Teaching & mentoring
Research methods, academic advising, and a great many dissertations.
How I work
Open a card for the full statementGraduate supervision
Open a card for the detailOn teaching
Teaching
I teach on the premise that knowledge is constructed rather than transmitted. My courses aim to widen a student's frame — to make room for alternative points of view — on the grounds that students own an idea more meaningfully when the working-out was theirs.
The exchange runs both ways. I view my role as equal parts instructor and learner: listening to the views and experiences of my students is where much of my own thinking comes from. A classroom at its best is a dynamic flow of ideas that moves everyone in the room.
On advising
Advising
My advising philosophy is a pedagogical one. Where a teacher guides a student through a single course, the advisor shows how the whole curriculum relates to a life plan. Advising is not ticking off requirements; it is an exploratory process of helping a student discover their goals, values, beliefs, passions and talents.
I ask deep, probing questions to find what drives a student — to help them find their why. I advise from strengths, on the grounds that dwelling on a student's weaknesses is like advising a student who isn't in the room. And I don't treat education as a means to an end, but as a lifetime process. If I can communicate that attitude, I have done my job.
On mentoring
Mentoring
The most successful mentoring relationships benefit both parties. I think of three ingredients: psychosocial support — being accessible, offering reassurance, encouraging the mentee to dream and then to plan; career development support — clarifying expectations, demystifying the system, encouraging risk; and role modeling, including appropriate self-disclosure and help building networks.
Every mentoring relationship I have had has taught me to be more innovative — in my professional association, on my campus, and in my own research.
Graduate supervision
Doctoral supervision
I have chaired or co-chaired sixteen doctoral students at Kansas State, on topics ranging from feminist pedagogy in the helping professions and early-career school counselors' consultation with teachers to college choice, advisor turnover, academic advising models, mentoring relationships, graduate education in advising, multicultural counseling, and acculturation and informal learning.
My doctoral students have won three NACADA Research Grants, a NACADA Doctoral Student Research Award, and the College of Education's Social Justice Advocacy and Research Brief awards.
Graduate supervision
Master’s supervision
I coordinate the M.S. in Academic Advising at Kansas State, a program that draws working advisors from campuses across the United States. I have supervised 46 master's students to completion since 2021, with 38 more currently in progress.
I also served as point person for the graduate certificate in academic advising from 2021 to 2023 and led the program's curriculum review through 2024.
Graduate supervision
Dissertation committees
I sit on committees across the College of Education at Kansas State — in adult and continuing education, counselor education, curriculum and instruction, educational leadership and physics education — and as an external member at other universities.
Eighteen Kansas State dissertations I served on have been completed, with around seventeen more underway. I have served as an external committee member on six completed doctorates at Florida International, South Dakota, Valdosta State and Drexel, with five in progress, and as external examiner for a doctorate at the University of Liverpool.