Jason Nankivell

Education

• BSEEE (Bachelor's of Science in Environmental and Ecological Engineering) from Purdue, 2018
• MA in College Student Personnel from Bowling Green State University, 2020

Advising Philosophy

My advising philosophy is one centered on students’ experiences. While it isn’t necessarily something that I’m actively thinking about in every meeting with students, it does shape my overall approach to working with students and gives me something to consider when reviewing policies and procedures we expect students to adhere to.

As university staff, and specifically as advisors, our main purpose is to provide students with information that they can then use to guide their decision-making. Much of the information that shapes students’ experiences is highly specific, and many students may get through their whole college experience without using or needing to know a large portion of this information. Our role is to help disseminate this information and make it more accessible to students. This isn’t to say that we remove the responsibility of students to know their rights or our expectations of them, but generally to make the process as easy for them as possible. As much as possible, I like to send students pertinent links and information rather than just mentioning something. This way, I take on some accountability and give students something to refer back to during what are inevitably very busy times during the semesters. At times, students may also ask us questions that we don’t know the answer to. I find that in most cases, students don’t mind if I send them away while I look into things, as long as I follow up with them as quickly and clearly as possible. Keeping them in the loop is an important step in making them feel valued and heard.

At UIUC specifically, the university is fairly disjointed, and this sometimes leads to students getting “the run-around”, where they get passed from advisor to advisor. This is naturally a very frustrating experience for the student. Whenever a student mentions that someone else has sent them to us, I try to be intentional about being the endpoint for that student. Reaching out to colleagues on campus to verify if they can help the student is a good way to assist that student in getting their questions answered. We can then connect students with those staff rather than simply pointing them in the right direction.

I also do my best to teach in advising meetings, not only giving students the answers to their questions, but teaching them where they can find that information in the future. This leads to students getting their questions answered quicker in the future and allows us to both reach more students in a limited amount of time and also develop problem-solving skills in our students.

To me, teaching also encompasses us challenging our students. It’s important to remind students of well-roundedness in different aspects of life. This would be referring to the balance of academics with social and personal life, to me, a crucial aspect of student success. Just as staff and faculty have things going on outside of work, so too do our students, and it’s important to build time management skills to prioritize all aspects of life. This well-roundedness can also show up in their academic course-loads, with technical courses in engineering and also General Education courses. Many students see these as simply requirements to complete or check boxes to tick off, but those are good opportunities for us as advisors to ask some probing questions about what shaped those opinions and begin to try helping students see value in these courses.

As I just alluded to, challenging students is a large emphasis in Sanford’s Theory of Challenge and Support. This practice is something that I was introduced to during my graduate studies and is something that many practitioners in our field gravitate towards. It gives us a framework that informs how we approach student interactions and how we can work towards our goal of shaping well-rounded, successful students (and specifically, engineers, in the Grainger College of Engineering). In practice, I find that it’s much easier to provide support to students than it is to challenge them. Personally, I like to build relationships with students as much as possible before challenging them. This way, students recognize my intentions and know that I’m truly trying to help them be successful, rather than coming across as a bad guy. I don’t mind giving some tough love or reviewing what went wrong in past semesters, as that is often necessary to build a plan to avoid those same pitfalls in future terms, but I need students to first trust where I’m coming from.

This specifically comes up often when working with students on Academic Warning or students returning from Drop status. It’s important for us to recognize what was preventable and what was out of students’ control. I often try to challenge students to identify those pieces that were preventable, as students often push responsibility or fault off of themselves when things went wrong. The best way to prevent mistakes is to identify what the mistakes were, when they happened, and what other factors played a role in those mistakes becoming more likely. I like to ask students what systems we can set up now to account for future lapses in effort, the unpredictability of personal/home life, or increased difficulty in coursework, such that we would be better prepared to handle them should they arise.

Sometimes, the challenge comes externally – through their coursework, through their navigation of school and their personal life, etc. – and they come to us looking for the support portion. In these instances, I find it best to try to build them up and work with them to get through the challenges. Then, after those situations have passed, we can challenge them to reflect back on what they could have done better or differently so that they are better equipped should those situations arise again.

I also am intentional about using “we” language when working with students, especially those students on warning that I meet with regularly. While it is ultimately the student’s responsibility to ask for help and make the effort in their courses, there are people like myself that are here to help, and using this language of “what can we do?” can help tackling big problems feel more manageable and less isolating.

As an advisor, my goal is for students to not need to come see me, but to want to come see me. I want students to know that I care about their success in and out of the classroom and I want to hear updates about what’s going on in their lives. I want to build their confidence and their problem-solving skills such that they can navigate the campus and academic environments, while also helping them recognize that this doesn’t mean doing so alone.