All In: Expanding Access through Nationally Competitive Awards

9. Coping with Common Challenges

99 9 CopingwithCommonChallenges StrategiesforSuccessinFellowshipAdvising dana kuchem, beth PoWers, and susan Whitbourne Dana Kuchem heads the Undergraduate Fellowship Office at The Ohio State University, where she has worked since obtaining her master’s in higher education in 2005. She currently is a NAFA board member and member of the professional development and best practices, consultation, and assessment committees. A NAFA participant since 2005, she serves on the planning committee for the Atlanta 2013 conference, chairing the workshop for new advisors. As a fellowships advisor, she is most proud of receiving a Fulbright grant to Germany as part of the International Education Administrators program in 2011. Beth Powers is the founder and director of the Office of Special Scholarship Programs at the University of Illinois–Chicago, where she has worked since 2000. Previously, she worked in fellowship and prelaw advising at Kansas 100 • Dana Kuchem, Beth Powers, and Susan Whitbourne State University for four years. For NAFA she has served as a conference organizer, a member of the ethics committee, a board member, and vice president. She was president from 2005 to 2007 and is a founding member. Susan Whitbourne received her PhD in developmental psychology from Columbia University. A professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst since 1999, she directs the Office of National Scholarship Advisement. She is the author of over 140 refereed articles and book chapters and sixteen books (many in multiple editions and translations), including The search for fulfillment and the recently published handbook of Adult Development and Aging. She writes the popular Psychology Today blog fulfillment at Any Age. The recipient of a 2011 Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association, she is the winner of national and campus teaching and advising awards. She has served in executive board and advisory roles for a variety of regional and national professional organizations. A member of NAFA since 1999, she currently is a board member who chairs the professional development committee, and she organized the 2012 study tour of Washington, DC. Fellowships advisors experience numerous personal challenges due to the unique features of the occupation. Advisors encourage students to participate in highly visible national competitions that are demanding on the emotional resources of these students. Many advisors are the sole operators of scholarship advising offices and have few colleagues on campus who understand the unusual nature of their positions. In addition, the stakes in such work are high. Upper-level college administrators, in addition to students, their families, and faculty, place high expectations on the outcomes of scholarship competitions, over which advisors have little control. once advisors have connected students to the right scholarships, advised them on references, passed on the foundations’ good advice, and offered their own accumulated wisdom, there is little more to do than wait for the outcome. In many cases these outcomes can take weeks or Coping with Common Challenges • 101 months to learn, and if the results do not meet the expectations of the students, the advisor, or the institution, the advisors must wait at least another year before starting the process again. In the face of these challenges, how can advisors successfully manage the stresses of fellowship advising? To help answer this question, we present six prototypical scenarios that highlight some of the mostdemanding challenges that advisors can face. After each, we provide concrete examples of strategies that the advisor can use to manage the stresses associated with the particular situation. At the end we present a set of common coping strategies that advisors can use to manage the stress of these and the more general situations that confront all of us at some point in our advising lives. Scenario 1 Erin directs the fellowship office at a midsized university that is very strong in the sTEM fields. her school has historically done very well in the Goldwater competition, producing two to three winners annually. They again have another competitive group of students applying for the four university nominations this year. Erin has been working with Bob, a geology student, for over two years. Bob has a very impressive résumé, having started research in high school. he has completed three different research experiences, been published, and presented at a professional conference. In addition, he holds a 3.98 GPA. Erin finds Bob to be the top candidate in the university’s applicant pool this year. When the selection committee convenes, however, one of the very vocal committee members...