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Advising is Like Advising: The Dangers of an Analogy Free Zone

My Context. Private, urban university, approx. 5,000 FTE undergraduates, largely commuter, growing enrollment, experiencing identity crisisBackground in English, Literary studies, Communication studies, Rhetoric and CompositionCurrently advisor and advising administrator in a liberal arts divisio

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Advising is Like Advising: The Dangers of an Analogy Free Zone

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    1. Advising is Like…Advising: The Dangers of an Analogy Free Zone David J. Gallant Suffolk University Boston, MA dgallant@suffolk.edu NACADA Chicago 2008

    2. My Context Private, urban university, approx. 5,000 FTE undergraduates, largely commuter, growing enrollment, experiencing identity crisis Background in English, Literary studies, Communication studies, Rhetoric and Composition Currently advisor and advising administrator in a liberal arts division; advising office employs two professional advisors in addition to the Director Majority of advising is done by faculty in majors Freshman Seminar instructors supplement as first year mentor and sole advisor for undeclared students

    3. The Issue Recent claims suggest that the “concept” (metaphor, analogy, symbol) Advising is/as Teaching limits the growth of the advising discipline as a scholarly field A too narrow focus on advising as merely a sum of interactions denies the larger theoretical work and research that has been and is advancing the profession Not only should the reliance on metaphors and analogies be called into question, but that habit of communicating the nature of advising ought to be abandoned The conclusion reached is one of reflexive identity: Advising is Advising The Advising is/as Teaching metaphor is still vital to communicating the practices and the philosophies that inform advising when we consider The human proclivity for metaphor and its persistence The centrality of this analogy (and others like it) at small colleges and universities The utilization of the metaphor in creating broad constituencies in First Year Experience programs (seminars, courses, collaborations)

    4. Advising is Advising Schulenberg and Lindhorst (2008), in a very important article promoting advising as a distinct and autonomous field of scholarly inquiry, suggest that the over-reliance on explanatory metaphors (chiefly that of Advising is/as Teaching) “obscures the uniqueness of academic advising” It maintains the focus on advising as an activity between advisors and students without regard to the broader context (and content) of advisors’ work Overall, a reliance on metaphor and analogy and the communication of those comparisons hinders the growth of academic advising as a scholarly discipline Though the explanatory tool of Advising is Teaching is widely employed, it is not regarded as a totalizing theory or as the only significant terministic screen (Burke) through which to analyze the profession What this may also point out is the general devaluation of the art of teaching in all disciplines

    5. The Use of Metaphor is Natural Part I Kenneth Burke (1897-1993): worked to examine human language use as fundamental to analyzing motivation. Most well-known analytical tool was that of Dramatism, wherein human interaction, events, and works of literature are analyzed according to the relations of five components, the pentad (act, actor, scene, agency, purpose) He refers to man as “the symbol using animal” (Language as Symbolic Action) in relation to the everyday drama that scripts our lives. When we speak of advising in analogical terms it often brings our work into focus for a particular moment of explanation or persuasion Burke grounds this symbolic use of language in his explanation of the human motivation to persuade and forge identification with another (Rhetoric of Motives). Though it may be cast as an inhibiting aphorism, Advising as Teaching creates alliances with skeptics and opens the door to a wider discourse with faculty of all disciplines. From his essay “Literature as Equipment for Living” (The Philosophy of Literary Form), Burke looks to take aphorisms (think Advising is Teaching) out of the realm of the purely literary and into the sociological frame—he sees them as strategies for dealing with situations; another word for these strategies would be attitudes. Metaphor is a tool or strategy for coping; equipment for living as it were. Without it, where would we be? It may be the advisor’s toolbox in and of itself.

    6. The Use of Metaphor is Natural Part II George Lakoff and Mark Johnson Metaphors We Live By (1980; 2003 revised) ground our use of metaphor within the field of cognitive science as well. Some precepts: Metaphor is often mis-categorized as merely a matter of words rather than thought or action Metaphor, in fact, is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action Our conceptual system is largely metaphorical; what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor The human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Obviously, then, we cannot function without metaphor. An abandonment of metaphor and analogy to discuss advising would tend, I feel, to stifle expression and discourse. No metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented independently of its experiential basis. Our use of metaphor in advising is always already grounded in action. Advising as teaching can still be a rhetorical pathway to represent our important academic labor, both instructional (physical) and scholarly research (mental labor).

    7. Size Matters? Schulenberg and Lindhorst describe (wonderfully) the historical trajectory of the development of the advising field at Pennsylvania State University. However: Is the standpoint of theorists based in practice at large institutions necessarily applicable to small colleges and universities? In the specific instance of quasi-language policing (no metaphors, please), are advisors left without important tools with which to carry out quotidian work?

    8. The Persistence of Metaphor From the perspective of small colleges and universities, Hemwall and Trachte (1999; 2003) extend the metaphor to include the partner of advising is teaching, advising is learning This recognizes the close association and necessary persuasion about the world of advising that occurs between advisors and faculty, but can also inform those sites where many advisors teach and many faculty advise They conclude at one point that student learning via advising ought to resolve itself in praxis, the notion that students take acquired knowledges (metaphors of the self if you will) and turn them into action in order to engage and perhaps transform their world Hagen and Jordan (2008) readily suggest that “advising as teaching” as a core concept should not become the only means of analogical expression. In fact, they suggest a flowering of metaphor to recruit a diversity of theoretical schools to come to comment on advising. In this respect, metaphors are crucial to the advance of the field. It is how they are communicated and carried out that will make the difference.

    9. Metaphors Made Real Advisors as Faculty and Faculty as Advisors in the First Year Seminar In seemingly separate eras, King (1995) and Darling and Woodside (2007) point to the importance of advising as teaching regarding students in transition Models for this course at many institutions establish a common ground for the advising discipline on campus to teach and instruct faculty, administrators, and staff about what is done on the ground (practice) and in the air (theory)

    10. Questions and Statements

    11. References Burke, K. (1941; 1973). “Literature as Equipment for Living” in The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkeley: University of California Press. Burke, K. (1950; 1969). A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press. Burke, K. (1966). Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: University of California Press. Darling, R. & Woodside, M. (2007). The Academic Advisor as Teacher: First Year Transitions. In M. Hunter, B. McCalla-Wiggins & E. White (Eds.), Academic Advising: New Insights for Teaching and Learning in the First Year (pp 5-17). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. Gusfield, J. (1989). Kenneth Burke: On Symbols and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hagen, P. & Jordan, P. (2008). Theoretical Foundations of Academic Advising. In V. Gordon, W. Habley & T. Grites (Eds.), Academic Advising: A Comprehensive Handbook, 2nd edition (pp 17-35). San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hemwall, M. & Trachte, K. (1999). Learning at the Core: Toward a New Understanding of Academic Advising. NACADA Journal, 19(1), 5-11. Hemwall, M. & Trachte, K. (2003). Academic Advising and a Learning Paradigm. In M. Hemwall and K. Trachte (Eds.), Advising and Learning: Academic Advising from the Perspective of Small Colleges and Universities (NACADA Monograph No. 8 (pp 13-20). Manhattan, KS: NACADA. King, N. (1995). Advising and Mentoring in the Freshman Seminar Course. In R. E. Glennen and F. N. Vowell (Eds.), Academic Advising as a Comprehensive Campus Process (NACADA Monograph No. 2) (pp 45-48). Manhattan, KS: NACADA. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980; 2003). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schulenberg, J. & Lindhorst, M. (2008). Advising is Advising: Toward Defining the Practice and Scholarship of Academic Advising. NACADA Journal, 28(1), 43-52.

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