Advising: A Personal Statement
Ernst Schoen-Rene, California State University, Chico
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Editor's note: Professor Ernst Schoen-Rene received the 2001 Outstanding Advisor Award from the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). His personal statement for the award nomination speaks eloquently of the relation between advising and teaching.
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When I was about ten, my father, who was also a college professor, explained to me what it meant to be a teacher. A teacher, he said, is a professional, like a doctor or a priest, whose job is to know, to serve, and to be on call for help at all times. My father's situation made this an achievable goal. Professors at his small liberal arts college taught no more than three classes, and those classes were generally small. In addition, he – we – lived on the edge of campus, so that seminars met in the living room or on the porch, and students dropped by at all hours – even at dinner time, when my father would ask them to bring a chair from the living room and join in the conversation.
I never consciously strove to imitate my father, but now that I look back on these things from a relatively advanced age, I can see that,
despite the fact that I live in a radically different world, the values he
professed remain stamped on my soul. As a teacher, I have tried to make
myself wholly accessible to my students on campus most of the day; I let
them call me at home; I make sure each of my classes meets at my house at
least once during the semester.
When I became an adviser, I continued this sort of thing. I posted
official advising hours of between one or two hours a day, but, again, I
would deal with people – including the large numbers who call in for help
from off campus – whenever they could get hold of me. I let them call me at
home; indeed, I would often call them from home, having brought a list of
calls to be answered and people to be spoken to back home from work. This
was good to do, especially because the people I was advising often worked
or taught during the day, and could only be called in the evening.
The down side, of course, is that the number of people I deal with,
the variety of places they come from, and the teaching load that
accompanies my advising have probably trebled since my father was doing
similar things forty and fifty years ago. It is now damned hard work, but
I have kept at it because something deep inside me tells me that this is
the right and professional way to behave.
This killingly hard work aside, I have enjoyed it. I find it
personally enriching to deal with, look into the lives of, and learn about
the varied undergraduates, graduates, and outsiders I find myself in the
position of helping. I have also enjoyed the challenge of streamlining
and making as user-friendly as possible the many programs and processes
the people I advise become involved in. I have enjoyed the challenge of
doing little things well – such as calling students the very evening after
they have undergone a test or an interview and giving them the results.
But perhaps the greatest joy of being an adviser is the sense one has
of a certain kind of freedom in a world beset by constricting rules and
regulations. If a student's schedule will not allow him or her to take a
required class, I can put forth viable options based on my sense of that
student's character and needs. If someone from outside the university
comes to me for subject-matter competency, I can decide whether that
student is literate or needs to have something done about his or her
writing. Or I can talk to that person, learn about his or her strengths
and experiences, and formulate a program that provides what he or she
needs in order to become a knowledgeable, confident teacher and, at the
same time, eliminates hoops through which it would do him or her no good
to jump. In this, there is a kind of creative freedom, mixed with a
careful tailoring to suit an individual's needs, mixed with a sense of
having a hand in preparing the best possible candidates to go into the
profession I love and believe in. This makes my work totally worth while
and satisfying.
Ernst Schoen-Rene is a professor in the Department of English at California State University, Chico. Professor Schoen-Rene was also selected as the 2000/2001 Outstanding Academic Advisor by Chico's Faculty Recognition and Support Committee. He can be reached at eschoen-rene@csuchico.edu or 530-898-6372.
Published in The Mentor on January 15, 2002, by Penn State's Division of Undergraduate Studies
Available online at dus.psu.edu/mentor
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