Margaret MacKeverican, Department of Public Health

I will highlight two presentations from the NACADA Annual Conference, a concurrent session from Dr. Carroll and the keynote and common reading from Dr. Rendón. They both focused on affirming advising strategies that decolonize advising and move toward an asset-based approach.

Doris W. Carroll, PhD, from Kansas State University presented “Recognizing Colonialism in Academic Advising: Starting Strategies to Decolonize Advising Services.” Carroll opened with, “American college faculty, advisors, and administrators do not see themselves as perpetuating colonialism...most ignore our own colonial roots that are ever present in today's American colleges and universities” (2020). 

She also cited Wilder’s 2013 work that denoted our failure to recognize that institutions were founded, and funded, through wealth accumulated by slavery and colonialism. Carroll then provides the following decolonizing responses to oppression at the individual and institutional level:

Focus on proportional representation; increase numbers of Indigenous, racialized and low-income students and faculty; supplement curricula with non-Western perspectives to enhance diversity; focus discussions on racism and colonialism on the systemic and structural levels; address ignorance or bias of dominant group through increased knowledge on multiple ways of knowing (2020).

Carroll challenged advisors to think critically about colonialism in NACADA’s pillars, core values, and core competencies as a profession. Advisors who work from a decolonizing framework must disrupt colonial ways of knowing by challenging the superiority of Western knowledge. Advisors can re-imagine NACADA Pillars by recognizing the failings of Eurocentric disciplining (Denzin, Lincoln, & Giardina, 2006) about what is advising assessment, program evaluation, and research. This re-imagining leads us to new valuing of advising roles and functions globally. Carroll (2020) notes decolonizing involves the entire advising community and tasks us with the following:

• NACADA must assume decolonizing leadership to redefine academic advising on American college campuses
• Ask colleges and universities to form global alliances to share decolonizing re-imagined academic advising resources and services
• Ask to rebuild university partnerships that value non-Western knowledge
• Ask faculty and instructors to redefine their curricula to place value on non-western knowledge in the classroom and in research

Laura I. Rendón, PhD, was the keynote and co-author of the Common Reading: “Shattering the Deficit Grand Narrative: Toward a Culturally Validating Latino Student Success Framework” (Rendón, Kanagala, & Bledsoe, 2017). Shattering deficit-based perspectives and working with an asset-based approach stems from multiple theoretical frameworks:

• Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005)
• Fund of Knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 2001)
• Pedagogies of the Home (Bernal, 2001)
• Validation Theory (Rendón 1994; Linares-Rendón and Muñoz 2011)
• Liberatory Pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Rendón, 2009; hooks,1994; Shahjahan, 2005; and Lather, 1991)

Utilizing and synthesizing these frameworks, Rendón (2020) states it is important that advisors understand the injustices and inequities in and outside of our institutions. She charges us to work with a justice and equity focus to advocate for change. Advisors must work to eliminate structural disparities that undermine student success, such as the digital divide and disparate K-12 funding. For example, advisors should critically analyze the distinct differences between the college experience for first gen, low income students and multi-gen, wealthy students. Advisors should also recognize and understand the changing demographics of the United States and prepare to work with the complex student body and their multiple, intersectional identities.

Rendón (2020) wants us to learn to be a validating agent, and work with a validation-rich academic and student support system. Relationships, validations, caring, and empathy are critical to and drive student success. As advisors, we hold a unique role where we can help students feel they matter and foster a sense of belonging on campus. Rendón (2020) cites this is especially vital for first-gen, low-income students. She recommends that we show up not just as advisors, but as a human beings:

• Convey caring and support for students
• Praise their successes
• Validate their ability to be successful
• Be reassuring
• Remain accessible
• Utilize videos to capture your caring and empathy
• Let students know you are aware of their situation during this difficult time.

Essentially, these recommendations underscore the importance of establishing rapport and building relationships with our students, a critical aspect of NACADA’s Relational Core Competency area.

Rendón ends empowering us by saying Academic Advising is a higher calling and we will live in our students’ minds for a very long time. We serve as guides, translators, and mediators for students; we make a positive impact on and transform our students’ lives; we are bringing up the next generation of leaders in American society. With great power, comes great responsibility: We must advocate for and work toward an asset-based, decolonizing approach to advising in order to advance equity and student success. The strategies provided by both Rendón and Carroll are important first steps to accomplishing this goal.

 

 

References

Caroll, Doris W. (2020, October 5–8). Recognizing Colonialism in Academic Advising: Starting Strategies to Decolonize Advising Services [Conference presentation]. Virtual NACADA 2020 Annual Conference.

Rendón, Laura I. (2020, October 5–8). [Conference keynote]. Virtual NACADA 2020 Annual Conference.

 

Further reading:

Bernal, Dolores Delgado. 2001. “Learning and Living Pedagogies of the Home: The Mestiza Consciousness of Chicana Students.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 14:5, 623–639. doi: 10.1080/095183390110059838.

David, E., & Okazaki, S. (2006). Colonial mentality: A review and recommendation for Filipino American psychology. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 12(1), 1-16.

Freire, Paolo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

hooks, bell. 1994. Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations. Routledge.

Lather, Patricia. 1991. Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Postmodern. New York: Routledge

Maldonado-Torres, N., Seedat, M., & Suffla, S. (2017). Frantz Fanon and the decolonial turn in psychology: From modern/colonial methods to the decolonial attitude. South African Journal of Psychology, 47(4), 432-441.

Rendón, Laura I. 2009. Sentipensante (sensing/thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing

Rendón, Laura I. 1994. “Validating Culturally Diverse Students: Toward a New Model of Learning and Student Development.” Innovative Higher Education 19:1, 33–51.

Rendón-Linares, Laura I., and Susana M. Muñoz. 2011. “Revisiting Validation Theory: Theoretical Foundations, Applications, and Extensions.” Enrollment Management Journal 5:2, 12–33.

Shahjahan, Riyad Ahmed. 2005. “Spirituality in the Academy: Reclaiming From the Margins and Evoking a Transformative Way of Knowing the World.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 18:6, 685–711. doi:10.1080/09518390500298188.

Simonson, M. (2015). Educational colonialism. Distance Learning, 12(1), 43-44.

Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2016). Decolonization and higher education. In M. Peters (Ed.) Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. Springer Science+Business Media. doi:10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_479-1

Wilder, C.S. (2013).Ebony and Ivy: Race, slavery, and the troubled history of American’s universities. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Yosso, Tara J. 2005. “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth.” Race Ethnicity and Education 8:1, 69–91. doi: 10.1080/1361332052000341006

Moll, Luis C., Cathy Amanti, Deborah Neff, and Norma González. 2001. “Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms.” Theory into Practice 31:2, 132–141. doi: 10.1080 /00405849209543534.