Closing the Gap Between Academic Advising and Career Counseling

Michelle Fisher, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Editor's note: This is the first in a series of seven articles written by students who were enrolled in Dr. Jennifer Bloom's course, Developmental Academic Advising in Higher Education, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign during the 1999 summer semester. For an overview of the course, along with a description of all seven articles, please refer to Dr. Bloom's article, “Developmental Academic Advising in Higher Education: The Class.”

This summer I have been taking a graduate-level class at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign entitled Developmental Academic Advising in Higher Education. Before I began the class, I had no idea what academic advising consisted of nor how closely it is related to the work I do as a graduate assistant at the Career Center. The issues that come up during Career Center appointments and workshops relate directly to what I have learned in the academic advising course. I began to think about how intertwined developmental academic advising and career counseling have to be in order to meet the needs of the college students we serve.

Our first reading assignment included Terry O’Banion’s 1972 article, in which he suggested that there are five dimensions of academic advising: (1) exploration of life goals, (2) exploration of vocational goals, (3) exploration of program choice, (4) exploration of course choice, and (5) exploration of scheduling options (O’Banion, 1972/94). This paradigm continues to influence advising interactions and adviser training in colleges and universities throughout the country (Burton and Wellington, 1998). According to Virginia Gordon (1992), O’Banion outlined the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required for good academic advising and in doing so defined the function in a much broader context: advisers should be able to help students clarify their values and set goals as they relate to career and life planning.

Because academic advisers who are influenced by the O’Banion model discuss career goals with their students, there is an obvious overlap between the services provided by the adviser and the career counselor. To best help the student answer questions about career and life planning, academic advisers and career counselors should work together as a team to ensure that each student's unique developmental needs are being met.

Recently I asked career counselors on the JobPlace listserv (a forum for career development professionals) for their opinions on what can be done to make the connection between academic advisers and career counselors stronger. Quite a few individuals were kind enough to share their thoughts on how career counselors and academic advisers could, and in some cases already do, work together. What follows is a summary of the responses from the listserv and career counselors at University of Illinois which explore how to strengthen the links between career counselors and academic advisers. The responses seemed to fall into four very general categories which both overlap and are dependent on one another.

Understanding Differences

Understanding and respecting the different services each set of professionals provides is the key to working together. The roles of academic advisers and career counselors on each campus need to be clarified. For example, on some campuses academic advisers are responsible for conveying the details about courses and ensuring that the students’ course choices are in alignment with their personal and professional goals. Career counselors know the job market and understand how to help the student make the transition from the institution to the work place. The nature of the two positions can lead to different approaches and ways of dealing with students. Career counselors help students find careers that fit their values and goals while academic advisers take students from majors to careers.

The two approaches will benefit all students at different times, depending on where they are in the decision process and how they view their education. It is not always clear to students what they can expect from academic advisers and career counselors since in many cases there is an overlap in material covered by each. Career choices will be discussed with academic advisers and, likewise, students’ courses may be discussed with career counselors.

Combining the Services

One possible method of integrating academic and career services is to house both in the same office. This has obvious advantages. The staff of both offices then would know exactly whom they are referring the students to and, with student permission, could easily get feedback on how the meeting went. I heard from individuals who work at institutions that have this type of system currently in place. An example is the Student ACCESS (Academic Advising, Counseling, Career Services, Educational Support Services) Center at Southern Oregon University. Sharon Fink, a career counselor at this center, described the services they provide and how the professionals work together to meet the needs of the students:

We are all cross-trained to back up or refer to each other, as we are aware that all of these services are intertwined. We're a “one-stop help center.” Often students are referred to Career Services by our academic advisers to take an assessment inventory to help them with career decisions or deciding on a major, so our academic adviser does career counseling and the career staff does academic advising. We assist students with choosing a major. After they have decided on a major, we refer them to that particular department where a faculty adviser will direct them with class selection within that major. Of course, Career Services can also direct them toward particular job openings and careers within their major and help them with the job-search process. (S. Fink, personal communication, July 27, 1999)
Another center that has combined the two services is the Academic Advising and Career Development center at James Madison University (JMU) in Virginia. The goal of this center is to guide the “students through four developmental processes important for their success at JMU: introduction to academic programs and course requirements, developing an academic plan and choosing a major, formulating career goals and exploring career interests, and successfully preparing for the transition from college to professional employment or graduate school” (www.jmu.edu/career/staff_loc.html). Tracy Hakala, who is a member of the Academic Advising and Career Development staff at JMU, explained the advantages of working in the system described above.

Since we are now a combined unit, we have much more collaboration. When I see a student for career counseling, if I know that their adviser is someone in our office, I fill out a brief form letting him/her know what has happened in our sessions. Of course, the student signs something to allow me to share that information. I can also touch base with him/her to find out more about the student and what he/she needs. Sometimes an adviser will let me know ahead of time that he/she has referred a student to me, and will tell me a little about the student's concern.

As for our career counselors, we don't have specific people who know about one area, although we do have liaisons to the academic colleges (for example, mine is the College of Education and Psychology). While I see lots of liberal arts students and business as well, I have a particular knowledge base in education and psychology and so I do see a lot of these students (T. Hakala, personal communication, July 23, 1999).
Open Communication

The underlying theme that appeared in most of the responses I received was that there needs to be more communication between the two groups of professionals. The specific suggestions ran the gamut from formal collaboration to casual, social-interaction opportunities.

I heard from a number of career counselors who felt that having a joint staff meeting at the beginning of the year would be helpful. This should take place in the career center so that the advisers could become familiar with the services available for the students. At one university a career counselor meets with all the academic advisers in a specific college. She explains what the career counselors do and invites them to the resource library so that they can have a better idea of what counselors can offer the students. She also explains that she refers students to their academic advisers when there are questions about course selection and other specific questions about their majors.

Academic advisers could go through an initial appointment with a career counselor and take an interest inventory and discuss the results with the career counselor. This would help accomplish two things: it would help establish a strong relationship between the adviser and at least one career counselor, and it would give the adviser more information. Going through this process would help advisers explain to students what to expect when they go to a career counseling session. It would also be a good idea to have the career counselor make an appointment with an academic adviser and experience what goes on in a typical advising session.

Sharing Information

There is no way one person could possibly know everything about every major or career that exists. Having the career counselors become familiar with one area would make the information more manageable. Each career counselor would serve as a liaison to one specific department or college. This is not to limit which students they work with, but to allow them to be more informed about a specific field. A career counselor, Pat Alexander, at Texas A&M University, described how this school is attempting to handle this arrangement:

We have career files by major housed in our Career Resources Library. We have to work hard to keep that information current. During the 1998-1999 academic year, we have instituted a new concept. Our new concept is Career Services Coordinators for the College of Business, the College of Liberal Arts, and Life Sciences majors. Eventually, someone will be working with College of Engineering majors. These coordinators are responsible for keeping files current and they'll also work very closely with academic advisers out in the colleges. I think this is a win-win situation for sharing information (P. Alexander, personal communication, July 30, 1999).
Referrals

Improving the quality of referrals is an important component of each of the strategies listed above. The art of making referrals is an important skill which will only be enhanced by opening the lines of communication between academic advisers and career counselors. By knowing the people who work in the career center, advisers can tell the students exactly whom to see and what to expect. It would mean more to the students if the advisers and career counselors could tell them whom they will be meeting with and suggest questions they should ask in order to get the most out of their appointments.

The bottom line is that in order for the O’Banion model to be utilized successfully in higher education, there should be at least some connection between career counseling and academic advising. This paper has explored some, but not all, of the ways that this communication can be solidified. “The relationships are dependent on accurate information, respect for each other and, finally, everyone involved being passionate about helping the students” (anonymous, personal communication, July 23, 1999).

References

Burton, J. & Wellington, K. (1998). The O’Banion model of academic advising: An integrative approach. NACADA Journal, 18(2), 13–20.

Gordon, V. N. (1992). Handbook of Academic Advising. CT: Greenwood Publishers.

JobPlace Listserv, www.jobweb.org/cgi-bin/lyris.pl.

O’Banion, T. (1994). An academic advising model. NACADA Journal, 14(2), 10–16.
Michele Fisher is a graduate assistant in the Career Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She can be reached at mgfisher@uiuc.edu or (217) 244-1213.

Published in The Mentor on September 13, 1999, by Penn State's Division of Undergraduate Studies
Available online at dus.psu.edu/mentor
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