In my role, I am committed to supporting students in reaching their academic goals. This entails helping them to recognize their strengths and barriers, and supporting them in actions to use these strengths to overcome barriers.

Foundational beliefs:

Every student has the capacity to learn and achieve their goals.

Students are more than academic beings. As such, sustaining one's holistic human needs is as critical to reaching academic and professional goals as academic skill.

Each person’s journey may look different due to the various internal and external factors which impact their lives and personal choices. None of these paths are better or worse, simply different.

There are common perspectives, beliefs, and experiences that people from various backgrounds may face, but each person is an individual who may or may not share these commonly identified perspectives, beliefs, or experiences, even with others from similar identity groups.

While I can understand general trends and best practices, I cannot know what a specific student needs, is capable of, or what struggles they face unless I learn this from the student themselves.

Guiding practices:

I use a person-centered approach to provide a nonjudgmental environment and meet each student with curiosity to learn what they bring, challenges they face, and the ultimate outcome they seek.

I follow both appreciative and proactive approaches to advising. This entails working with each student to understand their goals, strengths, and barriers, and helping them to develop a plan for success, as well as monitoring student progress and proactively reaching out when I notice potential stumbling blocks.

I blend both advising and coaching strategies when working with students. I provide direct, timely answers, accurate to the best of my knowledge, so that students have clear information with which to make choices. I also guide students in learning and using new strategies to overcome barriers, including, but not limited to, time/self-management, study strategies, and test taking approaches.