5 Questions with... Marlena McGlothin Lester & Natasha Smith

In the spirit of collaboration, we head to Blacksburg, VA to speak with co-presenters Marlena McGlothlin Lester & Natasha Smith from Virginia Tech.
Tell us a little about yourself

In 2010 we were jointly hired to advise the first-year engineering students at Virginia Tech. Though we were both at Virginia Tech in other academic advising environments, we had never met. Luckily we had a great connection and have been working as a team ever since. We each continue to advise our first-year engineering students, but have also taken on leadership roles as Director of Advising (Marlena) and Director of Enrollment Management (Natasha).

What is your experience in academic advising, higher education, and NACADA?

We have somewhat similar background stories in that we discovered academic advising through an assistantship while pursuing our masters. Collectively we have 16+ years of academic advising experience and have presented at NACADA regional conferences, as well as the national conference.

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

Our presentation Academic advising during new student orientation…are you just herding or providing direction? will explore how to get students engaged in their orientation advising process, regardless of the number of students coming through the session, and without breaking the bank! This ultimately leads to students having a better understanding of your department/college/university and improves the student/advisor relationship.

What do we hope attendees gain from going to your presentation?

We hope attendees will be able to take away some new ideas on how and why to build relationships across their campus, select appropriate avenues of communication, and use technology to engage students in an interactive way. When attendees leave the session, we want them to have something concrete they can to take back to their institution and be able to easily implement for this summer.

What do we hope to personally gain from presenting in Lancaster?

Presenting our methodologies not only allows us to (hopefully) enrich the student experience at our peer institution but to also receive feedback from our peers so that we can continue to make improvements each year. It is such an honor to be able to present at NACADA Region 2 and we are so thankful for this opportunity!

Thank you ladies! We will see you next week!