Not Just Teaching: Faculty Perspectives on Advising - Adventures in Advising

What happens when you put four Kansas State University faculty members, two curious cohosts, and a whole lot of passion for student success in the same podcast episode? You get a masterclass in what academic advising really looks like behind the scenes. Matt and Ryan chat with Drs. Ambyr Rios, Shabina Kavimandan, Vicki Sherbert, and Michael Lawson from Kansas State University about their approach to academic advising as faculty and the rewards and challenges they encounter. From Crash the Class surprises to study abroad storytelling to justice-centered pedagogy, this episode is packed with insight.

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome to the adventures in advising podcast. We truly hope your 2026 is going well. Matt Markin here with Ryan Scheckel, and in just a little bit, you're gonna hear four short interviews that Ryan and I conducted with faculty from Kansas State University. But Ryan, I guess, that begs the question, have you ever been to K-State?

Ryan Scheckel  
No, the little apple still beckons. You know, both apples. Actually, I feel like I'm missing out in so many experiences there, but I will say this meeting the folks who are at that institution over the course of my time in academic advising and association with NACADA and so forth, know there's a lot of great people there, that's for sure.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, yeah, I've been to the little apple. I've not been to the Big Apple. So that is definitely on my list. But I guess we have to maybe talk about how we got to this point. And a lot of it's thanks to, or actually, all of it's thanks to Craig McGill. A while ago, we have been chatting with him, and he had mentioned, you know, wouldn't it be interesting to interview faculty at K-State about academic advising? He's like, I know a lot of colleagues that would probably be interested in doing it. You know, let's maybe hear about their experience with advising. What successes or challenges have they encountered? How do they go about advising their students? And he had reached out to many of his colleagues, his friends at K-State. Got a lot of responses back. If we had scheduled everybody, we would have a really long episode. So we got four scheduled, and those are with doctors, Ambyr Rios, Shabina Kavimandan, Michael Lawson, and Vicki Sherbert. Any thoughts before we jump into these interviews?

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, you know, there's lots of times when I'm thankful for the role that colleagues and people that you meet along the way can have in your life, and one of those benefits is their network and the people that they know and that they can connect you with. And I'm so great. I'm so glad that Craig had this idea and and that we work together to make this happen. And I'm glad that everyone who's listening or watching along gets to meet these folks too.

Matt Markin  
Absolutely. So let's dive in. Hey, this Matt Markin from adventures in advising, and I am at Kansas State University, and my first guest today is going to be Dr. Ambyr Rios. Amber, how are you? 

Ambyr Rios  
Good morning. I'm doing great. Happy to be here. It's afternoon, good afternoon.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and well, whenever you're listening to this, that's true. But in true Adventures in Advising fashion, we always like to ask our guests about their origin stories, your path and journey in higher ed?

Ambyr Rios  
Yeah, my origin story in life is really complicated. So I lived in 14 different places, from K 12 because my parents were military, and my Higher Ed Story is a little bit like that. I was one of the first in my family to go to college. My parents went to my mom went to college, but untraditionally, after she had kids, and so going to higher ed was a big, wild journey for me. I didn't know where to go, so like any good college kid, I chose a school that's just far enough that my mom couldn't come visit, but not too far, where I couldn't go home once a month to check on my little sister and my family. And so I first started at Texas A&M, and I went to undergraduate there, and then I was a teacher on the East Coast, so I got to go to graduate school at Johns Hopkins in George Washington. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do as a grown person, and so I bumped around between being a teacher and doing various administrative roles in K 12 schools. And then I met my husband, and we moved to Stuttgart, Germany, and so I finished one of my programs while they're running an early childhood center in Germany. Came back to the US and worked in administration at Tech in Texas, and I needed a principal certification, so I got a third Master's at Texas A&M Corpus, before moving to Texas A&M for my PhD. And there for five years, I was actually an academic advisor full time, and I oversaw our graduate advising program in the College of Ed at Texas A&M. It was the best job. And now I'm a faculty member at Kansas State University, and I get to advise undergraduate students and our secondary English, speech, theater and journalism programs and graduate students and our masters and our doctoral programs here in the College of Education. So lots of places.

Matt Markin  
Lot of hats, a lot on your plate.

Ambyr Rios  
And it's not a villain origin story, it's just a long origin story.

Matt Markin  
That's quite, quite the journey, I would say. And I know we're going to, course, talk about advising, but I had seen a couple videos like on Instagram about something called Crash the Class. And I was hoping you could share a little bit about that, absolutely.

Ambyr Rios  
So the College of Ed has this really cool thing where we know that it's really important to support early. Career teachers. And so here at Kansas State students who are teaching in their first or second years, that kind of beginning of their teacher origin journey, we actually partner with a couple of amazing community partners, and we go to schools to crash our students class. And when we crash their class, we bring school supplies and we bring items from like, their wish list. And what's really cool about it is we coordinate with the principals and the leaders of the school so that it's a massive surprise for our students, and we ask them to send the students, or to send our now teachers, a quick like, request, of like, if you had a dream thing, what would you want? So as an example, the two teachers we just saw in Kansas City, they wanted these massive bean bags, and they teach 11th graders, so like, the bean bags needed to be big bean bags, and so we ordered these four foot wide bean bags and brought three to each teacher, and then also brought them gift cards for school supplies and school supplies from an organization called Project teacher. And that was very special, and we surprised them. And it's funny, because the schools always come up with these awesome ruses as to, like, how that why the teachers need to come to a space. And so at this school, they had to come to the library, and they told the teachers that the drug dog was coming through the class various things. Sometimes there's a leak, sometimes there's like, they're in trouble. So they got to go the principal's office. But in this case, the argument was, yeah, we got to do a quick sweep of the classroom, because 11th graders, so they came to the library and we surprised them. And it's really neat to see our teachers feel honored and appreciated, but also to keep that connection with our students beyond graduation, so that they feel, you know, the K State Ed cat love. So that's what crafts the classes. It's my favorite.

Matt Markin  
Now, I feel like, depending on what the reason that that would be given. I probably freaking out like...

Ambyr Rios  
These guys were a little stressed, and so it was really funny, like to see their relief and surprise.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. And so you were mentioned about having previously been an academic advisor. Can you talk more about your experiences with academic advising?

Ambyr Rios  
Yeah, absolutely. I my largest experience with kind of formal academic advising has been with online students, and so as a graduate advisor in the College of Ed at Texas A and M and even now, as a faculty advisor. And here, we don't have a graduate advising office, a formal office, so we are the advisors, which is, I really love that connection with students, but mentoring online students is it's a unique space, and our online students have unique needs, and I think in particular, creating a sense of community for those learners is really important. And yes, faculty do that in classes, but I also think the continuity that an advisor provides yields a specific, unique opportunity for that kind of connection. And so that's always my my starting place. Like, we can't advise them on courses. It's sort of the same way you approach a classroom, like you can't advise them on courses until they know there's a connection with the human that cares about them, that's interested in their goals and aims. And then we, of course, then individualize the advising journey based on what our students need and what they want. And so I try to take that approach. 

Matt Markin  
So let me ask you this, because you had that experience already at your previous institution, with the academic advising that you're able to bring into your position and multiple hats that you wear at K State. What would be your advice for, like a, let's say, a new faculty member who maybe doesn't have that academic advising background, but is expected to do the academic advising?

Ambyr Rios  
I think it's really challenging, and it's something that I've really, you know, many times I wondered, like, how was my my staff hat going to transition to a faculty hat? And I'm so grateful for the experience I had as a staff advisor, because I think it's made me a better faculty advisor. And I think the key things are really just like we would do in a classroom, considering the pitfalls, like the places we could we can stumble as students, and then really trying to create scaffolds and supports for our students from the beginning, while also leaving space for it to be individualized, as I kind of talked about. So I think thinking through the doctoral journey, and that's, I think, the hardest to advise for as a faculty member, and a Master's journey, too, it's a little bit of a shorter journey, but that yields its own problems. And so thinking through the journey, and thinking through, where are the pivotal kind of inflection points where things could go really well or really bad? And as an example, both on the masters and a doctoral there's always some performance piece that has to happen in a doctoral journey that's a dissertation in a master's, it's a thesis or some kind of portfolio or presentation of some sort. And so thinking through like, usually students who are in graduate programs are pretty skilled at coursework, so that's not usually where we have issues, unless we're talking about the types of courses to couple together to help them find success. But I think those, those performance indicators along the way is those are really important, which is like, hey, after a year, we need to file your degree plan, or whatever that looks like. And to file your degree plan, we need to think of faculty. So who are some people you've worked with, and while you're taking classes, look out for the faculty that could be helpful. And so for me, it was like putting in those checkpoints as I started a new institution, and thinking like, Okay, how does this place do this? And then how do I make sure, as a faculty member that I can anticipate needs of my students? And try to create supports. But the truth is, we're always still learning, right? Like, I'm just now, I've been here four years of starting my fourth halfway through my fourth year, and so thinking through now, I have students for the first time that are finishing their dissertations, and I'm still learning of like, oh, I need to make sure to tell them about the dissertation template, which is a beast at every institution. So you're like, oh, and then, like, there's help for that, and here's someone who's done it. And so just setting up those structures while also kind of being immediately responsive to students, it's amazing what can be solved by just responding to emails in a timely fashion. So I try to honor that commitment that I have to my students, like, if at all possible, even if it's just I got your email, I'll write you back. I'm slammed, because I think that that lack of email communication really creates a disconnect with students, and it's our job to stay connected.

Matt Markin  
So yeah. Now, of course, every student of the why they want to do a doctoral program is going to be different, but I would imagine that you have students all the time that you know come to you for advice, like, Should I do it? Should I not? Yeah, how do you navigate, like, that conversation with students?

Ambyr Rios  
Yeah, I think for me, any graduate degree or advanced degree, or any degree of any kind, our question should really be like, What is your goal? And I think in education, often it's because they're looking for an opportunity to either expand impact or also to, like, maybe pivot their expertise in a different way to leverage it in a different way. And so really trying to work with people to figure out, like, what is their goal? Like, what actually would make their heart happy? Because I think we don't want unhappy customers, right? And our customers are our students. And so it's like, I would never sign someone up, even though I want all the students to be I just talked to an elementary major, and I was like, I would love for you to be an English Ed person. Don't you want to teach high school kids? And she doesn't. She wants to teach elementary so I would love to convince everyone to be a secondary English teacher or get a doctoral degree, but I think ultimately we need people to find their own success, right? So helping them figure out, like, what are their goals, and then backwards, mapping from that and seeing like, if this is the right program to fit them, and then if so, how we can cater that program to support them. Higher Ed is becoming more flexible, and I think that's really an opportunity, and it's really cool, but it also yields difficulties when our students, we do have students who, most of our students are working full time, which is very true in many disciplines. And so just thinking about, like, how do we create structure? But not so much that it's stressful for students, and I think the faculty have to help with that, like, that's, that's our job to help them navigate those various like, if there's all the pathways, which one's the right one for them.

Matt Markin  
With academic advising, some schools, there's formal training. Other schools, it's, you know, learn as you go. What was your experience like with your training?

Ambyr Rios  
Yeah, so I as a formal advisor, kind of a full time advisor at Texas A and we had, we had a lot of training. I think you didn't have to have any training to start the job, but they're really good about providing opportunities to work with work within structures like NACADA which we host, of course, here at Kansas State, which is so cool, but also various like smaller advising in Texas, they had an advising network that we could work within, and there was a lot of collaboration and cooperation. I was one department within a college, and so we worked together really closely. We had monthly meetings, and because I was kind of a leader within that space, we also had this really nice on we created an onboarding system for folks. That's not true all the time. And so I think just like many situations where there's perhaps not lots of training readily available for faculty. There's almost always no training. And it's funny, because they assume with a terminal degree, you're like ready to go. But in some cases, when people don't have that experience, it can be really daunting. And so I think people shouldn't be afraid to ask someone else, which is hard, I think, in an academic space, because you're trying to make sure that you're posturing in a way to find success, but finding a mentor or just asking, I mean, I know our advising office that that we have that has trained academic advisors here in our college. I as a new faculty member, I didn't know the program that I was in charge of incredibly well, so I had to go down, because I had to learn it, you know, and I think humbling ourselves to talk to our friends, and to talk to mentors and to talk to other staff and faculty is a really good way to help scaffold that training if you don't have it.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, very, very solid, solid advice, non academic advising, or maybe, or maybe, in a way that it kind of is. But when I was looking up like some of your articles that you've been part of, yeah, quite extensive list. But I saw one of the most recent ones was you co authored one called innovative pathways in STEM virtual reality for empowering English language learners. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit about what that was all about, because I just saw virtual reality, and I was like, This sounds really interesting.

Ambyr Rios  
Yeah, it's really cool. So that article was actually a literature review looking at various gaps that we have in the literature about how VR, virtual reality, augmented reality. So VR AR could be used to assist English language learners. And the opportunity for this, there's a lot of really cool programs with VR. And AR related to literacy as an example. And they're pretty, I'm going to call them like rudimentary programs to start. So it's like, you have the various overlays Pokemon Go style, right of like the letters, and you can group them together, and it can play kind of a phonics game, or like various like reading activities where the characters are popping out to life, but thinking about how those structures might really nicely and easily be leveraged for multilingual learners or dual language bilingual education learners who are trying to kind of access language, and what kind of supports those provide. Of course, the one limitation with VR AR is, well, there's two. One is price, because those little suckers are expensive. And then the second limitation is also just the ever changing technology we were talking about. Like, as an example, we have a lot of meta quest headphones here, or headsets here, and, like, even in just a year, they're already on the new edition. It's like having iPhone based things, right? Like, everything's updating, and because of the cost, I think we we still need to figure out a more affordable way. But just considering that kind of immersive technology to help students access our curriculum, particularly in K 12 schools, where we don't quite have a good solution for working with multilingual learners, and in some places, there's no supports for those learners. And so just considering what that could look like and how we can make technology for good, right? Because we've got technology doing a lot of bad things. So like, how could we make it do good.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, now we were talking prior to recording, kind of about trying to find that sweet spot, because of all the different things you have to do with your responsibilities, the grad students that you're in to work with, like you can't be available 24 hours a day. Yeah. How do you go about trying to figure out, you know, how you can still accommodate, you know, all your students, all your job responsibilities, and you know, still have your your wellness?

Ambyr Rios  
Right and like, make sure your family doesn't forget you. Yeah, these are great. And I think what's cool about working with adult learners and and that's largely who I work with in an academic advising situation, and masters and doctoral programs, and even with our undergraduate students who are emerging adults, if you will. The neat thing about working with those individuals is by kind of teaching them how to organize your schedule, or, like, putting boundaries around your schedule, you're also teaching them how to honor their own time commitments. And so when I'm first meeting with doctoral students and master students, I really ask them, like, what does your day look like? Like, are you working in a school till 3pm like, is your best time three to four? Is that when we can meet, and also what time zone they're in, because, if they're in Cali, right, like, it's a different sort of time zone, or my East Coast homies, we even have some folks, because we have a lot of military connected students. Like, we have a couple in Germany, and that's, you know, seven hours that way. And so thinking about these things and then finding that common time, sort of from the beginning of our our meeting, as we're building that connection, I found that to be important. And then we try to, I try to create, like, standing meetings with students, whether that's like, we always schedule the next meeting as we're talking and that it's, it's this opportunity to really, like, continue this relationship. And also I know myself, like, if I get really busy, then I'll be like, Oh my gosh, I haven't contacted one of my favorite students is in Ohio. Her name is Christina. It's like, I haven't talked to Christina in a month, like, what am I doing? And so just having that on the calendar makes me realize, like, oh yeah, we're working on this, and we're doing this particularly as we get more than one graduate student, which is awesome, but we want to make sure we're giving folks the kind of attention. So scheduling that calendar from the beginning and talking about my own commitments as an example, I teach in the late afternoons here, so from 330 to five, which makes my schedule a little tricky a couple of days a week for meeting doctoral students in particular. And so we talk about, like, Could I do a five to six? That would be okay in those days I try not, try not to be on campus by 8am right? Because otherwise I've got an eight to, like, seven situation. It's kind of a long day. So just trying to be thoughtful about how I schedule.

Matt Markin  
Well, and even being able to schedule this, I know this was so thanks to Dr Craig McGill, who got us in contact. And I mean, this was just recently that it worked out. We're like, Hey, I have this opening. Does that work? And perfect timing for it, perfect timing. Thank you so much for one, being on the podcast, and two, scheduling this time to be able to do this in between everything else that you have going on.

Ambyr Rios  
Of course, my pleasure, really my pleasure.

Ryan Scheckel  
So we're here with Dr. Shabina Kavimandan, of course, at Kansas State University College of Education faculty member, Dr cat Amanda, and can you tell us a little bit about yourself? What exactly your role is at K State? 

Shabina Kavimandan  
So simple. I am an assistant professor with the College of Education at K State. I work with undergraduate and graduate level students, primarily throughout my time at K State, I have worked with graduate level students, mostly with teachers, with in service practitioners, teachers in the schools who are working on their graduate level coursework. It's only when I kind of moved. Into this 10 year track assistant professor role that I started working more with the doctoral level students. And so when it comes to kind of advising, and I may be kind of jumping ahead, but also just contextually, where I am right now, most of my advising happens with doctoral students. I do a little bit of undergraduate work, a little bit with undergraduate students, and that's mostly the one. It's mostly just on the coursework part of it with the undergraduate students. So that's primarily what I am and what I do. I'm assuming that it's a professional introduction. You don't want me to go into any of my personal life unless you want to. I mean, hey. I mean, originally from India, if that matters at all, I've been here. Gosh. I came here in 1998 so that's really, yeah, pretty much it. Education runs in my blood. My mom was a teacher. My aunts were a teacher. My sister is a teacher, and so education is what I'm built for, and so that's why I'm here. So that's pretty much my story.

Matt Markin  
Love it. And what are some of your research interests?

Shabina Kavimandan  
So more I very much culturally responsive pedagogy is what I focus on, also family and school partnerships. That's another piece very much about literacy development, and how is it that students can use their social imaginations to connect with literacy, especially self, text to self and text to world, kinds of connections. So currently I'm working on a piece that is a narrative inquiry. And it really takes educators, through this power of social imagination that they can have their students kind of work with and connect to literacy development in the larger scheme of things. So that's that's what my research interests are.

Ryan Scheckel  
So you mentioned your undergraduate experiences in advising. Tend to the students focus on coursework. But I'm curious if you would reflect on your advising practice, whether with undergrads or with grad students. How would you characterize your approach to advising as a practitioner and and how much has your research and educational background influenced that?

Shabina Kavimandan  
Sure. So I think a lot of the ways I approach advising, it does get influenced by my own positionality quite a bit. You know, I always reflect back on my early years, my formative years here in in a graduate level class in the US, and I think that's the core of how I approach advising with undergraduates and graduates. When I started working on my grad level courses, I came with the understanding of English language here because I had learned English growing up. What I wasn't very comfortable with was a new context in which I was the way the vernacular was used, the way the lay, the contextually, how language was used. In a grad level class, I just could not make peace with how to academically reach certain concepts, even though it wasn't English, my background was not allowing me to fully immerse myself in it, and so I took some time off, Actually, and took a break from my coursework, and my advisor at that time recommended that I should just, if I'm going to take a break, make it a productive break, and try and immerse yourself in in the language of of this place, language of Kansas, language of the US. And so I watched a lot of friends, and I watched a lot of just TV, just to kind of get out, you know, and that was a kind of advising I received. It was more to make me understand what my place was in in this environment. And so, of course, that made me so comfortable. And then, of course, I came back into and finished my master's, but it was somebody kind of guiding me and looking for what is it that I was not comfortable with, and kind of redirecting my efforts towards that. And so that's the template that I use quite a bit with my own students, too. So one thing, it's a very collaborative experience. When I do academic advising, we do go quite a bit back and forth with undergraduates. I would say, I'm a bit more proactive. I reach out more to them in my advising, where I would periodically, like I at the beginning of the semester, we would set up certain dates that are non negotiable. People than where we would meet, just so that I can be aware of what changed or what's happening in their lives. So I'm very proactive with my undergraduates. I kind of initiate a lot of those advising sessions now with my graduate level individuals, I would say, it kind of turns more in an informal mentorship, one could say, or more like a collaborative experience, because they are typically in service. So I have teachers or I also have a lot of principals, administrators, and so, you know, they are coming with accumulative, accumulated lived experiences. And I have to be mindful of that. So that's how I kind of distinguish between the two. It's definitely collaborative in both situations. But with undergraduates, I would say I am more of a proactive in my approach. With my graduate level, it's more like informal and collaborative mentorship is the direction I take,

Matt Markin  
And I guess working with like the different groups of students, whether it's the undergraduates or the graduate level students, is there anything that you found like challenging with advising students at the undergrad or graduate levels or at the same time, anything that's been rewarding?

Shabina Kavimandan  
I think primarily the way I see my role with advising is, you know, I do advising from a curricular level. I'm not telling them which class to take. I am mostly kind of guiding them in their professional development. And so in a way, I'm helping them craft and create their academic stories, their scholarly work. And so that's the role that I play with advising. Now, a challenge that often I face is all of a sudden, when their focus changes, shifts a little bit, and then I have to shift with that, because advisors are not changing. I'm still going to be there mentoring them, but then I have to shift my own focus with them. And so I very much look at it as a two way, going back and forth, but then when all of a sudden a student, and rightly so, it's their academic journey, I'm here to help them fill those gaps in their story, in their scholarship. So when their focus changes, which happens quite a bit with my graduate level students, all of a sudden they have a different question that they want to or they are choosing a different methodology. And so with that, then I have to reacquaint myself and learn and relearn a lot of those things. And you know one thing, because I've been an educator myself, a teacher myself, one thing I always utilize quite a bit, which is my blueprint. Is this, the whole backwards design model is what I use. And so anytime I am working with a new student, I always have this initial conversation with them, what's your end goal, what's the outcome that you are wanting to achieve with this process, whichever process you are in. And so from there on, then we backwards map it a little bit. Okay, this is what we need to be doing. This is what we've got to do. And so I have those milestones, those kind of deliverables, planned with the students. And so when that shifts, then the deliverable shifts, shifts right? And so that's a challenge. It's a highlight. You could call it a highlight too, that, you know, there's never a dull moment. But also with that comes challenges with advising, so that, I would say, is one of the biggest ones with me and the students,

Ryan Scheckel  
Sure, yeah, I was keeping you on your toes and the opportunity to reframe and rethink as you moved into your role, having students that you're advising and in your faculty position. Do you feel like you were adequately, adequately prepared for that advising responsibility, and are there any areas that you feel like advisors could use more development, or even yourself?

Shabina Kavimandan  
Oh, absolutely. I think as far as training, I did not go through any formal training to become an advisor. I think once you are in a position where what I am in in a professorial kind of a position. It's, it's, it's an understanding that you are prepared. You come to that with an understanding of what advising should look like. Now on my end, I go go to a lot of NACADA resources, and I utilize that for just to kind of acquaint myself in shifts that are happening or shifts that could happen? Do I feel adequately prepared? No, I feel like it's a learning experience. But what I find joy in is having a community of individuals around me that I. Can reach out to and talk about if, if a student is stalled in their research agenda, or if they're just not able to get past in getting to, you know, a chapter in their dissertation, big part of my advising is to keep guiding them to move to the next level, right? If that doesn't happen and we are stalled, that's the place where I feel the least adequate in sometimes, you know, getting them over that hump. Yes, there are resources that NACADA and other organizations have, but I find the best thing is to reach out to our my colleagues and just have that informal kind of a conversation with them on what are some of the tips on getting that individual past this breaking point that they are in? So coming back to your question, do I feel adequately prepared? Probably not. Are there resources? Yes, there are. And sometimes it's really just a matter of reaching out to your colleagues and having that conversation with them and just going back and forth, is what I feel like has worked the best for me.

Matt Markin  
Awesome. Yeah, you're definitely building that community as well. Now, if I read correctly, you serve on the Board of Global Ties KC, I do. So I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about being on that board, because it involves also, like, study abroad, opportunities, correct?

Shabina Kavimandan  
Yes, yes. Actually, yeah. So I serve on two different boards. Actually, I serve on the Board of Global ties. KC, which is, of course, outside of my work at K State, which is enhancing citizen diplomacy, and one of the pieces for that is study abroad. Now, as part of my work at K State, actually, I have done a few study abroad, taken students to other countries for short term, like three weeks to four weeks, if I were to tie advising to that one of the biggest pieces of study abroad, or one of the biggest drawbacks sometimes of study abroad is you don't want it to be you don't want that students to turn that experience into kind of like a drive by visiting another country, drive drive by visit to another country. So that that advising definitely involves a pre work that you must do with your students to get them to understand. And in my case, when I did the study abroad, the students stayed with the host families, because we realized that that is also part of their kind of understanding the cultural nuances of other countries. And so you really have to do that kind of a pre departure, work with them to get to get them to be prepared for what they could get out of that visit. And so I've always had this twofold kind of an outcome for those study abroad. One is, of course, the cultural and the linguistic understanding, and the other is this educational piece. How is it that the education is different in that particular country? And the reason why I've had those two outcomes is because a lot of individuals that usually go on the study abroad, they're going to end up as teachers in schools and our schools, even if we are just using Kansas as an example, a lot of our schools in Kansas are extremely diverse, especially in the Kansas City area where I am, and so we wanted students to have that first hand knowledge of what it would mean when they are teachers in those classrooms, to be receiving those students in their class, and so advising for that a lot of pre work, and then even when you are there in the host country, just having those repeated conversations, reflective responses from students. What did you learn? How can you shift this? What does it mean for you when you are a teacher in the classroom and you receive all these students in your class, how would your instruction shift and so, which goes back to what I said earlier, a part of advising for me is also to help my students develop professionally. Professional development is a big part of advising for me, whether it's at the doctoral level or undergraduate level. And so study abroad, having those conversations during that study abroad, was that professional development, and that's how I kind of tailored advising with that Does that help answer the question.

Matt Markin  
It does, and it's fantastic, because the way you're able to circle all of that back, love it, and what a great, great learning about you and kind of your experience with advising. And so, thank you so much for joining us today on this podcast. Of course, I. All right, so we're continuing our interviews with K State faculty, and right now we get to interview Dr Vicki Sherbert. Dr Sherbert, how are you? 

Vicki Sherbert  
I'm doing well. Thank you. 

Matt Markin  
From what I understand, you're very much a product of KSU, College of Education, with your bachelor's, your master's, your PhD, so I was wondering if you can kind of share a little bit about yourself and your background and your role at K State. 

Vicki Sherbert  
So I'm halfway through my 13th year at K State as a faculty member. Prior to this, I taught for 28 years in public schools in a rural school district just about 45 minutes to an hour west of Manhattan. When I came to K State, I didn't have to relocate my home, and a lot of those connections that I had with public schools, and especially rural schools, have fueled my work here at K State. When I started at K State, I was the coordinator of the secondary English language arts journalism and speech theater program I had taught my my public school background was teaching why student taught K State in first grade, then I taught second grade, then I looped from second to third grade and back to third or second grade and back and forth. And then after 10 years of of that, I came I went to a even smaller rural school where I had gone to school. It's a K 12 building. Everybody's in one school, school building. And I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade reading and language arts. And then I also worked with high school literacy students, digital literacy, those kinds of things. And you know, in a small school, if you look up at the wrong time during a faculty meeting, you're suddenly in charge of something. And so I also was a basketball coach, a volleyball coach, testing coordinator, technology coordinator. I had so many great, great experiences. So at K State, then I often found myself placing my student teachers at K State with former second graders or people who I had I had had in public school. So that was a really cool connection. But currently I served for three years as an assistant department chair, and then I've come back to teaching full time, and I work with the Masters of Arts and teaching programs, so I have mostly masters and then also doctoral students. So that's kind of where I'm, where I'm situated right now.

Ryan Scheckel  
And all those different perspectives on the educative process and the the ways that we educate students, what were your experiences with academic advising, like and and how they informed your approach with advising now?

Vicki Sherbert  
Oh, as a as a student, my Yes, so in my undergraduate work, I had, I was at that time in elementary, the elementary education program, but I also specialized in literacy and English language arts. So my advisor that was that was her her area of expertise as well, and mostly those advising experiences were to help me figure out my enrollment. But also this was back in the day. I've been doing this a long time. So we are distance courses. Meant that the professors came to us. So I was a teacher in Clay Center Kansas, and my advisor came to Clay Center Kansas to teach a course one night a week. And so that's where I really became connected with her. And so even though we didn't you know, your undergraduate work is pretty well lined out or mapped out. I have that personal connection with her that I think was really important, and I took that forward then into how I how I view my role as an academic advisor. 

Matt Markin  
Now, I guess, in kind of continuing with that, kind of with the students that you're advising, is there anything that you're finding, like the that's been the most rewarding in those advising of your students, or even something that's still challenging?

Vicki Sherbert  
So the rewarding piece, I gave this a lot of thought before we gathered together here the fact that I started with undergraduate students, and now I'm working with mostly graduate students. Sometimes I have my undergraduates in my doctoral program, and I get to advise them again, and that is so it's humbling and it's a real honor, because I've been part of their journey all the way through maybe not, maybe they did a master's degree and counseling or something else, but then they're back in curriculum and instruction for that doctoral program. And so knowing them along their journey, we we have that element of trust right from the very beginning. And so that's that's been incredibly rewarding. I I actually have a student now, one of my doctoral students, who was one of my middle schoolers back when I was in public school. So. I can't even I get a little weepy. You know, sometimes it's just so, so incredibly special to me. The challenge, though, for me, is so throughout this journey, I really try to get to know my students early on, some of them I've known for a long time, and some of them were freshly acquainted, I guess, if you will, when they start, their doctoral or their master's programs. So I start by i I want us to have that, that relationship of trust. I want them to get to know me, and then I want them to understand that. I want to know whatever it is about them that they want to share about their journey before coming here and then and as we're moving along, I think the hardest thing for me is when they're going through struggles outside of the outside of the academic world. You know, I have international students. I have students who are across the country through our through our online programs, and I'm always amazed and astounded at some of the things they're able to overcome, just just life circumstances. You know, I think my background, having 28 years in public school, helps me support my graduate students now, who who are doing the same thing? You know, way back in the day, a few decades ago, most people who pursued a graduate degree left their professional circumstances and came to the university to work as a graduate teaching assistant or research assistant. That wasn't my experience. I taught all the time I was working on my degree. So I can, I can give them some insight into how I handled the misnomer of work life balance. Is there such a thing, really, but how you juggle that? But also, I can be really honest with them about things that were that that were difficult for me, but then how I was able to how I was able to navigate through that, and then some of those insights, I hope can can help them, even using your district dissertation as a disciplinary tool. I was exhausted one day in middle school, and my seventh graders were challenging that day, shall we say, and I shared my journey with them, though, right? I talked about what a dissertation was, all I had to do was threaten to talk to them a little bit about phenomenological, qualitative inquiry. And they're like, dude, I'm out. I'll, I'll, I'll do whatever you want. You know, just don't say that to us ever again. And you know, who knew that all those tuition dollars would have it have an effect with classroom management. And one time they even said, Be quiet. She's walking over toward that D thing. I always kept a stack of my dissertation. They did not want to hear it, but so it was kind of a funny thing. Funny thing too, but, but probably that the biggest challenge for me is to try to continue to be encouraging, because even though I did all that work and it was hard, I didn't have some of the the unimaginable circumstances that some of my students do today, and so that, that's probably what keeps me up at night. Sometimes about the advising piece.

Ryan Scheckel  
I noticed one of the themes or threads in your sort of, your scholarship and your your writing and publications as military connected youth. Can you tell us a little bit more about your interest and what you found in engaging with that experience for for military connected youth?

Speaker 1  
So that was maybe the most humbling part of my entire career as I was thinking back toward toward my work in middle school, one day in my sixth grade class, we were doing this memory project, and I had them bring three memory items that triggered special things that they that were dear to them, right? And then we, of course, it has to be about writing and literacy. So they made museum placards for each of these things, and then we had a memory museum for open house. And one young man had some of his dad's military memorabilia, and he was talking about it. And so I was teaching at Wakefield school, and we're, we're 25 minutes from Fort Riley so and I that's where I grew up. Also, I always had military connected kids in my classroom. I had friends who were military connected. It was just our circumstance. But I on that particular day, I happened to ask how many of them had a parent in some phase of deployment, either pre deployment, getting ready to go currently deployed or post deployment, their home, 11 of the 16 kids in that class. For a moment, I was just taken aback. I mean, that's an incredibly high percentage, and I realized that I really didn't know much of. Anything about that, about the circumstance of deployment. And so I was just getting ready to to select my dissertation topic. And in in talking with my advisor, Dr Goodson, he said, Well, is there anything more you want to know about this? Would this be something that you wanted to dive into. And so my dissertation research then was on how adolescents who were in had a family member in some phase of deployment, either that pre current or post deployment, how they utilize literacy practices to navigate the stress of that. And so I have five students across. One of them was already in high school, and then one from my sixth, seventh and eighth grade classes and and so I interviewed them, and we talked about what counted as literacy practices. I had a student who's whose mom it was the father who was deployed overseas, and so I don't know if it was once a month somewhere in there, she'd let them stay up into the middle of the night so that they could play video games with their dad, if he had, you know, if he was in in a place where they could do that. And one of the kids said, but that's games. That doesn't count as literacy. And I said, Oh, really, talk to me about the games you're playing. My goodness, they had to know history. They had to type in stories that it was all literacy, and so they kept track of that and and anyway, I realized that they they utilize literacy practices all the time in ways that help them cope with this circumstance. So that's where I really became interested. And then when I came to K State, my my research focus has shifted a bit from that to be more rural centered, but that that was how I got started with that. And then I I realized I never really thought about if I had a student in my classroom whose spouse was deployed, or a parent was deployed. You know, I wound up having a lot of military spouses in my undergraduate program. And so that was that was enlightening to me, and I just realized I needed to learn more about about their circumstances. So that's how I that's how I found my way into the military. Connected literacies.

Matt Markin  
We're always learning something new. And you know, in towards the end, you were mentioning, you know, about the rural education, and I know that's been kind of a passion of supporting in the rural communities and celebrating their rich diversity and resources. What would you say, sort of some of maybe the challenges and advantages of rural rural education?

Vicki Sherbert  
Well, the disadvantage is always funding, right? I mean, that's just always going to be part of it. And, and I always remember disliking the term head count. I don't know it just never sat well with me. But you know that September 20 and then effect February 20, and your funding depended on, and you know, invariably, we'd have a family of five children move in on February 21 and, you know, I realized there has to be a cut off there for those, those kinds of things. But funding always is a challenge. The advantages, I guess I'd like to speak to the the last 12 years of my public school career, when I was back at my alma mater in that K 12 building, and the opportunities that we had just even the library. So we had one big library, elementary, middle, high school, everybody was in there. So if I had a struggling reader in middle school and they needed some of those books that were kind of in the elementary section, it wasn't a big deal to get those. They didn't have to go down to the elementary library, or if I had a middle school student who really was ready to read Sherlock Holmes, my son read all of the Sherlock Holmes books and sixth and seventh grade, and it was all right there. And we had this amazing librarian who connected kids with all kinds of resources. So so that was a really cool aspect. Also, I had a project with my middle schoolers where they did poetry pals. And so the middle school kids went down to the elementary ring wing and read poetry and wrote poetry, and we published these books. So I feel like rural schools and smaller schools oftentimes have opportunities for collaboration, for for ways that we can help our our students focus on their own strengths and then help somebody else. So so that was that was really good. If I circle back to that advising piece when I was working with undergraduates, and I had a student from a suburban school and and they wanted to do their practicum, and they wanted them wanted to be in a bigger school. And I said, I really would like to send you to Wakefield, to this smaller school. She's like, Oh, I don't know. She said, All right, for you, I'll do it. And she came to class one day our. Methods class was always at 430 so they could be out in the schools and come in, and she said, I'm going to have to talk to you about my practicum. And I thought, Oh no, it's not working, you know. And she just had this dumbfounded look on her face. She just said, you know, I kind of like that small school. And you could just tell she was struggling with I don't understand something wrong with me, but it and I think she did, wind up teaching in a suburban school, and I can't even remember to tell you right now where she did her student teaching, but I just remember that transformation that she had, even just in her perception of what a small, rural school was like. And so I think my background in that I'm able to describe it maybe in such a way that students are willing to try those experiences, and they also can see the value in and having that be your education home or even a place where you grow up to teach.

Ryan Scheckel  
You've worked with learners at so many different levels and so many different phases, but as you approached advising for the first time, did you feel like you were adequately prepared or trained? Do you feel like there's any areas you can still develop in.

Vicki Sherbert  
Always, I'm learning and growing every day, and I always tell my students in my classes, there's not a month that goes by that I don't wish for a do over with some student or some circumstance in my in my previous career, because you know, you don't always know now what you need to know now until you need to know it now and and that's, I think that's with teaching, and that's also with advising. I began, of course, just working with the undergraduates, and then I picked up being major advisor for some some master's students. And all along the way in, in our College of Education, I feel like we have really good support for that. Currently, we have a director of graduate students in our department, and then we also have a director, I'm not sure I'm not getting our title right, of graduate students for our whole college. And then we have a mentoring group. That's part of that. It stemmed from the Faculty Affairs Committee. And I feel like every year that I've been at K State, we've tried to offer more and more to support our faculty, who are supporting our students, university wide, we have, I think it's called the Office of it used to be Office of Student Life, and now it's Office of Student Success and Accountability, I believe. But they have resources for us as faculty, but then also ways that we can direct our students to them if they're if they're needing help. Oh, that's awesome.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, it's always good to have have that extra support, especially because you're going to need that to help your students. But Vicki, this has been a fantastic discussion and learning more about you. And thank you so much for joining Ryan and I on the podcast today.

Vicki Sherbert  
Well, thank you so much. This was fun. It was fun to prepare for as well just to think about, think about my own journey to this point.

Ryan Scheckel  
All right, we are continuing our interviews with faculty from the K State College of Education and and we have with us Dr. Michael Lawson, Michael, Michael, welcome to the adventures and advising podcast. 

Michael Lawson  
Thanks for having me. 

Ryan Scheckel  
Sure. I you know we're doing a little bit of a condensed format in these interviews, but we always like to hear people's stories and and what their context is. And so can you tell us a little bit about your background and and and your role now at K State?

Michael Lawson  
Yeah, so I'm a former high school math teacher, and I got my doctorate and at the University of Tennessee, where I got to, you know, work with teachers and professional development settings, and then did a postdoc at the University of Southern California, and then that right now, I am currently a, I guess, what you would call a kind of an instructor role, but they have a fancy title for it, teaching assistant professor, and so it's a non tenure track position, but hoping to move on to the tenure track this year. So that's been a fun adventure as well. 

Ryan Scheckel  
And then, what are your experiences with academic advising, whether it was when you were a student or working with students, when you think of academic advising, what comes to mind?

Michael Lawson  
Yeah, so I guess for me as a student, it was all about, you know, What class do I take? But as you move into kind of the Graduate Studies, it's more about, I guess, navigating the academia field along with life. So whether it's a master's or a PhD, I received that kind of advising from my mentors and from faculty that weren't directly working with me even. And so I think that's something that I try. To kind of replicate here in my role, where I get a chance to work with doctoral students in our EDD and our PhD programs, along with, I'm the program coordinator for MAT so I get to, you know, collaborate with someone with an advising background, actually, to kind of help run that. And then, yeah, so that's kind of kind of my experiences with it currently.

Ryan Scheckel  
So I was looking at some of your publications and and things that you've conducted research around. And can you tell us a little bit about your research interest, as far as the way it plays out in both a practitioner sense, but also in that scholarly publication sense, yeah.

Michael Lawson  
So my work kind of revolves around two kind of key areas. One's around, you know, teacher learning. I look at pedagogical stretches, you know. I think for me, if we're trying to get teachers to work in justice centered or even just ambitious teaching, that's a difficult task to do, to accomplish, teachers often lack some of the know how on how to get to that point, and so I try to study that kind of learning, but in terms of, like, supporting that learning, the other part of my research revolves around, like, developing instructional practices that support small scale stretches. Like, how do you get a teacher not to change their practice overnight, but to try something out for a year, you know, try to do what we call a community science data talk or do a Photo Voice Project in a math or in a science classroom. And what does that afford the teacher for opportunities to expand their overall practice is kind of what I look at. But also we want to make sure those practices are important, are, I guess, effective for students. So we also study student outcomes and student outcomes and student learning within those as well. And so in a teaching context, that's kind of how it works. And in a publication context, it kind of revolves around a lot of working with people from across the United States currently. So it also stretches into a little bit of advising, because the connections I've been able to cultivate with different people, in particular, a colleague at the University of Kansas has afforded opportunities for graduate students to get exposure to conducting research, to writing up publications, in particular over the last couple of years. And I've got a doctoral student who's using some of the work that I've been doing with others in a undergraduate context. So getting to experience, you know, supporting doctoral students to find their own path, but kind of, you know, scaffolding that learning for them in particular, because they were interested in the the idea of a community science data talk. So yeah, she's doing some great things too. But yeah,

Ryan Scheckel  
I found the two things that you highlighted there, the community science, data talk and the Photo Voice Project, like, as really interesting ideas. Could you tell us a little bit more about like, each of those in their practical sense? Like, what do they look like for those, maybe who aren't in classrooms regularly or familiar with like, a stem pedagogical framework,

Michael Lawson  
yeah, so they really work at, like, in the intersection of justice, place and emotion, which are some things that aren't necessarily always associated with learning, particularly STEM learning, but but are kind of necessary for students To be able to flourish and thrive in the future, and help communities flourish and thrive as well. So we kind of work towards, currently, we're kind of talking about that in a sense of, you know, supporting classrooms to move towards consequential learning, which is where it works towards that flourishment. But a community science data talk is essentially a small scale justice centered flexible practice. And what we mean by these flexible practices, photo voices, too, but that they could work across grade levels. So we've tested them in kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms. And like I said, currently we're working in undergraduate course with one of my doctoral advisees, which it's across content. So it's something that could be integrated we're working towards, like transdisciplinary ways of thinking and learning and also around teacher experience. So a teacher who is very experienced in these types of teaching and discourse moves and things like that would be very successful with these practices. But also they're small scale enough like 10 to 15 minutes for for community science data talks that a teacher could kind of test out and grow in that practice over time. And so that's kind of what we kind of focus on in terms of, like developing these practices. It's like small scale, Justice centered and flexible for teachers and students who are new to learning in these ways too. But a data talk is basically, you're using community data, you're displaying it for students, and you're having them interrogate that data. And what we've kind of learned is, and it's around some sort of anchoring phenomena, some sort of community issue. The ones that we've kind of worked in currently are around climate so looking at climate injustices and cities and. And countries and so it's not enough just to do one community science data talk to understand an issue. You can't just look at one layer of data. So really, it brings in this historical perspective of how places come to be. It looks at environmental aspects, socio economic. I remember in one of our classrooms, you know, students were like, Why don't you just move away from it like that was their solution to the problem. And, you know, the teacher really did some perspective, taking with them to kind of, you know, guide their emotional kind of sense, making around. Is that plausible for everybody? What does it look like for somebody who makes minimum wage and lives in a large, urban city? Is it feasible for them to find even if they work two jobs, is that enough to help them move or even buy a city in an area that's not as impacted, even though it's within the same city, we often find that due to, you know, tree canopy coverage and ecosystem services that different communities are provided. So the data talks are really intended to help students kind of unpack those ideas of place, knowing that students have experiences with these things. They have funds of knowledge and funds of feeling that are attached to this knowledge. That's where the intentionality around emotion comes into play, drawing on some of Carrie cocas work around effective pedagogical goals for teachers and so that's a little bit about a community science, data, talk for people and Photo Voice is really about giving students cameras to really access their current conceptions about topics. And so again, we've kind of worked in this climate space for a long time, and so we're giving and we're in the middle of a phase two of an international Photo Voice study, actually, where we're giving students cameras in multiple different sites to understand their experiences with climate change and their learning and how Photo Voice decreases, like psychological distance from from the topic itself, and some other other constructs. But the goal of this project, really, in a practical sense, is to develop a website where classrooms from all over the world could click on, you know, look at a map of the world and see a ping from Colombia, or see a ping from Kansas here, or a ping from California, and they could click on it and see pictures of how students are making sense of the world around them. So it's a practical tool for a teacher to access that prior knowledge, but also for students, that's what we're kind of studying with this website is kind of, how do students make sense of that and what? What does that afford their learning in the classroom too, when they see a ping from California and Kansas, which is what we have currently, so that's what we're going to study.

Ryan Scheckel  
But yeah, those again, if you're at all interested in those, the little bit I've dipped my toe into those practices and those frameworks and structures, I think is really fascinating. Have you ever thought about using similar or translated approaches in an advising setting before, 100%

Michael Lawson  
So we're, you know, my approach to kind of advising is very relational, and it particularly around. You know, everybody has their own PhD journey, and I know mine had its ups and downs and struggles. You know, the isolation you feel, the emotion, the emotional toll that a doctoral degree can give you. So what that helped me, kind of, through my own experience, how my advisor worked, and through my research, just this attention to when do I push and pull back, you know, for students, and really understanding how they're emotionally processing a lot of things. Because, you know, I'm not just advising a student. I'm advising someone who's a mother or a father or brother, sister, you know, daughter, son, community member, friends, so they have lives and responsibilities outside of this program that you know they have to attend to, and so making sure I'm I'm giving them the space to do that is something, while also still attending to, you know, the demands of a PhD, but, you know, trying to make sense of all that for the student, because sometimes it's overwhelming, particularly for a student, just to make sense of all those things. So, so, yeah, so that's kind of how that kind of plays out in my in my work here.

Ryan Scheckel  
So far in your role advising students, what has been the most rewarding and maybe the most difficult part of it all?

Michael Lawson  
Oh, the coolest thing was the first time I got to hood somebody, you know, I mean, you know, just to see their excitement. A lot of our students are distance students. So most of my advisees are living in New York State or living in Kansas City or Missouri or somewhere, somewhere far away Texas. And so the only time I get to see them in person is when they come for graduation. So that's usually a very rewarding part. Or, you know, seeing their final defense, that's a very rewarding moment. Or hearing this the Thank you, or had someone give me a gift card, I felt so terrible for taking it, because I was like, You're a doc student. You use this please. But I was just like, you know, but they insisted, and, you know, I was very appreciative of that. But the hardest thing, I think, you know, and it goes with any job, is just the time demand of it when you want to do a good job. And. You want to support people, you have to put the time for it. So sometimes that makes you tired, like I'm probably looking right now, but, but, yeah, so that, you know, the time demand of it is usually the most difficult part, but another kind of difficult part with particularly the distance kind of advising, is when a student's down and out and they're not replying to an email. There's no way to really check in, you know. So, you know, I've run into a couple of those things where, as soon as they reach out, you know, it's replying back with, you know, letting them know it's okay, you know, I'm not here. A doctoral program is your own timeline. A master's program is the same thing, the same with undergrad, even in a sense, you know, it's not four years, two years, you know, five years, or four years, or whatever it is, it's kind of, you know, as at your own pace. And so just helping them kind of understand that sometimes is a difficult thing to do, and letting know it's okay to not be on the timeline you intended. There's, we can always readjust, but it's usually rewarding whenever they come back and you get to see them and kind of help them out.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I was thinking about the transition from being someone receiving advising to being the person giving advising. Did you ever feel like you were adequately prepared for that? Are there any areas that you're still looking to grow and develop in?

Michael Lawson  
I will always looking to grow and develop and I think the hardest thing is not knowing what areas I need to grow and develop in. So not knowing what areas there are to develop and grow so, but just for me, you know, the feeling prepared to do something isn't really, I don't think I ever felt prepared to advise. It was just something I was responsible for. And so I didn't have any formal training. You know, we have a graduate faculty council that kind of meets every once in a while, and they've done a good job over the last couple years of providing advising highlights, so sharing tips from people who feel that they're doing something successful. Whether that's a way to keep track of documents and meetings. You know, ways to use AI to when we have this zoom recording, you know, and it can do the AI note taking, and then you don't have to sit there, and everybody has to keep notes every time, you can just copy those notes into a document. So there's like, little tips of the trade to kind of keep organization things going. Yeah, never really feeling prepared, but always knowing I have to step up to the job and and be there whenever they need they need something.

Ryan Scheckel  
One of my favorite frameworks is the Indiana Jones quote. It's not the years, it's the miles. You know, we've been some miles, no matter how long it's taken us to get there. Well, one of the things I know for a fact is I'm going to have visions of something maybe like a community, student, data, talk, or advising, Photo Voice Project. I hope maybe someone out there is thinking the same things. But Dr Lawson, thank you so much for being on the podcast and and for your time today.

Michael Lawson  
All right, thank you all appreciate it.

Matt Markin  
All right. Ryan, so we just finished up our interviews with the faculty from K State, what were your initial thoughts prior to and after recording with these amazing faculty? 

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, first off, you know, I was fat. I was always been interested in talking with faculty and learning about, like, their unique perspectives on the world. Of course, everyone coming from the College of Education, it might be easy to think that they all have the same point of view, or they work with the same students and and seeing that kind of diversity in academic background and also personal background just reinforces sometimes how big higher ed is, both in the positive sense, but also in that sort of like it can get lost in it pretty easy. Too different campus locations, different academic disciplines and focus and stuff. And, you know, higher ed really does contain multitudes. 

Matt Markin  
I mean, if you're still listening, you know, and had listened to those previous interviews, we asked questions for all of them, you know, what were your experiences with academic advising? How did you approach advising? What's the most rewarding or challenging part of advising? Do you feel adequately, adequately trained for advising? And although they were similar questions, kind of like going to what you were saying like they they each had various backgrounds, different experiences, so it didn't feel like each interview was being repetitive because of their respective differences and going about advising, you know, and then each one kind of had an interesting part, like, you know, whether it was shabina with study abroad experience or with Vicki with rural education. So a lot of great insight from each of them.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, sometimes I listed four difference, you know, I think that's human nature. Risk comes from the unknown at times, but I found a lot of beauty in the fact that there. I were colleagues in a college at an institution, and yet had such a sort of rich tapestry in perspectives. I did note, though, that one of the common themes was this feeling, whether it was in a of course, no one can ever be fully prepared for the richness of academic advising. None of them really felt adequately prepared. And I know that that's a common theme for a lot of folks who work in academic advising, whether they're a full time staff member or a faculty member role, or even peer advisors, is you can do a ton of prep, but sitting down and doing the work of advising, you start to realize just how much more there is.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, no, for sure, yeah, it was great hearing from like the graduate advising perspective. I don't think we hear too much about that. As it seems more the attention is for undergraduate advising. I think it just still shows how everyone has a different path, different perspectives, and as much as it's different yet similar approaches to helping and guiding students. So definitely refreshing to hear from. Should be you know Michael Amber and Vicki, but Ryan, take us home.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, look, this is such an exciting time in higher ed i know there's a lot of people who have very passionate thoughts and feelings about the work that we're doing and and the influence that higher ed and academic advising can have on the world at large, and this is just an example of the range of perspectives we can all benefit from when we listen to each other's stories. So I'm looking forward to 2026 and being a part of more adventures in academic advising.