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New Advisor Checklist

Using a tool such as the New Advisor Development Checklist in Setting the Stage: Growth Through Year One and Beyond – the New Advisor Development Chart can help new and experienced advisors improve their advising practice. New advisors especially need such a tool to help them absorb all the a new information they have to learn in their first year as advisors, but all advisors can use it as a roadmap to follow for improving their advising knowledge and skills.

The New Advisor Development Checklist includes three sections:
  1. The informational section includes information about majors, minors, policies and procedures, resources, and technology used by advisors. An advisor uses informational components to answer the question, “What do I need to know to advise my students?”
  2. The Relational section includes the communication skills necessary to work effectively with students, faculty, and fellow advisors.
  3. The conceptual framework section provides the context within the University in which its advisors work. In this section advisors will answer questions such as: What is the advising mission at the University? What are the ethical and legal responsibilities of an advisor?
While academic advisors synthesize the informational, relational, and conceptual components of advising as they work with students, their development as advisors does not necessarily advance at the same pace. By using the New Advisor Development Checklist new advisors can measure their progress as they manage their professional development.

New advisors should work on each section of the checklist at their own pace over the first year of their advising experience. From each section, choose an element in which you want to do better at or you would like to know more about. Over your first year as an advisor, as you check off an element from each section, pick another element and begin again. Do not try to accomplish every goal simultaneously. Steady progress is desired – just try to be a better advisor today than you were yesterday.

References
Setting the Stage: Growth Through Year One and Beyond – the New Advisor Development Chart, Pat Folsom, in The New Advisor Guidebook: Mastering the Art of Advising Through the First Year and Beyond, NACADA Monograph Series Number 16, 2007, pp. 13-21.

“Developmental counseling or advising is concerned not only with a specific personal or vocational decision but also with facilitating the student's rational processes, environmental and interpersonal interactions, behavioral awareness, and problem-solving, decision-making, and evaluation skills.” – Crookston, 1972

“Academic advising is the only structured service on the campus in which all students have the opportunity for on-going, one-to-one contact with a concerned representative of the institution.” - W. R. Hably
NACADA 
The National Academic Advising Association 
NACADA Clearinghouse 
A useful list of Advising topics from NACADA 
The Mentor 
A scholarly publication about academic advising in higher education