Coaching Applications for Academic Advisors in Higher Education

The field of higher education academic advising is expanding and the needs of students are ever-growing. Many academic advisors lack the training and tools they need to meet their students’ constantly evolving needs. This paper is designed to illustrate the benefit of incorporating coaching techniques into academic advising sessions. The field of coaching can help improve the advisor / advisee relationship enabling a collaboration that is both successful and rewarding. Through research in coaching and academic advising as well as interviews with higher education academic advisors across the United States, this study demonstrates a simple to use model advisors can use to enhance their interactions with advisees.