  c. Characterized by independence of or departure from what is usual or traditional; progressive, unorthodox, or innovative in outlook, conception, design, etc.  Openness  The quality or condition of being open (in various senses). taken from Oxford English Dictionary Online Defining our terms

  Educational theory that incorporates space, location, and subject position  hooks as African-American, feminist, woman, author, educator  “words emerge from suffering” (204)  “Private speech in public discourse, intimate intervention, making another text, a space that enables me to recover all that I am in language, I find so many gaps, absences in this written text” (204).  We are transformed, individually, collectively, as we make radical creative space which affirms and sustains our subjectivity, which gives us a new location from which to articulate our sense of the world. Bell Hooks and Radical Openness

  Faculty engagement in classes and in advising sessions  Teaching & Learning  Building trust  Cultivating self-efficacy  Locating oneself  Classroom as open space, as radical space  Advising as core educational activity  Our students are our advisees! Faculty Advising: Reaching our Hidden Students

  Quiet  Lack of engagement  Poor grades  Using the office visit  Shifting from class to advising  The follow up  Major vs non major  Success? Case Study: Sexual Assault Crises

  Breaking down barriers in classroom  Using their language  What is okay to share  Using Humor  Graded comments as conversation  Classroom space as advising space  University space as advising space. Radical Space in the classroom

  22-30% of college undergraduates are in the first 12 months of grieving the death of a family member or of a friend,  35-48% are in the first 24 months (“Bereavement and University Scholarship” 69).  Academic performance also impacted  Ability to concentrate, to read for sustained periods of time  Stresses about changes related to the bereaved student’s loss  Financial aid changes  Leaving campus frequently to be with family or to take care of estate concerns. Case Study: Grief and loss

  Unexpected, sudden loss family members  Beginning versus end of term  Unexpected challenges  Academic ramifications of loss—motivation to do course work  “… it was also hurtful when the teacher didn’t acknowledge that it happened at all.  Openness with adviser and instructors  Identity and the need for community  I don’t want the grief to define me as a person … it’s easy to assume that people can go through tragedies such as these alone, that if a strong person is subject to loss they will have an easier time overcoming it. That isn’t true I don’t think, everyone deals with grief in different ways and even the strongest person would still benefit from having someone else there to listen to them during their struggles.  Search for meaning  “none of this feels important”  Creative impact English major case studies

  Offering platitudes  Minimizing the problem  Giving unsolicited advice  Providing a Religious or Philosophical Perspective  Claiming to know how the student feels  Avoidance  Asking inappropriate questions  Blaming the victim What not to say?

  Listen  Connect  Be open  Recognize that healing is highly individualized process, no matter the crisis.  Don’t force timeline but help student understand the semester or the class doesn’t stop  Maybe withdrawal is appropriate  Finding meaning to process  Importance of relating their story, the crisis to trusted source  “Some theorize that one of the most important outcomes of trauma-related cognitive processing in general (Janoff- Bulman, 1992; Taylor, 1983, and bereavement-related cognitive processing, more specifically (Bower et. Al, 1998, Stein et al., 1997), is finding meaning in the experience ).” What can you do?

  CAPS  Women’s Center  Advising office hours  Share books and literature pertaining to situation, if students asks.  Peer referrals  Other service offices that may help with resulting issues  SSD, Health Center  Hope  “Hope is the active cognitive process of moving toward these goals.” Resources for Hidden Students in Crisis

  Connecting your personal experiences, your narrative, to your students. Activity

  “Our living depends on our ability to conceptualize alternatives, often improvised. Theorizing about this experience aesthetically, critically is an agenda for radical cultural practice. For me this space of radical openness is a margin - a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a 'safe' place. One is always at risk. One needs a community of resistance. “ (206) Return to radical openness