Advising is LikeAdvising: The Dangers of an Analogy Free Zone

1
Advising is LikeAdvising The Dangers of an
Analogy Free Zone

• David J. Gallant
• Suffolk University Boston, MA
• dgallant_at_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

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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 NaturalPart 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 framehe 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 advisors
  toolbox in and of itself.

6
The Use of Metaphor is NaturalPart 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.

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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)

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Questions and Statements
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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.