5 Questions with...

As a sneak peek into some of our sessions next week, the conference committee has interviewed a few presenters about their session, and what we can expect!

Enjoy this "5 Questions with..." Shannon Telenko, from The Pennsylvania State University, who will present Friday morning: "Is Customer Service a Socially Just Approach to Academic Advising?"

1.       Tell us about yourself and your involvement in advising and NACADA?

I have been an academic adviser at Penn State for almost four years and in my current position in the College of the Liberal Arts since November 2013.  Currently, I advise students in psychology majors and minors only, but I have advised other majors, minors, and certificate programs at Penn State.  Before becoming an adviser I did research on poverty and health care projects, worked in student affairs, and taught at various institutions.  In addition to all of that, I am finishing up a doctoral program in cultural anthropology with a focus on race, gender, and social justice at American University in Washington, D.C.  The topic of my dissertation is not related to this presentation, but people are welcome to ask me about that later!

2.       What motivated you to present on this topic?

When I was doing my graduate work in higher education administration from 1998 to 2000 at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, my professor John Braxton really drove home the point with us that students are not customers.  I don't think I gave it much thought then, but a couple of years later when I was a professional in student affairs a supervisor kept using that word - customer - to refer to students.  It really got under my skin, and once I realized why that was I emailed Dr. Braxton asking him to remind me why we should not call students customers, and he gave me a few talking points.  Since then, I have tried to use those talking points and allowed them to morph into my own thoughts and words - that education is not a commodity or good or service to be exchanged.  Rather, by being accepted into an institution you are agreeing to become part of an academic community in which you are not paying for knowledge but to join in the continuing emergence of new knowledge and contribute to the common good.  You are not really thinking about the common good if you are only thinking about yourself as a paying customer.  I have been in several other positions where students were referred to as customers, and I wanted advising colleagues to break away from that rhetoric using a social justice framework.

3.       Tell us about your session. What can attendees look forward to?

I will present a brief history of the infiltration of the phrase and practice "customer service" in higher education and then give a definition of what I mean by the term "social justice" as sometimes it can be used as a buzz word.  The academic advising profession was created to advocate for our students and teach students to advocate for themselves, but are we doing enough to teach our students how to advocate for others?  In my session, participants will get a chance to ponder the ways in which we, as academic advisers, can help our students understand the common good while in college and upon graduation. 

4.       What is the major take away you hope attendees gain from your presentation?

That the term "customer" is really a stifling one for education.  It implies that everything in this world can be bought or purchased and that as a student you are a passive participant in something in which you should be actively engaged.  Students can and should be speaking their mind in peaceful and constructive ways, considering the collective implications on their fellow students as well as the faculty and staff.  As academic advisers, we should do what we can to advance the profession and avoid any attempt at simply allowing our work to be labeled in a way that suggests what we do is some kind of business transaction.  Our vocation is to lead others to their vocation, and one's vocation cannot be bought and sold.

5.       What are you looking forward to most at the 2015 Region 2 Conference?

Conversation, networking, and collaboration are what I love about NACADA conferences.  I hope to see some old and new faces!  And perhaps my presentation will excite participants about this upcoming NACADA webinar, of which I am not participating but currently collaborating with some of these nice folks on a proposal for the annual conference in Las Vegas.