Academic Advising Workshop
February 9-10, 2017

Provost Karine Moe warmly invites you to attend the  Academic Advising Workshop.  We aim to provide information and hands-on activities to help you enrich your advising practices and make the campus a more inclusive place for all of our students to learn and grow. 

Funding for the workshops comes from generous support from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation grant to Macalester College

Thursday, February 9, 2017
4:30-5:30 PM 
Keynote Address: The role of great advising for a great college; Eight concrete suggestions for all Advisors to consider
Presenter: Richard Light, Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr. Professor of Teaching and Learning, Harvard University
Davis Court, Markim Hall

The single most underestimated ingredient for students to have a truly superb experience on any campus, is how many students underestimate the power of excellent advising. As students coming to Macalester bring increasingly more diverse backgrounds to our campus each year, it is often precisely those students from under-resourced high schools; students who are first generation in their families to go to college; students from lower income backgrounds and students of color, who can benefit most powerfully from great advising. Macalester is ideally positioned to do this well. In this presentation, Richard Light will share concrete examples of the extraordinary power of excellent advising. He will give examples that can be helpful for all students, and especially for those who bring increasing diversity to our campuses. Light will describe eight specific suggestions for what good advising can look like. He will describe what several strong campuses have learned from studying students’ experiences with advising on campus. The goal for this session is that everyone should leave with a very specific and “actionable” group of advising suggestions. Both faculty and staff members can implement these suggestions. They are basically no-cost or remarkably low-cost innovations. Finally, Light will share concrete examples of what several strong colleges and universities have actually done, as they begin to implement the advising suggestions he will present.
Friday, February 10, 2017
12:00-1:00 PM
An Example of Faculty Learning from Advising Students 
Presenter: Richard Light, Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr. Professor of Teaching and Learning, Harvard University
DeWitt Wallace Library – Harmon Room

In this session, Richard Light will present and lead the audience through a non-academic discussion exercise currently being developed at Harvard College and several other quite different campuses right now. The idea emerged from systematically inviting students to suggest if they find something “missing” from their college experience, even at an excellent college. The exercise, called “Reflecting On Your Life,” primarily targets first year students, although several colleges are considering whether to adopt it for more advanced students. The questions and discussion points are built around topics that are sometimes not discussed formally in any classrooms. Examples include, what does it mean to live a “good” life?  How about a productive life? How about a happy life? What your core values? Where do you think your core values come from? Your parents, your friends, your church, your friends, or somewhere else? Do you expect your core values to shift at all during your time at Macalester? This session will actually go through a list of similar discussion questions and exercises. Prof. Light will distribute a full collection of materials, developed recently at Harvard and several other campuses, for us to use or to adapt for our own needs as we wish.