Editor,
After reading your Feb. 3, article, "Not All Advisers Qualified," I feel I must respond. I have 15 years experience in undergraduate and graduate admissions and academic advising and other student services positions.
I've held several different offices with the Texas Academic Advisers Network (TEXAAN), National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) and the New Mexico Academic Advisers Association (NMAAA.)
NACADA, TEXAAN and NMAAA share a mission of providing academic advisers and the profession with continuing education and maintenance of professional standards. The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education maintains national standards for academic advising or visit
www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/ResearchRelated/CAS.htm.
The CAS document addresses what it is that academic advisers do, how academic advising is to be administered, what standards an adviser must meet to perform their duties and the ethical standards guiding the advising profession. CAS says that advisers should have an earned graduate degree, but allows for substitution of education and experience when a degree has not been earned.
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Advisers come from many walks of life, with varying levels of experience. In 1997, the University developed UNM Pact to address situations that arise when a person who was qualified for a particular job when originally hired, but due to a change in job description now must have a degree.
It does not mean the person who has filled this job is now incapable or too inexperienced to perform the tasks related to the job. And it doesn't mean this person is not qualified to advise students.
Employees covered under the UNM Pact are qualified to discuss hopes and dreams with students, to discuss selection of courses, to understand the circuitous route that many students take to choosing a major, and to understand and explain a university system that can appear Machiavellian to a student newly arrived on campus. I have worked with advisers who have multiple years of experience, yet do not have degrees, I guarantee you they know as much, if not more than you or I do.
Please consult the American Heritage Dictionary for a definition of "loophole." This is what I found: "a way of escaping a difficulty, especially an omission or ambiguity in the wording of a contract or law that provides a means of evading compliance." Accordingly, that would mean that UNM is hiring people that do not have a degree and placing them in advising positions without verifying they meet the basic qualifications, but that isn't what is happening. This is a way to ensure that those people who have experience and a historical knowledge of the University system are allowed to keep their jobs.
The headline and your article are sensationalist and erroneous, you do a disservice to the University, the Daily Lobo and the student services professionals that work on this campus, with you and other students.
Beth Isbell Tapley
UNM staff
