Perhaps a manner in which to encapsulate at least one of the many pandemic-related whirlwinds of activity in Penn State’s College of Education the past year and a half is simply this: When COVID-19 came, the students went but their academic advisers were there for them when needed.
They were needed then and they’re especially needed now, according to Greg Mason, director of the Advising and Certification Center.
Topics between students and advisers — with meetings conducted virtually before shifting to in-person this fall if that’s what the student prefers — range from keeping up with their educational plan to fallout from alternative grading to adjusting to virtual instruction and now adapting back to in-residence, and many more.
“I think one of the biggest challenges was getting to know a whole class — hundreds of new College of Education students — and not having the in-person contact,” said Mason, who oversees six advisers and three administrative assistants and steps into the adviser’s role himself when necessary.
“That fall (2020) class, the class that entered their second year this fall, are second-year students on their transcript, but in terms of their adjustment to college life — at a place like this that has such a strong kind of entrenched residential experience to it — they’re almost having a second first year. They are a lot like first-year students in terms of feet on the ground.”
Mason said he likes to ask students how they feel about not only being back on campus but about in-person meetings with their adviser.
“A common response has been kind of a mix of emotions — happy to be back on campus, happy to see all these people walking around and there’s the energy of starting a new semester,” he said. “But there’s still that anxiety of being around a lot of people and many of our students haven’t had a large-group experience or sat down in an office. They may be second-year students but it’s the first time they’ve actually walked into our office to see someone.”
Advising is a significant part of all students’ academic odyssey. David Smith, associate dean for advising and executive director of the Division of Undergraduate Studies at Penn State, believes that advising is about building a relationship between the student and somebody at the University who can challenge their assumptions and help them recognize that there are multiple gateways to the things they might eventually want to do.
“The pandemic created all that much more uncertainty for our students about what the future would look like, how they were going to get through school in the first place, whether they were safe, and how they were learning the challenges of technology,” Smith said. “I think that relationship piece was really important, and I heard that a lot from many advisers.
“There was sort of a common bond between the student and the adviser that didn’t exist prior to the pandemic, because all the advisers were living through the same pandemic as the students were; they shared this experience. It looked different in their different places and in their lives and different abilities to manage it, but they’re all confronting that same pandemic. I think it served as a starting place for a lot of conversations that contributed to the relationship-building that I think is fundamental to good academic advising.”
Smith said that between January and mid-August of this year, about 98,000 advising appointments were conducted University-wide, including at the Commonwealth Campuses.
“It’s high. It’s not as high as I would like it,” Smith said. “The number of students seeking advising during the year of the pandemic did increase, not necessarily by leaps and bounds, but it went up several percentage points from previous years. It’s an absolute positive, because I think with the pandemic and with many students not physically on campus and a lot of things happening remotely, there was an opportunity for it to decline, that students wouldn’t be able to connect.”
Smith also noted that during the pandemic there was an increase across all demographic groups — such as first-generation or minoritized students — in terms of students connecting with advisers. “There’s more work to be done to get every student engaged on a regular basis, but I think certainly during the pandemic many students have seen the value and have sought it out in a greater way,” he said.
Mason said his office had about 2,000 unique advising appointments during the first eight months of 2021, not including new student orientation advising, which he said would add another 300. The totals are similar to the two years immediately pre-pandemic, he noted.
What Mason and Smith have seen at times are young adults who are reaching out for help. Mason said his College of Education team took on the mantra that everyone would get through the pandemic together and everyone chipped in no matter the problem in many cases.
“We have to be very clear to students that we’re not therapists; our advisers don’t have a background or any sort of licensure certification as a therapist or mental health counseling or anything like that,” Mason said.
“We’re here to hear students out; if they trust us and we have that built relationship, we want to be in a position where students feel comfortable coming to us. If they’re comfortable disclosing something they can do that. But then we have to know that it’s our responsibility to refer them out appropriately so we’re fortunate that we have the Herr Clinic here in the college.”
Mason said that a student having a person in the advising office they can trust is paramount. “I think that’s why for those of us who are in this work, we keep doing it,” he said. “Maybe people who were in really tough spots over the course of the pandemic will come out of it and have a kind of a layer of resiliency and strength that they didn’t have previously.
“I think the work that we do, there are probably also a lot of success stories that that we probably don’t even know about; I can think of a few students that went through difficult times and came out on the other side and are thriving now.”
Helping students can be multi-faceted and one warning Mason and his staff stress is overall behavior — not only on social media but across the board — particularly as an education student.
“That transition to becoming an educator doesn’t happen when you get your degree and your certification shows up; that’s an evolving thing and it starts as you start here,” Mason explained.
“That transition to being a role model and a mentor and somebody that you look to for guidance or being a leader in a school community and in other settings — that starts now.”
Pandemic or not, Smith said what was most rewarding in his opinion was how advisers stayed present for students. “Advising has been an exemplar of how education is really a one-on-one thing,” he said. “I think advisers have stayed present with individual students and recognize that students are unique, and their circumstances are unique, and the ability to help them depends on knowing the student as an individual.
“And the most unique thing about advising usually is that you meet a student early in their academic career and can watch them grow as an individual; they become better versions of themselves and more aware of their surroundings, more aware of how their education is going to better them and better their communities.”
The same goes for Mason, as whatever his duties are during a particular day or week, they all circle back to helping the students.
“Sometimes just a little bit of encouragement goes a long way when they know that somebody has an eye out for them,” Mason said. “It’s those students that you see who persevere, who take the challenges head on. They need help and support, but are willing to do what’s necessary, because they have those goals in mind, they know why they’re here … those students keep me going.
“I think that’s true for a lot of advisers and it’s been true over the last year and a half, too. This work has not been easy but knowing that we were going to be coming back and seeing students again and that students were going to be excited to be back as well has been a big motivating factor.”
Mason’s most noticeable takeaway from the various pandemic-induced adjustments to his job is to not take for granted time spent with students and to take advantage of the environment that the College of Education and Penn State overall provide for its students.
“This is really a wonderful space to be in. We model for students that we take our work seriously, that our work matters, and that in that moment when we’re with students, we need to be present for them and expect them to be present with us,” he said.