Navigating Complexity: Where Theory Meets Practice - Adventures in Advising

Matt and Ryan welcome Dr. Lindsey Grites Weeks from Neumann University for a wide-ranging conversation on advising, identity, and the future of the field. Lindsey discusses advising nursing students as a “non-nurse,” building trust through authenticity, and using meaning-making to help students navigate challenges and setbacks. Lindsey reflects on growing up around advising through her father’s legacy, and why, in a world of rapid change, relationship and empathy remain irreplaceable. The conversation also dives into the importance of honoring advising history and what NACADA's Advising Community restructure could unlock for new connections across the profession. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello. This is the Adventures in Advising podcast, and this is Matt Markin along with Ryan Scheckel. Thanks, as always for tuning in. And we're recording this in early March. And Ryan, last week, you made a just a few mile trip right to Houston with a pack of Chips Ahoy to fuel you.

Ryan Scheckel  
Something like that. I had the unique opportunity that I don't know I'll ever have again, with a recruiting event in El Paso and a conference basically 36 hours later in Houston, and I was like, I don't know that I'll ever have the chance or the opportunity or reason to drive the width of the state of Texas. And so I did that. I only got pulled over once right just just east of Sierra Blanca. Somebody thought I might have been going a little bit over the posted limit, but I was like, 82 now we had a great time and and I was really excited to meet with my health professions advising colleagues at the Texas Association of advisors, health professions, or tap conference in Houston. And had a great time doing that.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I saw your Facebook post with the the map of how long it was going to take. I'm like, Okay, I wouldn't drive, but all right.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, you know, when I was looking at it, I was like, rental cars and airports. I just, I felt like that was the best of the options. But I also know that if presented the opportunity again, I might try a different approach.

Matt Markin  
Live and learn, I guess. Well, with distance, internet's great because we can chat with colleagues and don't have to go rent a car and go drive 36 hours or longer. So let's bring on our guests. And that's Dr. Lindsey Grites Weeks. Lindsey, welcome.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for our conversation.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, yeah. So Lindsey, you're an academic advisor with at Neumann University. And you began your career in higher ed in 2010 you transitioned to academic advising in 2021 you hold a BA in dance and English from Rutgers University and MA in dance education from New York University, a PhD in dance from Temple University, and upon completion of doctoral studies in 2021 Lindsey came to Neumann University as an academic advisor for first year students in the university's Advising Center, where Lindsay then began and moved to nursing in 2023 and currently advises undergraduate nursing students, teaches first year student success courses and serves on university committees for academic advising, for student development and student athlete wellness. Lindsey is also an active member of NACADA. She has served as chair of the advising community for theory, philosophy and history since 2023 and has participated in the region two mentoring program since 2022 her scholarly interests include students lived experiences for their education through a phenomenological lens and impacts of advisors, lived experiences on academic advising, philosophy and practice outside her role as an academic advisor. And Lindsey also teaches ballet coaches gymnastics and volunteers with dance education organizations in New Jersey. I have a feeling we're gonna have a fun conversation today. Lindsey, I hope so. But of course, with the speed of interest in advising expand upon that bio, tell us more about your journey, your origin story in higher ed.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Yes, so I did always want to be in higher education. My father's made his entire career in higher education, and that was obviously an important influence on me. And my original intent was not despite in my bio, having multiple post secondary degrees in dance, my original intention was to pursue a PhD in literature. So my my original intention was to be a literature professor, and when I got to college, and I was I was pursuing both majors, I started teaching dance, and I really fell in love with with that. I'd always loved dance from a very young age. I'd always been involved in dance, and when I started teaching dance, I really felt like that was what I wanted to be teaching, rather than English literature. So I just kind of continued in in that pathway that led me to my master's degree. Because at the end, getting towards the end of my senior year of college, I felt like I knew the the content, right? I knew that the movement material, but I didn't really know the pedagogy, and I didn't really feel prepared on the teaching side of things. So I applied to Master's programs in dance education. I went directly into my master's and then from there, I started teaching in in private studios, in kind. Community organizations, things like that, but always with the idea that I was going to go back and do my PhD in dance, which I did. So I took about a three year break and then started doctoral studies. And through my doctoral studies, I did a phenomenological case study with first year students. My first year experience in college dance had been very impactful on me, and I just kind of was fascinated by that transition point in students lives. It's such a pivotal experience, and so I wanted to investigate that further. And that was what I did through my through my doctoral work. And as I was pursuing my doctorate, I was adjuncting. I was a, you know, graduate teaching assistant for a while as an academic intern, I was adjuncting at the University where I did my doctorate in a community college. And, you know, all all of this building towards what I thought would be pursuing a faculty role in dance, that's what I thought all this was was building towards. And then I got to the end, and I defended my dissertation, and I started looking at job descriptions, and my gut feeling was that I just didn't want that anymore. That wasn't what I wanted anymore. And what I wanted was to be able to have the experience, that sort of relational experience that I had with my case study population, but I wanted to do that as a job. And so, so they thought, okay, how can I? How can I focus on that? And that led me to start applying for jobs in academic advising. And that led me, led me to Neumann University, first advising, first year students across, you know, variety of major so in a kind of generalist capacity, and then moving into College of Nursing and kind of defining a more specialist role. Sure.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, you mentioned your dad. And for anyone who hasn't connected the dots, you know, Tom Grites is a foundational figure in modern academic advising, especially here in the States. How did you navigate finding your own voice in a field where your last name already has all that context, right?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Well, so we have a saying that we say at the dance studio that I teach at that we say jokingly, which is no pressure, just be perfect. So that was, you know, my whole career in ballet had led to this, to this point in time, but it in so many ways. I have definitely been influenced by my father, by his career and by his passion for academic advising. So I would say that I'm still, I'm still negotiating that, I'm still navigating that, you know, finding my own voice, but I think that, I think that my dad and I are fascinated by the same questions, and we just investigate the answers in slightly different ways. So he comes from a very strong social and behavioral science background, whereas I tend to look at things from more of a phenomenological perspective and also a somatic perspective, kinesthetic perspective, but we're both fascinated by how people learn and the meanings that students make out of their educational experiences, and how We can help them as advisors, kind of navigate finding their place in the world and what they want to do and the impact that they want to have. So I think we, I think I definitely got that drive in, that ambition to ask that type of question from my father.

Matt Markin  
I guess kind of related to that. I know Ryan, I were thinking of like, what can we ask Lindsey? One of the questions was, like growing up like, Was your dad always talking about higher ed in front of you? Or were there any lessons about advising that maybe you absorbed informally from being around maybe such conversations?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Oh, absolutely yes. So thinking about just kind of looking back on different experiences that particularly me and my sister had as kids being on campus with my dad, we would go, you know, visit him at at his office. He would take us swimming at the at the pool. And then later on, when I was in high school, I participated in the oratorio society on on the campus at the school that he works, and I worked in the campus bookstore, so, so we were there a lot, you know, for, like, through, through the years. And I was thinking about how when my sister and I would be wanting to go to the pool, we'd be there to go swimming, and we'd be trying to get my dad to, you know, to, like, take us to the pool. And it seemed like every single person on that campus who he would run into, he would have to have a an in depth conversation with. You'd have to stop and chat and talk to, you know, anybody we ran into, student colleague, whoever it was, really Come on, Dad, like we was just want to go swimming here. But that, in retrospect, that ability to connect. Connect and to really give time and effort, you know, in a very focused way, to all of the you know, the people that you're interacting with, whether it's your students or, you know, your colleagues, that that is a really unique quality to have, and something that I want to emulate. I hope that you know my students and my colleagues feel that you know that they have my undivided attention when they want to talk to me, and you know that that I'm that I'm giving them my full self in that moment and so so that that pattern of connection and that that attention, I feel like was was very, very strong, obviously saw that in, in retrospect, in the moment. It was just like frustration of like, you know, come on, can we move this along, but we're trying to go to the pool exactly or or later. When I was working in the bookstore, he would have been in orientation all day. I would have been working in the bookstore all day. He was right, right home. Come on

Ryan Scheckel  
with my life. Yeah, my wife and I both advise for listeners and viewers of this podcast. I think I've mentioned it off and on, but I sometimes wonder what the takeaway lessons about academic advising our kids will have. Because, wow, we can talk some shop for sure.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Yes, well, and and there were, there are also, you know, things that I didn't recognize or realize until, until, you know, in retrospect, one of them was my own college decision process. And you know, I didn't find out until years afterwards that he thought I had made the wrong choice of what school to go to. And, you know, I asked this, you know, why didn't you, why didn't you say anything? And his response was, what was your decision to make? And it was the same with, you know, some, some parents might have said, you know, you can't, what are you going to do with a dance major? What are you going to do with an English major? What's, you know, what's the practical use of that? And I didn't have any sort of pressure or anything from my father about choosing a different major, or, you know, that it wasn't practical, or anything like that. And and I'd asked him about that at one point later on too, and he said he'd seen so many students go into a career path or into a major based on parental pressure and not on their intrinsic interest in the material. And it's just so hard to to stick with it when, when you don't have that intrinsic motivation for it. So so that being being able to follow what I was interested in, what I was passionate about was, was very important.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, yeah, I don't sometimes we joke that our kids aren't have a chance, and we're at that point now with our our son, who's a junior, and we're like, so for reals, though, what are you doing? Like, what's going on here? That that balance of, you know, wanting to really engender that developmental, sort of self authorship approach, of this is your story. You need to be writing it, but then also be like, are you even like cracking the book? So we'll see how it goes. You know, sort of moving into an advising capacity, though you're you're stepping into that role with nursing students, and nursing isn't in your background, and that's not part of your story. Did you have any doubts in the beginning of this? And how are you feeling about your space now working with those students?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Oh, absolutely, yes, yeah, when I first moved into nursing, it was there definitely doubts and just feeling of of imposter, ism of, you know, what am I? What am I? What am I doing here? What is my what is my value here? And so I, one of my colleagues in nursing, had said to me very early on, we were talking about a simulation experience, and they were kind of doing a debrief on a simulation experience, and she said that one of the most important thing for things for nursing students to learn is the limit and scope of their practice and what they're responsible for and where they need to call in another member of their medical team, right? So where they're where those limits are and where those boundaries are, and so it's the same for me. I'm not teaching them how to do a head to toe assessment. I'm not teaching them how to take a blood pressure. They don't need me for that. They have wonderful faculty members who are in charge of the content, and so I can be in charge of helping them navigate, helping them see the meaning and the value in what they're studying, and the way all of the pieces integrate together in, in, you know, in, instead of being focused on on what the content of those classes are, I can give them more of the big picture.

Matt Markin  
Now, of course, like with with nursing, highly technical, high. Stakes discipline. But I guess whether you're advising nursing student, advising first year students, how do you go about trying to build credibility and trust with your students? 

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
So definitely that that authenticity piece of you know, not going to, you know, I'm not going to be anything other than straightforward about the background that I'm coming to and that I'm coming to them from and and, you know what I what I'm, what my background experiences have been, I'm not going to to, you know, assume knowledge that I don't have. So that is a that's a big part of it. I find that being very thorough with them, and trying to give them that big picture is really helpful to them, and being able to see beyond, you know, especially in first year, they don't really necessarily make the connections to what from what they're studying in their anatomy and physiology and their chemistry classes and their microbiology how that applies to the practice of nursing, and so being able to make those connections as clear and tangible as I can, and how what they're learning does have impact, you know, to their later clinical experiences and will have impact to their later experiences of taking the NCLEX and going into professional practice, so just being as as clear with those connections as I can be, so that they can see how everything connects together. And, you know, just being that, being being that sounding board for when they don't understand or when they are struggling, you know, being that that sympathetic, empathetic listener for them and you know and and making them feel seen, making them feel, you know, feel valued and and understood in their moments of doubt and their moments of confusion and their moments of struggle, because it is A highly rigorous curriculum, and it's high expectations right off the start. You know, right from the start, it's high expectations. So, so just being, being understanding of that, but also, you know, helping them see their their way through and their pathway forward.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, it would be really easy to turn this into a pre nursing nursing school advising podcast episode right now. That's so much of our struggle in our office as well. The majority of the students we work with on a daily basis are pursuing nursing school entry too. But you know, I think absolutely that sort of clarity in the informational context, also the really empathetic and available sort of relational skills too. But are there any other advising skills that really you found matter a lot in nursing that might surprise folks who aren't in the health professions well?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
So, so I think that coming to coming to nursing from a totally different lens lets you, let you see those sort of creative possibilities. And actually, my dean has said this to me before that, you know, there's a certain amount of, you know, this is, this is the way that it's that it's done, right? There's a certain amount of that, and that structure is, is very important, but also somebody coming from outside of that might be able to see things in a slightly different way, and, you know, and see a solution that maybe somebody who's been within that structure for their whole career might not, might not see it. So not viewing coming from a different background as a deficit, but viewing it as a potential strength. And also looking at the curriculum, I come to it like, obviously, it is very structured and very linear, right? That's that, you know, is very clear, but it's also cyclical, and so getting students to recognize that you know what they're learning at one stage is going to come back later on, and also that you know the skills that they're building at one level when they go to the next, even though it's different skills they've already developed, that muscle memory like, you know, In sometimes it's even just just, you know, thinking back like, you know, two semesters ago, you didn't know how to do this particular skill, and now it's second nature to you, right? That will happen with the later skills too, if you give it that that time and that consistency that you gave to the earlier skills. So, so helping them see that kind of cyclical patterning, as well as the linear kind of stair stepped and scaffolded structure of the curriculum.

Matt Markin  
And I want to go back to when your previous answers, because you were talking about like the challenges and maybe failures that might occur. So in those situations. Situations. How are you? How do you feel like you help a nursing students navigate maybe that failure piece, the maybe even program dismissal conversations, while also having that care and honesty with them, right?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
So I think first, just an acknowledgement of where they are in that moment, you know, an acknowledgement that it's really, really hard, that you know that the moment that they're facing is really hard. It is a grief moment they're, you know, grieving, a pathway that they thought they were on that's that's then closed off to them. Another one of my colleagues always says, like, we never tell someone they're never going to be a nurse. And so that's one of the reframes, is that you know this is one particular pathway in nursing or in health care that isn't available to you in the way that you thought that it that it would be. But it's not the only pathway that there is. And if your goal is still to be a nurse, there are other pathways that you can pursue, and we can redirect you into another major that can build to that eventually, and that you know, maybe, you know, maybe coming to this material again in a couple years, after some you know, different life experiences, you know, maybe you'll find it and encounter it in a new way. And it's the same with with the course repetition, or having to withdraw from a course and repeat a course. You know that reframing of even if you, if you stayed in it and you just barely got by right, the depth of your knowledge, wouldn't, you would maybe not have the confidence in it that you might gain if you were to repeat the course. So if you're really struggling with this material, and it's it's just not it's not sinking in, it's really not working, maybe revisiting it is not a setback as much as it is an opportunity to to learn it in a more full way, so that you can finish the course and finish the program with confidence in that material, you know, and go into NCLEX and go into, you know, the next stages of your career, without, with that confidence and with that, you know, feeling that I really mastered this, not just I passed the class, but I really mastered this in an in depth way.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, you're talking about the, you know, acknowledging the realities of what it's like to be in that moment, wherever that student might be, and and we mentioned advising from a phenomenological lens, expand a little bit more on what that looks like in day to day practice. Sure.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
So one of the things that really drew me to phenomenology was this holistic approach to lived experience. So you know, my lived experience isn't just what I think about something or how I feel about something, but it's my sensory and somatic experience of that thing. So that'll be something that you know that can come up, especially in those tough conversations. I always think of it as, like my empathy, like we talk about empathy as your ability to put yourself in someone else's place or in someone else's story. And to me, that's a pre reflective experience. So it's not, it's not a I didn't go into my brain and think, Oh, well, if I was in this situation, these are the feelings I would be having, and these are the thoughts I would be having. It's, you know, I see your physical you know, your your the tears in your eyes, and I see this, the stress and the tension in your body. And my body responds way before my brain would have that, you know, when it would construct that story. And, you know, go through all of those, all of those steps, my mirror neurons are already firing. I'm already responding to you somatically, even if I'm not consciously drawing my attention to it. And so I, you know that that piece that somatic and sensory, perceptive piece is important in phenomenology, because you are, you know, trying to grasp a total picture of what an experience is, or what a phenomenon is, which is not just our thoughts about it, but there's, you know, more, more layers to it than that.

Matt Markin  
I know for sure now having like, an arts education background, do you feel having that arts education lens brings things to academic advising that maybe we don't talk about enough,

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
I definitely see, I definitely see a lot of parallels between choreography and and and advising, one of the things my my my job as a choreographer, is to see the big picture and the tiniest details at the same time. So in order for me to in order for me to get that big, big picture to work, I have to. To make sure every little thing is, is, is working properly, right? So, and I think that that imagery and that metaphor has a lot to do with, you know, we might be solving a very small detail issue in a session, but it's part of a larger picture of that student's experience. So being able to keep both in mind and to kind of, you know, ebb and flow between the two, I think, is helpful for my lens and helping the student, but also hopefully helping the student see that as well, especially in those challenge moments that that's not the you know that that's not the totality of everything that they're experiencing that you know, it's one one bad exam grade that they can recover from, or one repeated class that they can, you know, move forward from, to be able to go back and forth between the details of what we're doing in this moment and then what it means in a broader in A broader scheme. And I also think that you know two of the foundational things in dance that you know we're we're really just encouraged to focus on our adaptability and professionalism. Dance is very small world if you get a reputation for being difficult to work with. You're not going to work, you know. And then the adaptability piece, every choreographer works differently. Every teacher says things differently or explains things differently, and it's on you as a dancer to figure out how you're going to work within that. And if I could give my nursing students any skills, if I could just wave a magic wand and give them, you know, give them these skills, adaptability and professionalism are the skills that I would pick.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I was talking with some folks just today. We had an on campus event, big group of prospective students and family members and guests and, you know, presenting with a microphone on a stage. And then someone was talking about how they got nervous and, and they were like, Yeah, remember that time you introduced the wrong person who was supposed to be next? And I was like, I once saw a theater production five times on campus, and I started to pay attention to, like, the little differences in the performance and and just how they very confidently and professionally adapted and rolled with it, and and I know that so many advisors who are listening or watching this are going to be like, I wish my students would adapt if they would roll with the challenge or the uncertainty that that they'd be, you know, as the stable part of their lives, as opposed to us having to adopt that work, for sure, but I'm curious, just on like a personal level, because this could really easily become a conversation about the arts and academic environment too. Have you ever found that your identity as a dancer and your identity as an advisor intersected in unexpected ways.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
They definitely do. One of the like very simple ones, is that there there are certain tasks that me and my very close colleague, we refer to as my choreography. So when there's one, one day when we had clinical skills launch in multiple rooms and, you know, multiple moving parts, groups of students moving around. And we lost one of our rooms. And so it was like, oh, we need to remap how, where everybody's going to go. And when I was like, Guys, I've got this moving people in time and space. Totally fine. I got this, I figured it. And they're like, how did you do that? So that's, I was like, that is just choreography. That is, that's, that's what I do. So so things like that. But having that, having the lens of an artistic approach, brings in that creative problem solving piece that I talked about before. And so, you know, so I think that I will always approach from that, from that side of things, just because that's, that is what I'm used to doing. But that's this one specific example. I think the in the broader sense, it's art is about meaning making, you know, that's, that's, it's, you know, esthetic experience helps us understand the world around us and you know, and communicate with each other. So being able to to help students make sense of their educational experiences and make meaning from them, and sometimes and sometimes, reframe the meanings that they are making, like when, when there are challenges, I think that's crucial to who I am as an advisor, and that does come from from art making.

Matt Markin  
I love that how you say the art is about the meaning making and definitely, definitely connects to academic advising and working with our students. Yeah, now, with your experience in advising in higher ed within NACADA, and especially as chair of the theory, philosophy and history advising community, to you, is there anything that feels most urgent right now in our field?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Right. So, I think that obviously we're coping with really rapid changes on multiple fronts. So demographic shifts are that are happening in terms of the number of students pursuing College, technological shifts that are happening AI and, you know, other technologies, political policy changes, all of that feels very rapid and intense and so. So I think focusing on the human element and the empathy element and the relational element of what we do is super important, because those things are irreplaceable that you know that relationship focus is irreplaceable to me, and I don't think that we'll be able to move forward without strengthening and emphasizing those those pieces.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, we were, we talked before the three of us, but also Lindsay and I about also humanizing the where we've come from, you know, where we are often grasping for, like, what's next, and what does this mean and what's going to happen tomorrow in the face of so much change and uncertainty, it's a very personal feeling, very real, lived experience, and sometimes knowing that past the history of it all and the people who are a part of it, that's also been a bit of your purview as chair of theory, philosophy and history, and of course, you got to live a lot of the history at home, too. I'm kind of curious as you look ahead to the next few years, anything as far as priorities that you feel we should be focusing on in a sort of retrospective historical sense.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Yeah, so when we have talked before about the historical milestones that are coming up in the next few years. The the 50th anniversary of NACADA as an as an organization, is coming up in a couple of years. And so, you know, I think celebrating how far the organization has come, but how far the field of advising has come over that, over that context of history, certainly will be a priority. It's, it's something that TPH has been working on in this kind of, this end of, end of my term as chair, it has been a big topic of conversation and a thread that we really don't want to lose, especially as we think about questions of professionalization. And you know, how do we, how do we support that process through learning about our history and where we where our ideas and our practices have come from?

Matt Markin  
Well, extended time as chair.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
yes, I'm in my third year of a two year term. 

Matt Markin  
But speaking of being in that advising community, I you know sometimes terminology is something that you know might scare people, and hearing the word theory may sound dry to them or intimidating, or that's not me, or, you know, whatever it might be for people that may not feel like that's for them. How do you how do you make theory feel more accessible to individuals?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
That is, that's one of the things that I that I really do love about phenomenology, and the specific sort of area of phenomenology that I investigated through my dissertation was phenomenology of practice. And the kind of originator of that phrase, Max van Manen writes about phenomenology as being sucked up in fascination. And so I think that experience of fascination that could, you know, that could be, anybody can participate in that, right, anybody can be a part of that. So, breaking, breaking down that that fear factor of, you know, that intimidation factor is, is something that I think we can as, that I have tried to do in my time as CPH chair, by just, just, it doesn't have to be the full extent research, scholarly paper version first, it could just be a question that fascinates you. It could just be something that you want to know more about. And it could just start small. With going to a presentation or having a conversation with a colleague or reading an article that you don't have to dive to do the furthest extent first, but it's okay, okay to start with something small and then figure out where that leads you, and then that that doesn't have to be inaccessible or scary, and also just, you know, coming into, coming into NACADA, my first ever official experience with NACADA, because prior to 2021 those were unofficial experiences of NACADA, but my first official experience of NACADA was a TPH event, and it was just like, it sounded really interesting to me, and I wanted to, I wanted to go to it and learn more, and to immediately be in a zoom, meeting with, you know, members of the fields who, you know, who are these foundational figures, and you know, somebody Who is brand new, that's a really unique and wonderful opportunity. And so just I have tried, in my, in my time as chair, to to encourage people to, you know, to to participate in that way, if they're interested. You know, I think it's, I think everybody's lived experience can give, you know, give us more insight into what we're doing, into our practices, into how we navigate the challenges that we were just talking about. You know, hearing, hearing from more voices can only, can only be a good thing.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, and I'll, I'll slip, slip in a little tease for folks who like if you've been in advising for a little bit and you feel like you haven't found answers to some of the most nagging questions about why we do what we're doing, or whatever those answers might be in the very philosophy and history areas, and I appreciate the reminder about adopting a position of fascination, especially with all the change and all the things. It's really easy to see those from a lens of trepidation and concern and risk, and it's good to be reminded that there, there's still some joy in learning, and we may not have it all figured out. There may be new meaning to be made, but as an organization, NACADA is changing, and the structure for advising communities is going to look different. Can you tell us a little bit about how you see that affecting the fields of theory, philosophy and history and academic advising?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Yes, so theory, philosophy and history, advising community as it currently, this current iteration of it is going to shift gears as a as of annual conference. This upcoming annual conference, there's a new grouping, or new heading for theoretical, theoretical and philosophical approaches of advising. So the the restructure has moved the advising communities from 39 separate communities into 16 sort of umbrella communities. So it's not directly mapped, but the most kind of logical match is for theory and philosophy and history to go into theoretical and philosophical approaches. One of the things that has come up within the TPH community is just keeping that thread of the appreciation and celebration of history, as you know, either kind of sub grouping with under that heading, or, you know, having specific events geared towards history, not letting that that piece drop, not letting that thread drop. So I think that's going to be, I think that's going to be important to have that group who's really dedicated in that area to continue in in kind of subgroup of that theoretical and philosophical approaches group. The other aspect of the restructuring is that in the current model, with the 39 communities, members are limited to choosing four that they're affiliated with, and in the new structure, there is no limit. So you can be affiliated with as many groups, any and all, and so there's hopefully the potential for connections that maybe wouldn't have made in in the past structure, if you were sort of just limiting yourself to the four that you had selected and not really seeing what the others were offering, so that could be a potential new, new way to make connections between different groups.

Matt Markin  
And as we kind of wind down with our conversation, with your crystal ball when you're looking ahead, what are you hoping to continue to contribute when we look. Get the future of academic advising, let's say, in your own distinct way.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Well, so I am always extremely, extremely proud to be a part of my dad's legacy in whatever way I can. So service to NACADA was obviously one of those. That was what led me for to to pursuing the chair position for for TPH, but really in in any way, both in my role at my university, but through other avenues of NACADA, I'm I'm very open to to service and, you know, and helping out in whatever way that I can within the organization. I don't have a clear cut, specific role or anything like that in mind for myself. It's, it's much more free form than that, but just giving back to the organization that has meant so much to to my dad, and, you know, just being a part of it. And, you know, I've always like since I joined NACADA, one experience that I always have at every conference is someone will, without fail, come up to me and be like, I remember the first time I met your dad and tell me this, you know this story, and all of those stories are about connection. You know? They are about connection, and they are about having your experiences as an advisor, mirror to in somebody else, who you know, who you who understands what you're what you're doing, what your goals are, what your purpose is, and the meanings that you're making from your experience. From your experiences. And so if I can be that for another colleague in whatever capacity that is, I am, I feel honored and privileged to do that awesome.

Matt Markin  
If you had $1 for every time someone came up to you, I remember the first time I met your dad.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Always it's the the conversation is always, you know, it's always about connection, and it's always about, you know, feeling that you know, that you could have this in depth conversation with somebody and just, you know, and just connect right away. And so it's one of the things that I try. I really do try to emulate. I hope that my colleagues and my students feel that way about me.

Matt Markin  
Well, I remember the first time we met at a conference a couple years ago, and you brought up your dad to be about listening to the podcast.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Yes, yes.

Matt Markin  
But what extra questions to throw out to throw out to you, because we've asked any of our guests. You know, I don't think there's a peak time nowadays in our jobs, every day seems to be a peak time no matter what what do you do for your wellness?

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
That that is a great question, and it's part of why I even embarking on a second career. Never really left my first career. So I still, I still teach ballet, I still teach dance two days a week, and coach gymnastics one day a week, and so that is always ballet. Like I'll tell my dance students this all the time, a ballet bar just always feels like coming home. It just, you know, it's been a part of my life for my entire life. And so that is definitely one of them, also, you know, like, love literature. I love reading. So that's, that's another, that's another thing that I do for myself and just just walking, you know, but I do, I do. Am one. I am one of those people who feels like they need to move to be able to to think and to process. So I'm a very kinesthetic learner and thinker, and so, yeah, I have to be, I have to be moving well.

Matt Markin  
Lindsay, thank you so much for being on the podcast. And I knew this was going to be a fun, fun interview. Thank you again.

Lindsey Grites Weeks  
Thank you so much for having me on.