Student: In a few sentences, describe what it is like to be an academic advisor.
Dr. Gilmour: It is hectic. Sometimes stressful. However, it’s also very rewarding because you get to build a relationship with students.
Student: In advising, what are the busiest times of the year for you?
Dr. Gilmour: Right now. The three weeks of the advising period are the busiest, because I currently only have 40 advisees. I need to meet with all of them before they can register, so that gets busy.
Student: What are your favorite parts of advising?
Dr. Gilmour: The students. I love learning what students want to do and helping them explore different possibilities and I think the best part of my job as a faculty member is helping students reach their dreams. That’s the most rewarding thing for me: when I see them after they graduate, and they’ve come back and they have their dream job. That, to me, is super fun.
Student: What about your least favorite parts of advising?
Dr. Gilmour: All things PrideNet or Banner. I struggle with technology and organization. So those aren’t two good combinations. I desperately want to help students be organized, but that requires me to be organized. I also don’t always have the right amount of time to help them with that or to help myself with it.
Student: As an advisor, what are your day-to-day responsibilities?
Dr. Gilmour: It is probably different for people who are professional advisors over in the academic advising office. For faculty advisors, we have a teaching load, an administrative load and an advising load. During advising, I will meet with students in 30-minute time blocks that they sign up for and we talk about the classes during that time, but in sport management and recreation, our students need a lot of experience. So, we will meet with students throughout the semester, not just during the advising period. Students can come in to talk about classes, minors, summer jobs, work on their resumes or to get ready for an internship. I feel like we’re just always meeting with students.
Student: You were talking about the skills that you may or may not have. What are the skills that are needed for academic advising?
Dr. Gilmour: Patience, empathy, listening skills and organization, for sure. Which is something I struggle with, although it is important.
Student: When making your decision towards becoming an advisor, what were external factors leading to that decision?
Dr. Gilmour: It’s really part of the faculty role. There are places where advising is not part of the faculty role, but that’s what I love about Springfield. That’s what I love about smaller schools: as professors, it’s part of our evaluation and it’s the most important part. Teaching and advising are the number one things that we are evaluated on. I used to work in athletics and coach, and I did a lot of informal advising of students in that role. That led me down a path toward wanting to teach full-time, and advising is just another way to build relationships and help students become their best selves.
Student: What is one piece of advice you would give to students heading into this advising period?
Dr. Gilmour: If you can come organized, it’s really helpful for your advisor. The students who do their work come in with an idea of the classes they want to take, have already looked at their degree audit, have already thought about the next semester and the semester after that and what they want to do. That creates space for deeper conversations, where you can really talk about their strengths and areas they want to develop, what they love and hate about their classes and start to get to know the person better and help them more. However, if students come in and they don’t know how to find their degree audit, don’t know what classes they need, and aren’t sure how they’re doing in their classes. That becomes the meeting. It’s fine. It just means I have to set up a second meeting, because I can’t do all the deeper stuff in that time.