Thursday, March 14, 2013
I was up bright and early this morning packing my suitcase for an adventure to exotic New Brunswick, New Jersey with 11 advisers, one van, one sedan and, hopefully, many laughs. Twelve of us from the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Advising unit are traveling to the Region 2 conference of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). Not only do we hope to learn a lot from our advising colleagues at other mid-Atlantic institutions, but we also plan to share our knowledge through four presentations! You can even watch the Social Media presentation live streaming at 11am Friday 3/15 (we’ll share the link as soon as we have it). Stay tuned for updates throughout the conference. Wish us luck!
Thursday, 9:35pm
Despite the PSU sedan taking Route 322 and the PSU van taking I-80, we all arrived in New Brunswick safely. LA Advisers met DUS advisers whom they had never encountered at UP. The conference committee comprised of advisers from various schools already assuaged the fears of the Social Media team about how well their internet connection would work during their presentation. An adviser participating in our presentation on the ways we connect all of the advisers who report centrally but are geographically dispersed commented on how much it meant to ride in a car with LA advisers that she doesn’t see every day and to share dinner with yet other LA advisers that she didn’t know that well before. The professional development opportunity to attend this conference made those connections possible even though we all come to the same campus every day. We look forward to learning from other advisers tomorrow during the concurrent sessions. We will also share our experiences and ideas regarding supporting students through a campus crisis (8:30am) and utilizing social media in advising (11:00am).
Friday, March 15, 7:30am
Getting ready for breakfast and our first presentation of the day. Good luck to Kristie Kalvin, Greg Nolan, and Mary Cameron who will be discussing the student response to a campus crisis and how advisers supported them.
If you want to get in on the action, you can watch our team’s presentation about social media in advising at 11am at this url: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nacada-region-2-conference-2013
Drew Yingling and Ben Whitesell are going to go viral!!