Advising Across Canada: Perspectives from the Field - Adventures in Advising

In this episode of Adventures in Advising, Ryan heads north for a lively conversation with Canadian advising leaders Aysha Haq, Elizabeth Venton-Parnell, Jing Yao, and Shoshana Kalfon. Together, they explore what makes academic advising in Canada distinct, from provincial policies and immigration changes to holistic student support, institutional pressures, and the magic of those “light bulb” student moments.

The panel also digs into the evolving role of the Canada Advising Community, the NACADA restructure, place-based advising, and why connection across institutions matters more than ever. Whether you advise in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, California, or somewhere in the academic wilderness beyond, this episode is a thoughtful, funny, and practical reminder that advising may look different across borders, but the heart of the work travels well. 🧭

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Transcript

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, hello there again. Advising Adventurers, my name is Ryan Sheckle, and welcome to the Adventures in Advising podcast, another episode where we get to talk about all the amazing things that are happening in academic advising, gather perspectives from our friends and colleagues from around the world, and ultimately think differently about the work that we do, see things from different perspectives and angles, and maybe realize that we're not alone in some of the challenges and frustrations we might find along the way. One of my absolute joys in my time working in academic advising is the range of perspectives and people that I'm introduced to, and today is no different. We have some fantastic guests from from Canada and different institutions and roles and places, and and I'm looking forward to that conversation, but no matter where you're at in the world, no matter what you're doing in higher education or academic advising, we just want to say thank you for taking the time to engage with the podcast to just be a part of this conversation, we'd love to hear from you anytime you have thoughts, questions, you know, comment on videos or or audio postings. We would so appreciate the engagement we get from our audience, and and how it informs how we approach our time in this space. So, thanks again for joining us, and for being a part of the Adventures in Advising podcast, but let's bring our guests on. We have a panel of folks today, and it's so much fun when we have a range of voices, and I'm going to give everyone a chance to introduce themselves, sort of individually, as we go through things, just to share who you are, you know what your role is at, you know your institution, and a little bit about maybe your journey and how you got to that position. So, Aisha, let's start with you. Tell us a little bit about what's going on with you, and, and maybe even a little bit about how this this conversation got started.

Aysha Haq  
Sure, of course. Hi, my name is Aysha Haq, and I'm at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, which is in Vancouver lower mainland in British Columbia. I'm currently the chair of the Canada Advising Community, and just in one of our community chats, we were discussing just ways that we can reach out and connect with others in Nakata, and so we thought we would try the Adventures in Advising podcast, and have an opportunity to talk and to tell folks a little bit more about ourselves. Yeah, and I should have mentioned that I am the an arts degree advisor here at Kwantlen, working primarily with Bachelor of Arts degree students.

Ryan Scheckel  
Fantastic. Well, welcome Elizabeth. You tell us a little bit about yourself.

Elizabeth Venton-Parnell  
Absolutely. Hi everyone, my name is Elizabeth Venton-Parnell. She, her, they, them pronouns. I'm an academic advisor at the School of Hospitality and tourism at Southern Alberta Institute for Technology in Calgary. Before starting, you know, my time as an advisor, I spent a lot of years occupying roles that included peer mentorship or organizing events for students in post-secondary institutions, and it was really through those experiences that really helped me find my passion for helping enhancing the student experience, so whether that's creating fun events for them, getting to know them or using some of that policy or sort of procedure knowledge to help them navigate their time at school. So I'm excited to be joining and giving some insight today.

Ryan Scheckel  
That's great that you're here. Jing, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jing Yao  
Hi everyone, I am Jing Yao. I go by she, her for my pronoun. I am an academic advisor in Faculty of Arts at University of British Columbia, also in Vancouver, same as Asha from Canada. So I actually started my advising journey as an international student immigration advisor, and then at that time, my previous institution, we got a, I got a second position to, to be trained for academic advising, and then through that training and that secondment, I really found my passion for academic advising, because I felt. Out academic advising could involve more options for students, just more exploration with students. So I found that was more interesting to me. And then later on, I really wanted to work for a bigger university, which is UBC, where I have my master's degree, because UBC also offers more degree options and program options, more courses, so that means I will have more exploration together with students, so that's how I ended up being here.

Ryan Scheckel  
Great. Welcome, and least, but not last, last but not least, Shoshana, tell us about yourself.

Shosana Kalfan  
Hi, thank you for having me. So, my name is Shoshana Kalfon. I work at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. I have a 30 year span career in academic advising. I started my professional life as a teacher on contracts that ended, and at the time I was 28 I really didn't have any computer experience, so this was like in the late 90s. Did an office technology program where I learned how to type, believe it or not, at 28 and I had to do a stage, and I said, you know what, let me go back, I've graduated from Concordia, so let me go back to Concordia, see what type of office work I could get. Met someone there who was really a mentor, who then called me back six months later and said, with your teaching background and your new computer skills, I think you'd be great. Let's, we have to put this in the timeframe, let's, you know, come work and do some advising, and so that's how I got into it. You know, we say advising is teaching, and so for me it was an easy transition, definitely working with older students, I enjoy more than working with the younger kids, but so, yeah, I've been doing this for 30 years and have seen a lot of change, and so, yeah, I thank you for having me.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, thanks for being here, and you know, we're going to span a wide range of topics in our conversation today, but one of the things that was sort of initially addressed was the advising community, the Canada Advising Community, and its role a little bit in Nakata. What can you tell us about your experiences with that advising community, and what it was doing prior to this restructure that quite a few people have heard about, what was happening with it, and what are your perspectives on that advising community? Because we'll definitely talk about the restructure in a little bit, but sort of, where was it, and where was it coming in from, and what was your experiences like with

Aysha Haq  
it? So I joined the Canada Advising Community in the pandemic because you know we were sitting at home, there was nothing to do, and no way to connect with people, and this was a great way to try to reach out to others in my own community. I had been a member of NACADA for many, many years, but I did want to, I did want to, you know, connect with folks who were advising in the way that I was advising, using, you know, terms I was using, and working with Canadian students as well. And so, for me, that was through this community. I had just joined the community, and very quickly after that, there was this talk of restructure.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, it was a great place to meet other advisors, and with the pandemic coming in and building community, and that sort of stuff?

Aysha Haq  
Really, that's what it was all about. And so that's kind of where we were at. And then we were, yeah, given this restructure, and we're sort of trying to figure out our way to move forward in the new restructure.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah.

Shosana Kalfan  
Maybe just to give a historical perspective. When I started with NACADA again, I age myself in 95 you know, Canada was an interest group, right? This is what that was the structure then, and I'm not sure how I feel about the restructuring, but I think what is important, though, is that Canada does have a community, and the fact is, advising in Canada is very different than it is in the US. I think that you should point, you know, it's, it's, it is figuring it out, and what we can do with it. We're a large country, and it is very different here, and we, we do things differently, I think, even across the country. So, yeah, it's, but I think it is an opportunity for Canadians to connect with the challenges that we all have.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I'll clue in our viewers and listeners, you know, if you're a member of NACADA, engaging with the global community for academic advising, you may have heard that the advising community structure is changing and consolidating in ways, and you know, I have my own affinity groups. I think it's a fantastic way to really enrich the involvement with an association to find more granular or interest-based ways of engaging. With others around themes, topics, locations, whatever it might be, student populations, but from y'all's perspective, with the restructure, where do communities like the Canada Advising Community fit now? Can you tell us a little bit more what that looks like for people who might be trying to understand place-based advising interests,

Aysha Haq  
that's a tough question, and I think it's one that we've been talking about for the past year, as we've been talking about the restructure coming up, and where are we going to go? We don't want to lose the fact that we've had these connections that we've built, but there's one that's for place-based advising, because it's more about the advisers than the advisee, and so we wanted to make sure we could be in a place where we could still talk about concerns that are very common to us, especially when we know that we have different laws, structures, terminologies, you know, ways of some ways that are different, and of advising, and so, yeah, it's I think it's really important for us to make sure we can still have community moving forward.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, structurally, the name of the group is Place Based Advising. It's a community that focuses on providing academic advising tailored to students, specific geographic contexts, and how that affects advising structures and delivery, and I think you know the type of community that you may have found in the previous structures might just be made broader or bigger, you know, ways to consider the perspectives of folks in other countries. I know so much of our conversations in academic advising, especially in the scholarship of academic advising, are dominated by American US voices, particularly large public doctoral institutions, and, and so you know, everyone understandably has thoughts and feelings about the restructure, but there's there's some chances there for these place-based groups who found affinity that way to also find affinity between them, but still retain their own interest. I'm kind of curious if anyone else had any thoughts or comments on where communities like the Canada advising community could find themselves in this new structural place.

Jing Yao  
I'm not sure whether I have a, like, a better prepared answer for this question, but I'm just looking at a place-based advising this community for the future proposal. I feel like this one kind of categorize just the communities based on the name, but looking at these, like distance advising for online education, global engagement, as well as international student, I feel like these communities, current communities, they can really touch on many countries, many like students, population from across the world, whereas Canada is more focusing on the advising happening within the context of Canada, so I feel like I am not sure I'm on the fence, I'm not sure whether Canada advising can really fit nicely into this community, and I feel like, for me, myself, the main reason why I wanted to join Canada Advising Community is to really find advisors that are based in Canada and working for the Canadian institutions, so that's when we talk about, for example, if I have some questions about, hey, how you run your, for example, workshops, or how you organize, or offer students advising sessions, and how you work around based on some new policies from the province or the federal government, like I can connect with my colleagues, or let's say, if I had a student who wanted to transfer to another university, another province, I did have this case, and I could easily pick up the phone and then call my colleague working in that university to find some information, but I can imagine this kind of deeper or more work-related connections, I mean, like, in this context, it probably won't happen that much if we do not, if we do not have a chance to have this Canada advising community anymore. I don't deny, like, we will work together with colleagues, or, you know, exchange our ideas with colleagues who are in the states or who are from other countries, but I just feel like for this very country-related advising partnership, I'm not sure where will it will go, but I don't know, we will see in the future once this is restructured, some colleagues who are currently in this committee. That you could probably still join the future community, and we still have our, maybe the smaller circle. I'm not sure. So, we'll see.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I'm thinking about sometimes at annual conferences where we have region meetings, and in those region meetings we break up into our states, provinces, whatever it might look like, and, and so you know, these, these changes, the structural changes are part of the higher education story, for sure. We've all been involved in some way in reorganizations, policy changes, curricular changes, and you know, we have a unique opportunity when presented with change to consider how we contribute to helping others navigate that change, but as I was preparing for our conversation today, I noticed that there was a virtual academic advising summit this past April hosted by the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services. I know there's a French version of that abbreviation as well, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023 So, is that an annual sort of thing? How does academic advising fit within that organization?

Shosana Kalfan  
So, I think you're referring to ___, which has a bit of a different structure. They had communities in practice, communities of practice is, I think, what their structure was, and advising was there, but I think even over time that evolved more and I think one of the interesting things of caucus is that it is Canadian, and so we do have that continued connection with with Canadian institutions. So, Jing's comments, you know, Nakata is broken up by regions, right? It's so to say, you know, based on on the place of where you come from, there's still a variety of impacts, how things are done, the cultures, even if it's across the US, there's still different cultures, the way they approach advising and academics, etc. But I think caucus, as well, has evolved, and I think it's because Canada is so large, and things are in such a vast country that advising sometimes falls through the cracks, and that is one thing that that caucus, you know, I think is trying to fill by by being more prevalent in the in the advising space, and so to your previous question, with the structure changing for Nakata, you know, you go with the change, it's happening, so you do your best with it, but you know, I think time will tell how that impacts Canada's presence.

Aysha Haq  
The advising summit, I think that this year was the third one, and Shoshana, we, yeah, that we were participated in that as well, very well attended the advising summit through caucus. We had, I had a lot of folks from my institution attending over the last couple years, and yeah, I think that's what people really liked about it was you were talking to other Canadian advisors and sharing ideas and strategies.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I was looking through the sort of the guide, the booklet, the schedule of events, and saw some familiar, familiar names, folks I'd connected with through Nakata, who work at Canadian institutions, and you know, I just was really encouraged by that. I know sometimes when advisors are looking for answers and community, and you know, needs to be met through organizations. Sometimes, sometimes these organizations, they have their own vibe or flavor, their own thing going on. And what you, what might work best is finding the folks who you know, or who know someone who can connect you with that. So, let's talk about this idea, though, of geographic context, that's the language for the place-based advising community in Nicada. How would you say Canada's geographic context affect advising structures and delivery?

Jing Yao  
So I know in Canada it's actually kind of this really diverse country, and immigration is one of the supporting pillars for this country. So, yeah, there is a large population of international students. I know in recent years the government is trying to cut down the incoming international students, but still international students takes this sorry, the large portion here, and then especially in the previous institution where I worked, where I was working, in order to better support international students, we kind of moved from decentralized advising to more like holistic advising service, so previously initially we're only offering immigration advising, but we found, like, it was not really fully supporting students holistically, so we started to also get training for academic advising, and then offer them both these types of advising, because just give you an example. Like when students are talking about the course planning, what, whatever remaining for their degree, and and then they will talk about, hey, how many courses I can take for each term, and then so that I don't impact my immigration documents and future eligibility for the work permit, all these kind of stuff. We just felt like, okay, it's much more supportive if we could offer the students this type of merge of advising, and then another thing that I can think of is we have indigenous students here, so for the current institution in Faculty of Arts under UBC, we also offer, we have a special group of advisors who are working closely with indigenous students, so that type of advising is more like community feeling, that kind of vibe. They also, they also organize some activities, and to invite them, and so that they can build better rapport with students to encourage students to reach out when they have questions or need any support.

Elizabeth Venton-Parnell  
I think, too, just to add to the idea of geographic context being important too, is as mentioned before, Canada is so such a large country and diverse, the other, the other part that plays into it too, I would say, is the provincial policies and the funding models for post-secondary institution will sometimes kind of shape how advisors approach their work, just for example, in Alberta it's a performance-based funding model, so of course there's a lot of data-driven information that we need to get, so you know, tied to retention and graduations, so how we approach that on top of becoming more centralized and also delving into that holistic approach, it's how do we incorporate that whilst also maintaining some of the goals that some of the provincial provinces are looking for from post secondary institutions as well.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, absolutely, and I'm curious, you know, from from your perspectives, how would you describe the role of academic advising in, like, Canadian institutions compared to what you see in other countries?

Shosana Kalfan  
I think I don't want to say it's not in its infancy, but it's definitely matured over the years compared to the US. I mean, as you mentioned earlier, all the theory, all the, you know, the theory behind advising comes from the states. Canada has the benefit of learning from. We definitely don't have the same pool of resources here, I think, but, but I think the advantage of Canadians having participated in NACADA is that we can take and adapt to our different circumstances. When you look at the schools in the states, and this is just something I've seen at the various Nakata conferences that I've been through, and advising is is a part of the structure. It's for first and foremost, it's there. Students have to go to advising, they need, and Concordia, it's not the same thing, right? Unfortunately, advising isn't mandatory in any way, and you see the impact of students not having access to someone, not being forced to, if you will. So I think the advising that takes place in Canada is very different, depending on the school, depending on the resources, depending on how the institution actually views the importance of advising, you know. Does it see the role that it plays in retention and meeting, you know, some of those provincial changes that happen and whatnot? Because, like, the US, Canada is definitely going through a little blip with many different things, so I think I think advising in Canada has probably, it's evolving, it's maturing. I'm going to venture to say, though, I don't think it's, it's on par with this, the way it is in the US, for sure. We're not there yet.

Ryan Scheckel  
but you mentioned the opportunity to learn from, and I'm kind of curious if you feel there's anything advisors in other countries could learn from advisors in Canada.

Shosana Kalfan  
I would say yes. I mean, we can all learn from each other. It's, it's.. I think, I think maybe there could be a cultural component that comes into play. Canada is so diverse, its population is so diverse. I live in Montreal, you know. We have everybody and anybody welcome, but and so you know, just the cultural sensitivities and all these things that you have to take on as an advisor, and how you approach people has an impact. And I'm sure other countries can learn from us, and we could, we can learn from them, definitely. So it's really too bad that that whole the. International, the global side of Nakata kind of fell to the to the wayside, thanks to Covid, and so hopefully that will be something that that picks up again. From what I understand, it's supposed to next summer, but I think I think what's gone on, you know, could definitely make a difference. It would be great if there was an opportunity to have more connection.

Elizabeth Venton-Parnell  
I think just to add to that is, you know, just where we are at with the advising in Canada. I think something we excel at is looking at those perspectives that diversity and meeting people where they're at, and I think that's part of that holistic advising practice too, is you know we have the policies and procedures, but also seeing the person that's in front of us and really understanding their story, how they got hit. How do we support that? And I think that's something that could be learned from as well, is just, you know, I know we have our systems, but let's take a moment, really bring it back to where we are with the advising, and as well tying it to that holistic part is building that rapport with students, and hopefully doing that early, so that we can maybe shift from, you know, the reactive, like at the end trying to pull the reports and being like hey you need support to more proactive like let's have those ongoing conversations let's really try and get the supports in place early so that you know we can be more proactive rather than reactive but I do want to note that does take time, effort, resources to implement things like that, so again, just acknowledging where every institution is at and finding those ways to implement those efficiencies where we can.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I hear a lot of similar themes, and I'm kind of curious if we can sort of bring it down to a baseline of what, like, a typical workday looks like, you know? Would anybody be open to sharing what's a regular day look like for you as an advisor at a Canadian institution?

Shosana Kalfan  
Emails, lots of emails. Unfortunately, I think this is, you know, but just to say, for me, you know, our office offers advising appointments on a daily basis. Students can book. We also have something, the student request process, so there is administrative work that has to be done. Sadly, though, yes, I would say a lot of advising does happen through email, at least, and I'm a faculty level advisor. The structure at Concordia, at least in the Faculty of Arts and Science, where I work, you know, there's a faculty level advising, and then the departments have their own advisors. So, in our case, it's a lot of time on emails and the administrative paperwork that is all digitized now.

Ryan Scheckel  
And for our US listeners and viewers, faculty is often used to describe an organizational unit, what some folks might refer to as a school or a college at other institutions. Just to clarify, anyone else want to share, you know, what their day looks like on a regular sort of status?

Aysha Haq  
For us it's appointments, so and probably because when we get emails, it's like, you know, you should book an appointment, otherwise we're gonna have 30 emails related to this one question, so lots of appointments, we're in our, in the, in our faculty, we're very strongly closely connected to our Associate Dean, so working through projects and the tasks for associate deans as well, too, and yeah, definitely emails.

Jing Yao  
Yeah, so for us, we, so under faculty of ours at UDC, we have a lot of colleagues working in this office, so we, when we meet students, we mainly meet them through drop-ins and the pre-booked appointments, so every week each advisor usually does three, about three drop-ins, like three dropping up, like afternoon drop-ins, and then we will also do pre-book appointments, so we usually offer like a six pre-booked appointments throughout the week, so that students, they can choose to come to see us in person or online, but when it comes to the registration rush period, we usually offer drop-ins like throughout the day, let's say from 10 to four, and then so that's more students can access our services for the rest of the time, yes, same with Asha, and then Shoshana. We also have a lot of emails to reply, and then each advisor also is leading different projects, so for the rest of the time, depending on how we want to arrange our work time, and then we just allocate some time for our projects.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, finding that balance between all of the channels and all of the questions, and then the other stuff we're trying to get done, and I hear that we've identified a little bit of the context that shapes advising at Canadian institutions, but what tends to be the biggest challenges academic advisors at Canadian institutions are facing right now.

Elizabeth Venton-Parnell  
So I mean, I feel there are like many different challenges, for sure. In the short time that I have been advising, I have definitely seen a little bit of an evolution in the types of challenges that come up. So when I first began two years ago, I would say we're just more transactional conversations with students, but as time has gone on, and again going back to changes to immigration, you know, rising costs, rising tuition, all the other sorts of responsibilities. I do see a lot of students struggling financially and trying to find that balance between being able to pursue post-secondary education, but also managing very real-world situations, so I definitely see that as a challenge, for sure. And another one that I have noticed is mental health, definitely seeing more complex cases coming in, and I mean, understandable, especially when we look at that finance piece, too, right? It's a stress that you know is continually endured, so it's going to have an impact, but not only that. When we start looking at the types of industries that students are going into, they're trying to navigate, you know, some industries that might be rife with problematic views or behaviors, and trying to manage that kind of culminating for that mental health component as well, and just uncertainty with changes to immigration or policy. It's a stress that's added, like, am I going to be able to continue what happens when I get off track, so it's all these things, so I feel like those are sort of the biggest trends or challenges I've seen over the short few years.

Shosana Kalfan  
Maybe just from an institutional perspective, so there's the students' financial pressures and all of this, but I think from an, for the advisor themselves, the financial pressures that our institutions are facing, the cutbacks, immigration changes, you know what the schools are doing to try and stay afloat, and to continue functioning, and to employ people. I mean, if if an institution's objective is to retain students and have them graduate, well, you need, you need the staff around to do it, and advising plays a huge role in that, and again, depending on the school's perspective of advising, that can be challenging. So, I think there are a lot of external pressure. There's a lot of external pressure on the schools across the country. You know, immigration across the country has been impacted by federal decisions as well as provincial decisions, Quebec, you know, is especially difficult. So, I think that just from an advising practice and having the wherewithal to be able to support students efficiently and effectively has been challenging for advising, which impacts the advising that we give to our students, we feel it, you know, we cut job cuts and, you know, more contractual than permanent positions, so there are different things that I think impact.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, the word wherewithal really struck me there. I'm curious about its relationship or the way it might contrast with the idea of self care, but maybe another topic for another podcast episode. You mentioned the effect that policy has, whether federal or provincial performance-based funding has come up. Immigration policy, are there other policies at the provincial level that y'all find shaping advising practice or on your campus specifically that haven't come up in our conversation so far.

Shosana Kalfan  
Maybe I'll just chip in again. I'm in from Quebec, and Quebec is special with the language laws here and the way the government approaches these things, it doesn't necessarily impact advising per se, but it impacts students applying to schools in Quebec, and especially the English schools. So, you know, there is that trickle down. There's domino effect of when a province puts together a policy that impacts the school's ability to stay afloat and to function. And it's been very difficult in Quebec for the English institutions with cutbacks and still needing to, you know, meet government regulations. It's, it's, it's impacted, and you know, people are moving around, but they're not being replaced. We were four advisors in my office, now we're three. The faculty has decided not to replace the three. The one means more pressure on the three that are left behind, and so you know that has an impact on advising, because you do more, you do more with less.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, it certainly influences strategies, approaches, and that would likely have an effect on results as well. Anyone else have any particular provincial policy things that affect the way that you're doing advising right now that that we've not discussed?

Jing Yao  
Um, also just following up on what Shoshana just shared here, I know in our office specifically, recently we also cut down a few permanent roles, so undoubtedly I feel like the morale right now is not that high, and then from the administrative perspective our managers are looking at how they could still, we could all still support the students, provide good quality services to students with the limited human resources. So, I know recently I also got into like a mini project, so in this project we just look at our services and where we can improve our services, and how we can make it more efficient. What kind of maybe technology tools we can use, all these sorts of things, but without doubt, I think the total number of inter, sorry, total number of students that we can support with the reduce the number of advisors, it will go down, so this is something that we can't avoid, but meanwhile, we know that I feel like Canada has been a country that has been relying on international students for a long time, that How are we going to compete with other countries, you know, with this policy, it's going to be hard, like we really want to promote and improve our services to attract more international students, but meanwhile, we know we have limited budget, we have limited human resources, so this is a dilemma, it's, it's hard, it's very tricky,

Ryan Scheckel  
so let's put on our thinking hats and think it imaginatively. Elizabeth shared some of the trends she was seeing with student mental health and preparedness, and those sort of challenges. We've talked about the tensions between trying to stay student-centered, but institutional metrics and policy having an effect. If you could redesign an advising system from scratch for Canada, what specifically would you want to change?

Aysha Haq  
I don't know if I could do one for all of Canada, though. Just because massive country with so many different needs that I'm not going to be aware of across the board, I know just for us, maybe in our institution, some of the things that I think about. If I redesigned our system, I would, I would have case loading. I would assign students to specific advisors. I want to put holds on students' accounts, want a little bit more control that way, so that I can, you know, make sure that I can connect with students and make them aware of advising service that I'm just from the get go and have them engage with us sooner.

Elizabeth Venton-Parnell  
Yeah, I think thinking about this question, I'm kind of in a similar position to I don't know if I could think of one that would fit across the country, but I mean, right now, and I appreciate where I am at state, just because, like, I think there's a lot of great things that they are doing, and so I don't, from my own perspective, I don't know if I would necessarily redesign it from scratch, but you know, I think one of the things that I would like to see in an ideal world is a more clearly defined definition, or what our role is, just because sometimes, you know, some tasks go beyond on what we're capable of doing, so just for example, you know, very well trained in policy, procedure, course planning, or that when we do get more complex questions come in about immigration, knowing where our role. Begins and when that ends for that sort of question again, I know that's tied to resources, because not everyone or every institution is has like immigration advisors or international student advisors specifically, but for me, I'd love to see more resources, so that we could actually maybe fill those roles and have more advisors to actually connect with students and get that proactive perspective as well, as well. I just big idea, throw it out there, adjustable hours, especially in our school, knowing how our student population is eight to five doesn't always work for them, so seeing some sort of way to meet students where they're at, but also kind of navigating what's expected from us in our roles, and also hybrid modalities, so optional if if advisors would like to spend a day at home just to meet online or also work on those projects, because sometimes it can be hard, like when you're having appointments. How do you tackle the additional work of projects and data driven initiatives? So, just carving out a bit of time for the advisors for that self-care, but also protecting their time to work on additional

Jing Yao  
tasks as well, similar to Elizabeth's. I don't think I will do that from scratch, but I would like to add a few more types of advising if we can. Again, I'm just speaking for my own university, because I don't know how things are working for other universities here, but at least I, UBC, right now we have the special advising to support students with human rights questions, and also to support students with some accessibility conditions or support black students advising indigenous people, but I'm also thinking, what about the first generation students, and also those first year students who are still exploring what they should do for the degree, what kind of majors they want to choose, as well as those adult learners, you know, we have a large population of students who decide to come back to study and finish their degree. So, I feel like for this group of students, we still currently don't have like a systemic way to support them, and also, how we can identify those students. Yeah, this is something that I want to look into, and hopefully we could have a way to support these special groups of students.

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, so we've talked about some of the challenges, the frustrations, and some of our wish lists, but is there any thing in particular, any one specific facet of your role that you find especially exciting, and that you look forward to on a regular basis.

Shosana Kalfan  
I love when the light bulb goes off, like you can see it after having a good conversation with a student, especially when you've had the opportunity to develop to develop a relationship with them, because you've seen them, you know, over time, and you see that they get it, and you see the improvement in their grades, and you see that they're comfortable in the direction that they're going, and then they have a sense of purpose, you know, within this degree, that to me, that intrinsic, you know, that you've helped somebody help themselves, to me, ultimately, that's what advising is about, it's it's helping the students find a way to help themselves, so for that. When that happens, that's a huge part of why I've done what I've done for the last 30 years, and it's very satisfying

Jing Yao  
for me. In our institution, we have.. I want to introduce this policy, it's called Academic Concession Policy. So this is to acknowledge students, sometimes they're experiencing some compassionate grounds where they have some medical substances or some conflicting responsibilities. So, if we deem they have such grounds, we will support students with academic concession, so that they can get maybe extension of their coursework, or they will get a makeup exam at a later time. The reason why I mentioned that is like, like, a maybe I will say half of our job really involves these types of work to support students through academic concession, so I find this is really meaningful part of my job, because this gives me an opportunity to really build strong rapport with students, because when I see their application, I will evaluate their cases, and then see whether I would like to invite them for a care meeting, and then this kind of care meeting can really help me to practice my appreciative advising approach. Approach to really discuss with them and find out and do some probing to find out what's going on, what happened, and also what are the supporting resources you're currently having, and then look at some other support result resources students really want to have, so I would really consider this is a kind of neutral way for us to work out the solution together, and then build a plan for the future, and meanwhile, sometimes we need to consult with the faculty members, so I also think this is a great opportunity for us to connect with the faculty members. Yeah, so this is something that I really want to share that I find very interesting and meaningful, exciting in my role.

Elizabeth Venton-Parnell  
And yeah, just to echo what everyone has said, there is no greater joy than again to meet with the students and really seeing them succeed and really developing those skills that they can take forward even after post-secondary, and I even have to applaud students that are even able to look inwards and say, hey, maybe this program isn't right for me. I think that's huge when they can recognize that and start planning what is the right fit, and I think to just to give something a little bit different that I find exciting, but sometimes a little bit challenging too, is the assessment piece. I love getting to build assessment and also looking at the impacts, how we're helping, how we're proven, and I think, as well, that really demonstrates to, you know, administration or the government, like we are having a profound impact, and this is how, and I think that's always exciting, but it is challenging trying to fit that in and make it a priority as well.

Aysha Haq  
I think we're going to say the same thing everyone else is saying here. It's really, why am I an academic advisor of all the things that I've sorted and done over the course of time? It's been the fact that, you know, connecting with students is fun. It gets, it makes me, yeah, I find joy in that, and it is great when we sit and come up with a plan and it works, and they hadn't thought of it, and I gave them a thing, and that, like, oh, and maybe I'll do, yeah, do that, yeah, and you know, they leave the office being like, hey, this was really great, I'm glad I talked to you, so I feel like a little high five are happening, and working, I'm going to say also, for me, working like with my team currently as well, too, when we're constantly pushing forward, how we're advising here at Kwantlen. What are we doing together as a team to move academic advising forward, and what you know, what it's meaning to the institution, because we've created a lot of, we've created a lot of things at Kwantlen through our connections with Nakata, our Academic Advising Council, our advising outline, and so that part of it is also like that's that's huge. It's exciting for us to do that, because at the end of the day serves a student as well, too.

Ryan Scheckel  
Absolutely, lots, lots to find value and fulfillment, and for sure, and lots of opportunity for more of that. So, where can folks find y'all, online or in person? How could someone who wants to connect with Canadian advisors? How can they do that?

Aysha Haq  
Others can join through Nakata. If you know how to log in and get to the online sessions that are there, where we have another one coming up online, happening in June. Take a look at your Nakata next week. I mean, we're a community until the restructure, so we hope folks will join us on those online sessions. And

Ryan Scheckel  
I think I ran across a link tree somewhere.

Aysha Haq  
There is that as well, too. We have Facebook page for Canada Advising. You'll find us on Instagram, same thing, Canada advising, or reach out directly.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, please do so. Aisha, Jing, Elizabeth, Shauna, thanks so much for being on the podcast, and best of luck with everything in the future.

Aysha Haq  
Thank you so much for having us.