NACADA STATEMENT OF CORE VALUES OF ACADEMIC ADVISING

The National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) has created a list of Core Values that can be used as framework against which advisors can measure their own performance. The statement of Core Values is not meant to determine the methods and philosophy all advisors should subscribe to in order to effectively work with students. The NACADA Core Values do not all carry equal weight and advisors will find some Core Values more important than others depending on their own philosophies and those of their institutions.

Beliefs about students

Like other educators, academic advisors work to strengthen the importance, dignity, potential, and unique nature of each individual served within the academic setting. Our work as advisors is guided by our beliefs that:

• Students can be responsible for their own behavior
• Students can be successful as a result of their individual goals and efforts
• Students have a desire to learn
• Learning needs vary according to individual skill, goals, and experiences
• Students hold their own beliefs and opinions

The Core Values:

1. Students deserve dependable, accurate, respectable, honest, friendly, and professional service. In order to serve students well, academic advisors understand that they are responsible to many constituents who comprise our academic communities. This is the foundation on which the Core Values rest.Advisors are responsible to the students and the individuals they serve. The cooperative efforts of all who advise help to deliver quality programs and services to students. These include, but are not limited to, giving accurate and timely information, maintaining regular office hours, and keeping appointments.

• Advisors help students develop a perception of themselves. Advisors introduce students in a nurturing way to the world they are entering -teaching them to value the learning process, put the college experience in perspective, become more responsible, set priorities and evaluate sequences of events and be more honest with themselves.
• Advisors encourage self-reliance by helping students make informed and responsible decisions, set realistic goals, and develop thinking, learning, and life management skills to meet present and future needs. Advisors work with students to help them accomplish the goals and objectives they have established for themselves. Advisors encourage students to be more responsible for their own success and progress. They respect students' rights to their individual beliefs and opinions, but are not controlled by them.
• Advisors work to modify barriers to student progress; they identify burdensome, ineffective and inefficient policies and procedures, and work to effect change. When the needs of students and the policies of the institution are in conflict, advisors work toward a resolution that is in the best interest of both parties. Advisors inform students about appropriate grievance procedures in cases where students find resolution unsatisfactory.
• Advisors recognize the changing nature of the college and university environment and student body. They support students in appropriate ways (e.g., advocate at the administrative level for recognition of these changes; offer varied office hours; and acknowledge the special needs of all students and the pressures on them to juggle study with work, family, and other interpersonal demands).
• Advisors are knowledgeable about and sensitive to federal, state, and their own institution's policies and procedures, especially those governing such matters as sexual harassment, personal relationships with students, privacy of student information, equal treatment, equal access, and equal opportunity.
• Advisors respect the rights of students to have information about themselves kept confidential. Advisors share information with others about students and their programs only when both advisor and the student believe that information is relevant and will result in increased information or assistance, assessment, and provision of appropriate services to the student.
• Advisors gain access to and use computerized information about students only when that information is relevant. Advisors enter or change information on students' records only when legitimately authorized to do so.
• Advisors document advising contacts adequately to aid subsequent advising interactions.

 

2.  Advisors are responsible for involving others, when appropriate, in the advising process

• Effective advising requires a broad-based or holistic approach to working with students. Academic advisors develop crucial ties with others who assist students in diverse areas, such as admissions, orientations, financial aid, housing, health services, athletics, course selection, satisfaction of academic requirements, special physical and educational needs, foreign study, career development, co-curricular programs, and graduation clearance.

 

3.  Advisors are responsible to the college or university in which they work

• Advisors respect the opinions of their colleagues; they remain neutral when students present them with comments, questions, or opinions about other faculty or staff, and non-judgmental about academic programs.

• Advisors increase their collective professional strength by sharing their philosophies and techniques with colleagues.

• Advisors keep administrators who are not involved directly in the advising process informed and aware of the importance of academic advising in students' lives, and of the need for administrative support of advising and related activities.

• Advisors abide by the specific policies, procedures, and values of the department and institution for which they work. Where injustices occur and might interfere with students' learning, advisors advocate for change on behalf of students with the institution's administration, faculty, and staff.

 

4.  Advisors are responsible to higher education generally

• Advisors honor (and are protected by) the traditions of academic freedom as practiced on our campuses. In this spirit, advisors hold a variety of points of view. Academic advisors are free to base their work with students on the most appropriate theories of college development and models of delivery for academic advising programs and services.

• Advisors accept that one of the goals of education is to introduce students to the world of ideas. One goal of academic advising is to establish a partnership between student and advisor to guide students through their academic programs so they may attain the knowledge gained and offered by faculty.

• Advisors believe that it is ultimately the responsibility of students to apply what they learn to everyday situations. Advisors help students in understanding this process.

• Advisors advocate for students' educational achievement at the highest attainable standard and support goals, as well as the educational mission of the institution.

• Advisors encourage the creation or strengthening of programs and services that are compatible with students' academic needs.

 

5.  Advisors are responsible to the community (including the local community, state, and region in which the institution is located).

• Academic advisors interpret the institution's mission, standards, goals, and values to its community, including public and private schools from which the college or university draws its student body. Likewise, advisors understand their student body and regularly inform schools from which their students come about appropriate preparation so that students may succeed in higher education.

• Advisors are sensitive to the values and morals of the surrounding community, sharing these with and interpreting them to students. Advisors are aware of community programs and services and may become models for students by participating in community activities themselves.

 

6.  Advisors are responsible to their professional role as advisors and to themselves personally.

• To keep advising skills honed and interest high, advisors seek opportunities for professional development through classes, workshops, conferences, reading, consultation with others, and interaction in formal groups, with other advisors (e.g. professional organizations like NACADA)

• Advisors understand the demands on themselves that emerge from the service nature of the work they do. Advisors develop skills for taking care of themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. They learn how to detach themselves from students' problems while maintaining a keen listening ear and providing sensitive responses. They establish and maintain appropriate boundaries. They seek support for themselves within and outside the institution.

 

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