1. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose
Presented by Dr. Lucy Croft, Toby Cummings, Dr. Telesia Davis and Dr. Adam Peck

2. Welcome & Introductions
Toby Cummings, CAE NACA Executive Director
Dr. Lucy Croft, NACA Chair Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, University of North Florida
Dr. Telesia Davis NACA Director of Education & Research
Dr. Adam Peck, 2018 NACA Founder’s Award Recipient Assistant Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs, Stephen F. Austin State University
We can each introduce ourselves here. -
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

3. NACA: Here to Help
NACA is the premiere professional association for those who directly advise students engaged in campus activities.
We equip advisors with relevant tools, resources and networks to have a greater impact on student learning.
Toby, I moved this one first, as there wasn’t a smooth transition into Adam’s slide, so I thought it would be good to do this first. Let me know how you feel about that.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

4. Learning Outcomes STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
As a result of engaging in this educational session, we hope that you will be able to…
Explain the importance of helping students recognize and articulate how they are developing employability skills through their involvement in campus activities.
Incorporate research about high impact practices as you design programs and activities through your work as a student organization advisor.
Recall promising practices from three institutions with programs designed to focus on employability skills.
Utilize NACA® NEXT as a tool to help you measure your students’ growth and development in the area of employability skills.
Lucy, would you like to lead this portion. It should take no more than 1 minute.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

5. Higher Education in the Age of Accountability
Organizations – such as Pew and Gallup – have conducted studies on the perceived value of higher education. These studies capture various narratives impacting our field.
Perceptions among students about the value of higher education.
Partisan perceptions about the value and purpose of higher education.
Perceptions among college graduates about the value of their college degrees.
Employers’ perceptions of recent college graduates.
The general public’s perceptions on the significance of higher education.
Toby, these are your slides. Your time allotment is 7 minutes.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

6. Common Themes in Surveys on Higher Education
College is expensive.
College is not accessible to all.
There is a divide over whether the mission of college is to teach work-related skills or whether it is to help students grow personally and intellectually.
Students do not leave college with certain skills that employers would like them to have.
Toby – I tried to summarize all the information you sent me. Let me know if I missed the mark on anything.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

7. Toby – I really like the video

8. Public Perception Drives Policy
Research by David Winston
Toby – I think this is a good lead in to what Adam will discuss, as the next slide will address perceptions about “fun” and campus activities. Let me know if that works for you.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

9. The Double-Edged Sword of “FUN” in Campus Activities
Fun is what makes students want to get involved.
Fun is what drives students to deeper levels of engagement.
But, fun can sound frivolous.
Fun could make Campus Activities easy to cut.
We have to demonstrate our worth, or we could get “value engineered” out of the educational experience.
Adam – Your time allotment for these next few slides is 12 minutes.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

10. Demonstrating Our Impact
To be successful, Campus Activities Professionals must find ways to demonstrate the impact we make on student learning and other important goals.
Current research shows a clear and convincing connection between deep levels of student engagement and a variety of desirable outcomes, including:
Improved Academic Performance
Improved Persistence
Development of Employment Skills
Wellbeing Across One’s Lifespan
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

11. Impacting Academic Performance & Persistence
The research on High Impact Practices underscores the role that deep engagement can play in improving academic outcomes.
What is often misunderstood is that, it is not participation in a high impact experience that drives the results, it is the conditions that students experience in these programs.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

12. High-Impact Platforms
First-Year Seminars
Common Intellectual Experiences
Learning Communities
Writing-Intensive Courses
Collaborative Assignments and Projects
Undergraduate Research
Diversity/Global Learning
Service Learning
Internships
Capstone Courses and Projects
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

13. Six Conditions of High-Impact Programs (Inside and Outside the Classroom)
They demand that students devote considerable amounts of time and effort to purposeful tasks.
The nature of these high-impact activities puts students in circumstances that essentially demand they interact with faculty and peers about substantive matters.
Participating in one or more of these activities increases the likelihood that students will experience diversity through contact with people who are different than themselves.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

14. Students get frequent feedback about their performance.
Six Conditions of High-Impact Programs (Inside and Outside the Classroom)
Students get frequent feedback about their performance.
Participating in these activities provides opportunities for students to see how what they are learning works in different settings, on and off the campus.
Doing one or more of these activities in the context of a coherent, academically challenging curriculum that appropriately infuses opportunities for active, collaborative learning increases the odds that students will be prepared to connect.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

15. High Impact Practices
In the 2007 report of the National Survey for Student Engagement (NSSE), George Kuh, Executive Director of NSSE, addressed a question he is often asked, “What one thing can we do to enhance student engagement and increase student success?” He replied, “Make it possible for every student to participate in at least two high-impact activities during their undergraduate program, one in the first year, and one later related to their major field” (NSSE, 2007, p. 18).
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

16. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

17. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

18. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

19. Impacting Employability
Research from Project CEO demonstrates that students participating in cocurricular experiences tend to develop the skills employers want.
It also finds that the more engaged a student is in cocurricular experiences, the higher they rate their skills.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

20. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

21. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

22. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

23. Impacting Wellbeing
Research conducted by Gallup shows that high levels of engagement tends to lead to wellbeing across one’s lifespan.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

24. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

25. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
College graduates are significantly more likely to achieve all five measures of well-being.
Students are most likely to achieve all five measures of wellbeing if they experienced a high level of engagement and caring in college.
Those who achieve all five levels of wellbeing live not only happy and productive lives, they tend to me more engaged at work – making them in high demand and also an excellent reflection of the quality of education at the institution.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

26. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

27. NACA Collaborations on Employability Skills
Project CEO
NACA-NIRSA Whitepaper
Article in NACE Journal
NACA® Research & Scholarship Group Efforts
Led to the development of NACA® NEXT
Adam, can you add this to your portion so that there’s a smooth transition into what we’ll be discussing. It should be really quick. I just thought there needed to be some sort of transition.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

28. A New Tool to Assist Student Organization Advisors
NACA® NEXT is designed to help students evaluate themselves on the skills employers seek.
It is based on annual NACE survey in which employers identify the top ten (10) skills they seek from recent college graduates
As an added option, advisors can also evaluate the students.
After completing the evaluation, students print a report with their scores and recommendations for ways to increase employability skill levels through involvement in campus activities.
Lucy & Telesia will tag-team this section in 15 minutes.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

29. Promising Practices Utilizing NACA® NEXT at Three Member Institutions
Baker University (College of Arts & Sciences)
Located in Baldwin City, Kansas
4-year private institution
Student population – 854
Stephen F. Austin State University
Located in Nacogdoches, Texas
4-year public institution
Student population – 12,742 (11,058 undergraduate)
Texas A&M University-College Station
Located in College Station, Texas
Student population – 65,632 (50,735 undergraduate)
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

30. Common Characteristics at Each Institution
Each has a well-articulated focus on employability skills as part of the larger mission and goals of the organization, department, and/or division.
Each utilizes NACA® NEXT as a way to measure progress on these goals.
Each requires students to complete a pre- and post-evaluation.
Each builds in opportunities for student reflection on their growth between evaluations.
Each utilizes summaries of NACA® NEXT data in reports designed to “tell the story” of how students’ involvement in campus activities contributes to the development of employability skills, among other skills.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

31. Baker University – Promising Practices
Departmental Goals
Students can articulate what the different employability skills are.
Students can articulate where their development is in relation to the skills.
Students can set goals to grow in the different skill areas.
First Year Salon
Students complete survey at beginning of fall semester.
First-year staff conduct presentations, leadership training activities, and a service project that highlight employability skills.
Staff also highlight ways the general education program and their co-curricular experiences could assist in growing each skill.
After completing post evaluation at the end of semester, students are required to present on the difference in their pre- and post-evaluations and their takeaways for each of the 10 skill areas.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

32. Baker University – Promising Practices (cont’d)
Extended Orientation Program
During an overnight leadership retreat, there were presentations and training activities during which students were encouraged to articulate how they would gain employability skills. (Students did not take the survey but the survey was referenced.)
Student Leadership in Three Student Involvement Areas (Student Activities, Student Senate, and Community Service)
Students take the survey at the beginning of the fall semester.
Throughout the semester, there are discussions about how these groups will grow their employability skills and the need to articulate these skills on their resumes and during job interviews.
Students take a post-evaluation at the end of the spring semester and discuss their growth.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

33. Baker University – Promising Practices (cont’d)
Benefit to Department
These assessments allow the department staff to articulate to administration the outcomes from cocurricular experiences.
The activities we provide allow us to connect with the classroom.
Future Plans
Even though it was a challenge to implement with the entire freshman class, they have goals of scaling up so that all students will take the assessment.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

34. Stephen F. Austin State University – Promising Practices
Division Goals
The division has five program level outcomes: Engagement, Persistence, Graduation, Employment, and Wellbeing. Staff map backwards from each of these. The outcomes that are mapped to their employment PLO are the NACE competencies.
The NACE skills are the foundation of learning outcomes for all co-curricular experiences, and the NACA® NEXT tool is how they measure those.
Student Leader Assessment
The following groups of students take the assessment: Student Activities Association, Traditions Council, Lumberjack Cultural Association, IFC/Pan Hel/NPCH and Multicultural Greek Officers, The BIG Event, Alternative Spring Break, and Dance Marathon.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

35. Stephen F. Austin State University – Promising Practices
Student Leader Assessment (cont’d)
Students take the pre-test in the fall and a post-test in the spring (except in the case of officers who transition mid-year).
All members of sponsored student organizations do the self-assessment, and each officer is evaluated using the adviser assessment.
Benefits to Department
The tool allows for consistent assessment mixed with an effective educational intervention for students.
The tool is easy for staff to use.
When advisors use the tool to evaluate students, they do not even realize they are using a rubric.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

36. Stephen F. Austin State University – Promising Practices (cont’d)
Future Plans
The staff would like to have all registered student organization members take the assessment.
Prior to that, however, the focus will be on making sure the staff is effective in their assessment of registered student organizations.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

37. Texas A&M University – College Station
Promising Practices
Goals for Memorial Student Center (Programming Board)
The Memorial Student Center promotes leadership development through campus programs and service opportunities while preparing students to engage in a global society.
Coaching & Development for Memorial Student Center Executive Officers
This includes the President, 3 Executive Vice Presidents, 4 vice presidents, and 19 committee chairs.
Eleven program advisors work with the 26 top leaders, most coaching 2 student leaders but some with as many as 4.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

38. Texas A&M University – College Station Promising Practices (cont’d)
Coaching & Development for Memorial Student Center Executive Officers (cont’d)
Each of the executive officers complete a pre-evaluation.
A program advisor then meets with them individually to review the results, including a discussion about pertinent examples of how they have demonstrated each skill. The program advisors work with the officers to map out a plan of activity for areas in which they would like to see growth.
Program advisors then have weekly one-on-one’s with each student to discuss process, including intentional time to focus on employability skills.
The officers then take a post-evaluation after which they discuss their growth and how to articulate their skills on their resumes and during interviews.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

39. Texas A&M University – College Station Promising Practices (cont’d)
Benefit to Memorial Student Center
Program advisors feel they are able to have deeper conversations with a common set of factors.
Students learn skills they can take with them.
Program advisors capture student pre- and post-scores as part of their assessment report to the Vice President.
Future Plans
One goal is to reach out to other colleagues in student activities to see how they can match up experiences.
Another goal is to have discussions beyond the division so that students can reflect on the employability skills they are gaining through other experiences.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

40. Data from NACA® NEXT August 2016 – July 2017
Adam will pick up here and discuss in 5 minutes
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

41. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

42. STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

43. Takeaways
Helping students connect their involvement in campus activities with employability skills can influence positive perceptions about the value of their college education.
Research shows that engaging in high impact practices contributes to positive learning outcomes.
There are a variety of ways to approach employability skill development in cocurricular experiences, as demonstrated by the three institutions with promising practices.
NACA® NEXT can help you articulate how the work you do contributes to student development.
Lucy, you will have 5 minutes to do the remaining slides.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose

44. Contact Information
Presenters
Dr. Lucy Croft –
Toby Cummings, CAE –
Dr. Telesia Davis –
Dr. Adam Peck –
Model Institution Representatives
Baker University – Randy Flowers –
Stephen F. Austin State University – Dr. Adam Peck –
Texas A&M University – Rick Greig –
STUDENT ORGANIZATION ADVISORS
Promising Practices for Advising with Purpose