If you have not already read the general guidelines for using the topical guides, please begin here. As a reminder, these guides are intended to stir your initial thinking, not offer comprehensive guidance. We encourage you to explore the questions and resources in this guide with at least one other person on your campus.
Introduction
The structure of academic advising varies across institutions: on some campuses, faculty serve as the primary advisors, while on others, the role is filled by professional advisors and other student success professionals. The practical components of helping students plan their coursework are important, of course. But holistic advising and mentoring are a natural avenue for vocational exploration, helping students consider questions of identity, meaning, purpose, and goals alongside those of civic responsibility and the common good—and where these two intersect with one another and with the student’s academic journey.
Advising that moves beyond course planning and in the direction of mentoring can support students’ discernment and meaning-making processes by equipping them for self-reflection, curricular and co-curricular exploration, and the thoughtful integration of their experiences and discoveries. Whether offered one-on-one or in a small group setting, holistic advising and mentoring provides students with an opportunity to identify key vocational puzzle pieces and begin to fit them together into a coherent whole, all within the context of a sustained, supportive relationship with a trusted mentor. Effective mentoring by vocationally trained faculty members and staff can be one the most powerful tools in an institution’s vocation toolbox because it centers positive supportive relationship—a well-documented predictor of student success and persistence—as well as it supports intentional development, consistent reflection, and experiential integration.
Questions to Consider
- What is the current advising model on your campus? Who provides it, and what is the general content?
- What are small ways your institution could incorporate vocational exploration into your students’ advising experience? What small changes would make possible a shift for faculty members toward more mentoring and less registration management?
- What might be the initial barriers to making this shift? What resources or opportunities would support expanding advising toward a mentoring model?
Resources
Blog Post
Happy Global Academic Advising Week: Let’s Celebrate and Integrate Vocation
by Billie Streufert
Streufert argues that academic advising represents a uniquely powerful venue for vocational integration because it reaches all students every term, making it essential for ensuring equitable access to vocational exploration, particularly for first-generation, minoritized, low-income, and time-constrained students who might otherwise miss transformative experiences. Advisors can help students construct coherent narratives of their undergraduate education, connecting general education, co-curricular activities, and applied learning into an integrated vocational journey rather than a disconnected checklist of requirements.
Blog Post
Beyond Problem-Solving: The Mystery of Mentoring for Vocation
by Hannah Schell
Schell offers that mentoring for vocational discernment is distinct from traditional academic advising because it requires participating in a “mystery” rather than solving a “problem”—drawing on Gabriel Marcel’s distinction that mysteries involve the mentor directly in something where “the distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning.” While advising typically focuses on logistical problem-solving (course schedules, resource navigation, decision-making about majors or withdrawals), vocational mentoring demands careful listening to verbal and non-verbal cues, asking open-ended questions—like “what are you learning about yourself?” or “what brings you hope?”—and recognizing that the mentor is not merely walking alongside but is directly implicated in the student’s vocational journey.
Blog Post
Advising for Vocation: Ten Touchstones
by Carter Aikin
In this blog post, Aikin offers practical guidance for institutions seeking to integrate vocational exploration into student advising by proposing a parallel “second-track” advising system staffed by carefully selected mentors from across campus (faculty, staff, coaches, administrators) who meet with students in intentional conversations entirely separate from the problem-solving orientation of traditional academic advising. He suggests institutional touchstones which stress that vocational discernment requires deliberate structural support including regular meetings (not just semester deadlines), holistic attention to student formation beyond the classroom, and opportunities for mentors themselves to engage in vocational reflection about their own callings.
Podcast Episode
Mentoring for Vocation
with Maria LaMonaca Wisdom
In this episode, Maria LaMonaca Wisdom discusses methods and approaches to understand the specific role of mentor. Specifically, she articulates the differences among mentoring, teaching, and coaching and the ways these coalesce in our work with students. Mentoring helps us value growth in a relationship as we bring our “whole selves” to the role. Wisdom emphasizes how to embrace revision and change as necessary in our career paths and vocational arcs. Mentors can help mentees realize their potential, asking important questions that illuminate motivations, values, and goals.
Example Activity
Here are some activities that help students deepen their vocational reflection. These example activities are meant to be examples to spark thinking about what might be possible at your institution.
Conversation Cards
It’s so simple… but NetVUE Conversation Cards are a fabulous resource for the advising and mentoring context, especially in 1:1 sessions. The cards foster self-reflection, integration, and connection, all key to effective mentoring and advising.
For newer advising relationships, it is recommended that cards with a single chevron be used and that the student be allowed to choose from among several questions. For more established relationships, the questions can go deeper. Of course, a student should never be required to answer a question they do not want to answer, but given a choice and within a trusting relationship, the cards can provoke profound self-awareness and discovery. Mentors might consider also answering a question as a means of modeling that self-reflection and vocational discernment are lifelong practices that can yield rich insights at any age.
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