The Art of Compassionate Accountability: Leading Advising Teams Well - Adventures in Advising

In this episode of Adventures in Advising, Matt and Ryan sit down with Julie Montgomery, academic advising generalist manager at Sinclair Community College (Mason Campus), who leads with equal parts clarity, compassion, and “let’s-get-this-done” energy. Julie serves up practical wisdom on building a healthy advising office culture (hint: purpose + philosophy + communication make the whole thing rise) and introduces a powerful concept every team needs: compassionate colleague correction, aka how to fix mistakes without torching trust.

You’ll also hear Julie break down Virginia Gordon’s “Three I” career conversation framework so advisors can navigate those “this was supposed to be course planning, but now it’s a life crossroads” appointments with confidence. 

Along the way: community college myth-busting, leadership lessons from Les Mis, Wicked, and Hamilton, and the real talk behind the dissertation grind. 🎓✨

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey, welcome back to the adventures in advising podcast. This is Matt Markin along with Ryan scheckel and Ryan at the timing of this recording, it's been a couple weeks, but I got to see you live in person.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, you know, it's super weird when worlds collide and you never, I think, really examine how I don't know, protective or alone you might feel in your own little bubble at times, until somebody who's not normally there enters it. And this isn't the first time, folks, Matt's been to the cultural Mecca that is Lubbock, Texas now twice, but it was for the second annual retention and resilience conference that our campus hosted. Our Honors College hosted, and it was a great time. Of course, the weather was far better, and we got to do some cool things too. So it was great to have you in town and and look forward to our next in person meeting. 

Matt Markin  
You were busy. You had three different sessions.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, sometimes I don't know when to say no and, and sometimes you just got to roll with how things go, and now all of a sudden I'm rhyming. So, you know, it was a great time. And genuinely, I think, from the perspective of somebody who has been at an institution for as long as I have, just for the opportunity to participate in this kind of activity right on our home campus is just so valuable. But we had folks from other institutions, not just from California, but from around the West Texas and Big Country area here in Texas too. And that was great as well to welcome colleagues from other institutions to our campus and and if you're at an institution that's trying to get this sort of thing off the ground, you know, a one day or drive in sort of conference, just know that there are folks who are doing it other institutions. It's very doable, and I'm sure they'd be happy to help talk about, how do you get started with these sorts of things?

Matt Markin  
Definitely fun time. Lot of great information, a lot of great people that that I got to meet, and of course, getting to hang out with you. And another person we get to hang out with today on this recording is our guest, and that is Julie Montgomery.

Julie Montgomery  
Hello. Thank you for having me so.

Matt Markin  
Julie Montgomery leads with heart clarity and a deep belief that people do their best work when they feel seen and supported as an academic advising generalist manager at Sinclair Community College's Mason campus. She has more than 20 years of experience helping students and the colleagues who serve them navigate higher education, along with confidence and compassion a lifelong learner, Julie is a doctoral candidate in the inaugural cohort of Kansas State University's leadership and academic advising PhD program. She also serves on the board of the Ohio Academic Advising Association representing two year colleges and advocating for the unique strengths of community or community college professionals. Julie is a certified appreciative advisor and has earned micro credentials in the manager training program and accessibility essentials, as well as completing the leaders are made program, reflecting her belief that leadership is practice, not a position in 2025 she co presented supporting our community college students at the Nakata annual conference in Vegas. Her case study, compassionate colleague, correction, navigating ethical challenges and academic advising was invited for inclusion in the book ethical issues and academic advising, highlighting her commitment to integrity and care in professional relationships, her advising journey has taken her from Eastern Illinois University to the University of Cincinnati, and after a 10 year career break devoted to raising her family to Sinclair Community College, where she has now served for 16 years. Julie is married and the proud mother of two adult daughters outside of work, she finds Julian reading, baking, cheering on college sports and enjoying spending an evening at a Broadway show. Julie, this is going to be a fantastic conversation today.

Julie Montgomery  
It is. It'll be fun.

Matt Markin  
So of course, the first question we'll throw out is, you know, expand upon the bio for us. Kind of give us in your own words, what's your journey been like in higher

Julie Montgomery  
Okay, so went to Eastern Illinois for my undergrad and decided to major in hospitality services. So I was a catering director for Holiday Inns for about three years, and moved to Rockford when I got married. Rockford, Illinois, and then we found that we were going to be moving to Central Illinois for my husband's job. In Central Illinois, if you've been there, it's a lot of it's farmland, so there wasn't really a hotel that needed a catering director within an hour. So my sister had just graduated from East. Eastern with with a master's degree in counseling. So I thought, Well, why don't I take a look? And they did have a college student personnel program. I applied, and then I finished that program in a year. We needed to complete two internships, so I was lucky enough to have one of my internships in the Academic Advising Center, and my mentor was actually my first advisor when I started Eastern in 1985 so her name is Julie Sterling. She was amazing. And luckily, after I graduated, there was another adviser on maternity leave, so I was given a contract for that summer, and then she did not return. So then I was given another contract for a nine month position. So I was able to continue to work with Julie Sterling and another amazing adviser from Lewis. And we were there. I was there for about four years, and then my husband decided he wanted to earn a PhD. So we ended up moving over here to Cincinnati. So he went to the University of Cincinnati, and I was able to to get hired for another advising job in what is now a college of allied health. So I was there for about a year, and then we are, our daughter decided to arrive three months early, so I decided to stay home with her, and then Julius decided to go back to industry and worked for GE for 25 years. So in that time, just stayed home, had another daughter, and just enjoyed that time with them. And then in about 2007 I started seeing articles that Sinclair college was going to build a campus in Mason where I live, seven minutes away. So I continued to watch the articles on that campus. And then in 2009 I applied for a job for a part time academic advising position. And I didn't get that job, but they did hire me to teach a student success class. And so within 10 months, I was able to I was hired then for a part time position, and then, and so that was amazing. I wasn't sure I'd ever get back into the field, because it is, it's an amazing field, and so many people want to work in our jobs. And so then I started part full time in 2019 and about two years ago, I was promoted to advising generalist manager. So that is my journey, and it just keeps it's just been an amazing journey, and the things keep happening. So I really enjoy it.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, there's so much that I want to ask about, but I do think it would be interesting to reflect a little bit on that, that 10 year period where you're certainly we're doing lots and contributing to the the journey of young people in your own home and stuff, but that 10 year career, pause, if you want to call it that raising your family. How did that shape the way you approach things now, especially in your leadership role?

Julie Montgomery  
Oh, it was amazing for me. When I was an advisor at Eastern I was 27 years old with not a lot of life experience. I advised very like this is it was a traditional school. The students lived there. It was residential. So when I met with an adult student, I was not very compassionate, because I didn't understand why they couldn't go to classes at two o'clock. You know, I wasn't familiar with bus schedules and sick kids and all the working and having to go to school, that was not a part of my life, so I didn't understand. So I would say that 10 years really shaped me. I was a mom. I then I was part of the best schedules. Things don't work out. You have to make sacrifices. So being a mom and just having those experience experiences really helped with my leadership and compassion, especially. And so I was a Girl Scout leader. I always worked room mom, those sorts of things, planning. I'm a planner. I love planning things. And so those experience started shaping me, and I did become more compassionate. I was people knew what I did, so they would come to me and ask about college, especially for their kids, and so it really helped to build those leadership skills. Being involved helped keep my computer skills relevant, because that world moves so fast. And then just the ability to work with young women and mentor them all contributed to my growth during that time. So I'm very thankful for that time, because I am definitely a much better adviser now than I was when I was 27.

Matt Markin  
And kind of rolling into this next question, kind of going off of that, you know, from your leadership and manager experience, and I guess the way to tie in the baking that that you like to do, let's say you want to build a healthy office culture. What kind of ingredients are you using to build that advising office?

Julie Montgomery  
So the ingredients to build a good office culture would be you need to have a clear purpose. Your office needs to know. Know what is the motto of your university? What is our vision, our goals, our strategic plan? Because if everybody is on the same page, then there's no I didn't know that, like here at Sinclair, you if you ask what our motto is, everyone can say it to you, because it's find a need and endeavor to meet it. And it's not just something we put on coffee cups. It is what we believe. And everything we do is based off that motto, because we are here to serve. We're part of the community, and that is, that's what we believe. So I believe that if you have a clear, clear purpose with your institution, and you have a clear purpose with your office of requirements, expectations, behaviors, that helps set the foundation for for a good relationship, a healthy office. Next you want to add in some advising philosophy. If your advisors don't really know why they're doing what they're doing, then there's going to be confusion for them, confusion for the students. And it's hard to train people if you're not really they're not really sure why they're doing this job and how they're doing it, the theories, what do they believe? How do they feel like they need to treat students? So I believe adding a little bit of advising philosophy into the mix is helpful. And then, like any office, anything we do good communication, there needs to be a plan, clear expectations of how communication is going to happen, how soon it should happen, including respect in in and being inclusive of everyone in the office, your students. So I think communication is key. That's kind of your key ingredient to make everything rise, so maybe your flour and you're baking soda, and you need to know the chain of command. And many times, I feel people want to jump to the jump to the Vice President, and if they followed that chain of command, because that never ends. Well, right? If you follow that chain of command, then things can be fixed. People can talk about things at a lower level where the real change is going to happen, because things are just going to move back down the chain if it, if they jump it. The other thing is leading by example, like, if you're always late, you're not communicating, you're rude, that's going to reflect on your office is going to say, well, that's behavior is okay, so I'm going to do it too. So I think leading by example in all of these with your communication, knowing your institution, knowing what your advising philosophy is, I think then that that builds a beautiful cake, because everybody is in sync, and there's just enough of all the ingredients, so there's a good product at the end and and your students are going to be well served?

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, absolutely. I love thinking about the work that we do from different angles. You know? I know that there's some concern about advising, not being advising, if it's always something else in a metaphorical sense. But you know, when we can connect with our prior knowledge and and make sense of things, really activates our learning. And just from the perspective of being a learner, you started a graduate, a doctoral program, and like, then the pandemic in the pandemic during the pandemic, that's crazy. But not just any doctoral program, inaugural advising, Leadership Program, K State and partnership and all that. And now we're at the dissertation phase, if I understand things correctly, yes, tell us a little bit about what that's been like and maybe how things are going now, as we're nearing the end of things.

Julie Montgomery  
Well, it does not feel like we're nearing the end of things. For sure. Yes, we started. We were all admitted in February of 2020 we didn't know what was coming. And then, I think we had our first meeting in April of 2020 and then started classes. So it was a perfect storm. You know, they were new to the program. We were new to the program. The world was shut down. So it was, it was great. The one bummer is we, we did not get to travel to Kansas State for two years for our residency. So that was kind of a bummer, because if you've been to Kansas to Manhattan, it's a great place. It's a lot of fun. So yes, we finished our prelims. We started taking prelims in 22 after our residency, and then I passed. It took me twice, but I passed mine in 23 and then decided I needed a break, which was not a good decision. So I kind of took a break. And as you know, when you're not reading the literature, you're not in that groove, you start forgetting, forgetting things. So to be honest, the writing has been slow. So I loved the classes, because we were engaged with the faculty and we were engaged with our cohorts. We would see each other about once a week. So dissertation is definitely different, where you're kind of on your own, and even though we do write together, we've gotten back together, and we're starting to write in the evenings. On our own projects. It's taken me a little time to realize I'm trying. I'm a we're all good students, right? We love going to schools. We've got multiple degrees. But this is different. This is realizing that I don't have that skill set yet, and I need to build this skill set. It's not just as easy as writing a paper. So kind of come to that realization ready to dive back in. I'm sure Dr Rubin will be very happy to hear that. So starting to write my literature review. So my chapter one is pretty much finished, starting my literature review, and most of my chapter three is finished. So just need to clean those up. And then the goal is to propose by the end of this semester. So then I can start the research, which is going to be the fun part. So I just need to get over this literature review, get it done and move forward. So it's been a wonderful experience, though. I'm so glad I did it, and looking forward to to being called Doctor Montgomery. So you just gotta write that a lot. And okay, we're going to make this happen.

Matt Markin  
So it will happen, and it's a process, it's a process.

Julie Montgomery  
It is a process. And I'm not patient sometimes. Well, you guys have been writing a lot, so, you know, I mean, Matt just got that manuscript accepted. I mean, you guys have been doing a lot of great work.

Matt Markin  
That's where, you know, there's the people that you get to work with and learn from, you know. So the one you're referring to, they got to work with Dr Craig McGill on so people that you know you can ask questions to you and may take you under their wing. And I know Ryan, I have had, you know something soon we'll be posting about, but we've got a chance to write quite a few times. And you know, like I said, it's, it's a process, but it's, it's fun with who you get to work with.

Ryan Scheckel  
I was just gonna add, oftentimes, the only time you hear about somebody else doing something, it's at completion. And one of the things that Matt and I were so excited to talk with you about and get you to share was that it is not just as simple as yep, I wanted to do it, and now it's done. There's a lot of work that goes in there. There's a lot of growth, and there's a lot of people who've been in the writing process, whether it's a thesis, dissertation or something they're submitting for review and publication by a journal or another outlet where it's a struggle and there's lots of learning about ourselves and and self doubt that happens in there too. But this is something that we share in higher education, no matter where we are in our roles, this this contribution to the knowledge base, and making that shift from being just a consumer of it. So I know, I know I made it seem like it's nearly there it is, because you've come so far. And anyone who is thinking about doctoral programs, graduate education, submitting for publication at any point, just know that there's a whole host of people who are going through, have gone through, will go through the same feelings and thoughts that you're going through too. That is comforting.

Matt Markin  
And rejection is part of the process too. And one of the ones that want to referring to that Craig and I did was originally rejected from one publication, but when one door closes, kick down some other ones and see what happens. But you've also presented a lot as well, and one of the things you presented on was on Virginia Gordon's framework regarding career conversations, I was hoping you can kind of share with us, maybe for those that don't know, give us a foundation of that framework, and maybe how advisors might be able to use that in practical ways.

Julie Montgomery  
Sure. So my role and the advisors here at Mason we're a generalist. So we don't just advise classes. We are career advisors, financial aid, registration, you name it. That's what we do. So we our role is broad. So we've all been in appointments where we think it's an advising appointment, but then the student won't commit to classes, they won't commit to a major, and then all of a sudden you feel that morphing of the appointment, and you're like, Oh, this is no longer an advising appointment. It's a career appointment, and I will be honest before we learned about Virginia Gordon's three I process. I dreaded that because I did not have the skills to help these students. I didn't know what to say to them, because it is a process, and I don't know how much career advising you both do, but students, a lot of times, don't want to put the work in to figure out, really, who they are and what they want to do. So Virginia's three. I process. There's the three I stand for, inquire, inform and integrate. So the first step, and it's a circle, and which, that's what I love about this. It's not linear, so students can't get stuck, because they can just go in a circle or jump. Well, it doesn't matter. So I think that is helpful. So first they need to inform, do some research on do maybe take some assessments, find out who they are, what they like. I'm a big proponent of let's look at your skill set and not so much the job titles, because I think that sticks. Some students get stuck with that too. Like I always get social worker, teacher, funeral director, yeah, those are all wonderful careers, and I do have that skill set, but I don't want to be a funeral director, because I don't I think that would be a hard job. So and then you integrate. So you from your information, from looking talking to people, maybe informational, informational interviews, then you can integrate that information. And let's say you get to integrate and you're like, Yeah, this isn't really what I thought. After these interviews, I've decided I don't like it. Then you can go back to inform, or maybe you just need to go back to inquire. You maybe you need to kind of start again, because you didn't answer the assessment like it was a for a job. Because you can, we have the focus too. I don't know if you're familiar with that assessment, but you can answer it just like, oh yeah, I want to build a bird house. And go, Yeah, that's great. But do I want to build a bird house every day? Not so much. So just being in the right mindset when you take these assessments. So I have really enjoyed this training. So Alex, who was working here at the time, she created a notebook of questions, and we read the book. We did basically a book club, and then every time we would talk about a chapter, she had questions or different activities we could use with the student. So then, when I had a student and we were moving into a career conversation, I could bring out my binder, and then I felt very comfortable, because I knew what to talk about with the student. So a lot of times, like some of the questions, like, if all the obstacles removed, how would you describe what your academic goals were, or what kind of if money was no object, what would you what would your dream job be? Those kinds of things. So kind of using a little bit of appreciative advising, were you getting them to dream a little bit and then to to give them an action item? I always love to to ask them, what can you do in the next 24 hours to move towards the school so you're not it's not a big ask. It's just what's one little thing you can do? So that seems to relieve them, because we know our students get pressure from a lot of different from their parents, grandparents, the media, their friends, and so if they can make just one little step to help themselves, then that that's a win. So it's, it's a simple framework, but it is very effective.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, speaking of keeping it simple, you know, you mentioned that sort of uncertainty of how much career advising does somebody do? And there can be a lot of folks who are like, look, we have a career center on our campus. That's not what I do. Is there just like, one small thing or a shift that advisors can make just to improve their career related advising and the conversations they have with students?

Julie Montgomery  
I would recommend reading the literature there may be maybe having the Career Center come to their meetings and then talk to them about what how they work with students or coaches, and then that they can give them some pamphlets, or they could walk through some scenarios and practice. So I think using your resources on campus is always a great idea, if you might do a little bit of career counseling, but you want to feel more confident, so I would reach out to them first. There is a lot of literature out there on career counseling, if you like, to pull journal articles, but I would start with your career center, if you have one on campus.

Matt Markin  
So one things I want to chat and chat about is your case study, compassionate, colleague, correction, can you kind of give us like, what exactly is compassionate correction, and why does it matter?

Julie Montgomery  
Well, as advisors we we manage a lot of policy from the state, the federal government, with financial aid, our institution, all the departments, accreditations, so there is a lot of information that is constantly changing, and it's hard to manage sometimes, and so, and I think advisors have amazing memories, and we take a lot of great notes. So, and people who, like myself, who've been here forever, remember quarters and I have all this knowledge stored amazingly somewhere, so I can pull these nuggets out when I need to with compassionate colleague correction. So my example was an advisor is in a new student orientation, and they give the wrong information. And so instead of another advisor just running up and. You know, saying you're wrong. This, this changed in front of an audience. They took them to the side after the event and said, Oh, by the way, this was incorrect. Just want you to know so for the future. And then so, so then they could just talk to the advisors who were going to see these students and say, Oh, this was said, you know, please correct it in your advising appointments. I think it's really important because one, you're in front of this audience of parents and students, and you're building that trust a lot of times. I'm sure you're aware academic advisors do tend to get the blame when students don't graduate on time or a wrong class was taken. So we need to build that trust with students that we do know, know the policies, and that our goal is to make sure they are graduating in a timely manner, and we're here to guide them. So the compassion part is you don't want to blame a person. You don't want them to feel stupid, and so we want to respect our colleagues, because we're and we're human. We make mistakes. It's easy to yell at somebody, but you don't realize the damage you're doing to that person. And plus, we're a team, we're all still a team, and need to work together every day. So the compassionate correction is just it's kind of like with your children. You don't want to yell at your kids in front of everybody when they do something wrong. You want to do it quietly so they hear the message, but they're not embarrassed because you yelled at them. So it's kind of that same concept. So yeah, we were in our ethics class for the graduate program, and we were using an older, older ethics book, not related to to to academic advising. And so we talked Dr Rubin into writing a new book. So she did, and then she very graciously allowed all of us to write case studies, a lot of these we'd written in our class and discussion posts. And then so she included us all in her book. So that was that was pretty special.

Matt Markin  
Well, and shout out to you and to Dr Rubin and those of you listening, go pick up that book ethical issues and academic advising and check out Julie's piece in here too.

Julie Montgomery  
Yeah, thank you. Think on page 104 we got to sign books, which is pretty amazing. 

Ryan Scheckel  
well, and that's for listeners and viewers. That's episode 131 where we talked with Dr Rubin and Ashley Thomas about the book and stuff. But you know, I geek out in that episode where I, you know, these things don't happen. A lot new publications in our field, especially ones that didn't exist before. I appreciate the value of second and third editions and updating our knowledge base. But when there's a giant gap and we're having to borrow from other fields, you know? So it's also hilarious that that happened in the classroom. Yes, sometimes, sometimes we, we forget about, you know, that space where so much is generated. Well, he also serve in a role with the Ohio Academic Advising Association representing two year colleges. And what do you wish the broader advising field understood better about the work of community college professionals and the things that they're doing on their campuses that their institutions.

Julie Montgomery  
This is a big topic, and this is what Leticia Wilson and I talked about in our presentation in Vegas. I guess the first thing is, we really hit on the stigmas. There's a lot of stigmas around community colleges, and so debunking those stigmas that our students aren't smart enough, that's why they went to community college or smarter for a four year school, that our education is lower and that community college students are not serious about their education. I mean, none of those things are true. So what you are going to find with our our students is that they're very motivated. They they're there to train, maybe they're for a career change, or they didn't go to school right out of high school because of certain circumstances. And so they are very motivated, and their vision is clear for what they want. They're also very goal oriented. They may don't have a lot of time most of our students, according to the at Sinclair, about 80% of our students are part time and working full time. So they don't have a lot of time to waste. They need to get in and get out, because this is their sacrificing time for other activities, to educate themselves, to make a better life for their family. And then they have a great work ethic, because they are juggling family, work school, and maybe they're caring for a parent. So they have a lot of items on their plate that they need to address. But this is so important to them that they are willing to, you know, sleep less, use every minute of the day to to do their homework and and so they're successful in in the college. One thing I would recommend, if students are even four. Your institutions, I'm sure are seeing more adult students. So what I would recommend is, you know, we learn. We know a lot about pedagogy, but I don't know that a lot of advisors know about andragogy, which is the framework for adult students. And I found this too when I was a younger advisor, I didn't understand that students just out of high school are just going to do what you tell them to do, because that's what they're used to. But then when you have adults come into your space and you're working with them, they know what they want. They they have self concept. They they're there for a reason. They are motivated. They have good self esteem and job satisfaction, and they're looking maybe for personal growth or to help improve their family. Show their children that they are motivated they're going to school. So maybe their children will go to school. They have diverse experiences, so they're not going to just be told this is what you need to do with no reason. They want to know why. Why do I need this? How is this going to help me? And they want to be involved in the planning. They don't want to just be given a schedule and not have any say of why they're in the schedule, because this is their education. So they definitely want to take more responsibility for their pathway. And so I think if you're in appointments that have adult students don't feel like they don't feel like you know what you're doing, it's just they're coming with a whole different set of skills that your high school students are not coming or your new freshmen are not are not coming with. So they want to be their own travel guide. So if you look at kind of two. If you're going to go on a trip with pedagogy, the teacher is planning it. They're bringing the maps and the snacks. But if you're working with an adult student, they have their own map. They've planned their own way, and, you know, they've got their own snacks. So that's kind of the difference between working with those two types of students, because we're seeing a lot more adult students coming back to school who maybe had started a degree, and now we're coming back to finish, or, like I said earlier, they didn't have that opportunity, and now they're coming back to to finish a degree so they can make a better wage. So those are some big things. I mean, just last year at Sinclair, and we gave 8000 degrees and credentials last May. So our students are doing, are doing some amazing things, and I think too, with community colleges, a lot of times, we can pivot a little quicker, because we're typically smaller and so we can really stay on the edge of technology. And we have a lot of wonderful technology degrees here on our campus, and it's a great place to work. It really is, yeah.

Matt Markin  
I mean, every student conversation is going to be different. And you know, like you were mentioning with the adult returning students, yeah, that seems to be like a push at our institution as well, and many others where they're reaching out and having students reapply to the university, like our admissions office has what they call a welcome back form, so it's like a five question application instead of having the student do the whole application again. Yeah, so seeing various more of different student populations being at our various institutions, and I appreciate you talking about all this, especially with like community college students, transfer students, because as of myself as a transfer student, you know, that's, you know, there's all those misconceptions, so I'm glad that you got to address many of those. Now, the world is always changing. That also includes higher education. I mean, some things in higher eds still seem to stay the same, but lot of changes that that happen, what gives you is there any anything that gives you hope for the future, with with academic advising, within higher ed?

Julie Montgomery  
Yes, I think there's a lot of I'm hopeful, because I think we have a very forward thinking leadership in our NACADA organization, and and the membership i i The people and the board, and just everything I see at the conferences. I'm just amazed at how how invested advisors are in the students and then, and then moving our our field forward. I'm hopeful that once this definition is published, that that will give our colleges and universities a guideline of really what we do and the skill sets we're bringing in the education that we're bringing and so they will position advising units more in academic affairs, and that will then lead to better job descriptions, career ladders, like all the things that we're hoping for, which I know take time, but I feel like there's just a big push for that now. I think that we are all pushing for that to happen because we know it's important, and we know we could serve our students better. And you. Some of the jobs that advisors do, I will say our college is very focused on advising, and that's what we do. That you hear other people talking about some of their roles and that it is that is not their reality. I'm glad that there's more people publishing and that with this, the leadership in advising PhD, most of cohorts are about 11 people, 10 people, so just the influx of literature that will start hitting the market, or the journals, I think that is very helpful so we can build our literature, especially like community colleges. There is some literature, but not to the extent of like our one institutions. So I'm hoping that's why Leticia and I always wanted to present, because we were the two community college people in our cohort. And there's you just, I think there were only five programs at Nakata and Vegas for community colleges. So a lot of what is presented just doesn't fit our model. And so if we can, that was our call to action, was, let's start presenting more, so there's more to choose from, and we can keep sharing. And that's the other thing I love about advising, is we all share, and it's to make every all of our offices and institutions better. So those are the things I'm hopeful for. I think we're moving in the right direction, and so I think that's it's a good thing.

Ryan Scheckel  
So Julie, your bio mentioned that you're a reader, a baker, a sports fan and a Broadway lover. Is there any book or show or, you know, sort of entertainment story that's influenced your leadership style.

Julie Montgomery  
Yes, I love going to the Aaron off downtown for shows. My daughter and I both love, love Broadway shows. And so I would so my three favorite shows would be Les Mis wicked and Hamilton. And in all of those, like in Les Mis Jean Valjean, he's, I'm a servant leader, and he's compassionate, and he's even though he had been in prison, but he was trying to help his family. He has a lot of integrity and lifting people up to have a better life. So I find for myself. I mean, that's all I want to do for my students is move you, help you achieve your goal. What is your journey? And do whatever I can to help you on that road to achieve. You know, if you want to be a nurse or you want to be an engineer, whatever that is, or, you know, transferring, we work a lot with transfer. Next is wicked. And with wicked, you have Elphaba and Glinda, and they form that bond. They see the best in each other, and leadership is rooted in empathy. And again, they see the best in people, so when you can't see it in yourself. So I think a lot of times with students, you have to give them those little aha moments. So because they don't maybe hear good things about themselves, because maybe their family's not invested in their education. So I think in Wicked they gave that to each other, like I see the best in you, even though maybe you're not doing the right things, or I can see you're trying really hard. And so I think that's really important with students. And then Hamilton, oh, that one so full of ambition and mentorship resilience. You know, he empowered others. And so the music's amazing. So I love to empower others I love, and I don't think I love leading people, but I don't need the title. I just always somebody tell me this weekend, they're like, you just always seem like you're in charge. And I'm like, well, thank you. But it is I always do what to help people, constantly planning whatever role I'm in. I am there to help. So I think with Hamilton, that shaping one's story is also really important with Hamilton, because he was, you know, he wanted to be in the room where it happened, and he did everything he needed to do to to make a great Treasury for our country. So I think of those three shows, I think that's why they they speak to me, because they do show a lot of leadership, a lot of empathy and helping other people. So those, those are my three favorite and I can see them many times, and I have so I new rule is I have to only see new shows because it's very tempting to continue to watch all the old shows.

Matt Markin  
So for sure, I mean, I've seen Hamilton twice, but I feel like if it comes around again in my area, I'll see it a third time too.

Julie Montgomery  
Yeah, it's so good. The music is so good, it is.

Matt Markin  
And to kind of tie into that. And also, to wrap up with this amazing interview, if you're advising office was a Broadway show, what would the title be?

Julie Montgomery  
Oh, well, it really depends on the cycle that we're in. So if we're in what we lovingly call July, August, then, because it's not fun, I would call that one registration a survival musical, because you just cannot wait for it to be over, because it is just so busy. We don't have a registration deadline, per se, so we were registering students up to the first day of class. So it's, it's something, and then, if so, then the other months of the year, I would say our title can be the journey forward, rooted and rising students, growing because someone believed in them. So, lot more uplifting. But yes, just a couple months out of our year, our survival mode.

Matt Markin  
I would see both of those Broadway shows. I feel so many will connect with that first one.

Julie Montgomery  
Though, we all have our cycles that are yes, are rough because you register a lot earlier, correct? You're like registering now for fall.

Matt Markin  
Well, we just notified students that the class schedule is available and that their registration dates are posted, but we won't start registration to, like, the end of April, but we're already seeing our schedules fill up. Because now that those are available, it's like, oh, now I want to meet with my advisor, like, meet with us for other stuff too, not just classes, but it is what it is yes, Julie, this has been a fun, informative interview. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Julie Montgomery  
Well, thank you for inviting me. I feel very privileged to be able to to be part of this great podcast.