AAACE 2021 Annual Conference

Academic Advising, Faculty, Teaching, Adult Learners

Junior faculty working at state comprehensive universities have to adapt to new work environments. Since adult learners have become the primary learner demographic at such institutions, junior faculty need onboarding support with teaching and advising. Participants will explore equity-minded practices helping junior faculty succeed in teaching and advising adult learners.

Supporting the needs of adult learners is vital to their success. However, adult learners' success is primarily predicated upon those who teach and advise them, including junior faculty (Zach, 2018). Inclusive teaching and advising practices promote awareness of diversity and equity, which fosters acceptance and prepares learners for a diversely-rich world. As such, onboarding junior faculty into their new roles at state comprehensive universities is critical.

Junior faculty embarking on their new roles indicate their experiences are vastly exciting and personally rewarding. Nevertheless, with limited teaching and advising experience from which to base their current practices, many new faculty find themselves traversing an unfamiliar landscape (Antonio de Carvalho-Filho et al., 2019; Chase & Thiele, 2015; Gosling et al., 2020). Inclusive and equity-minded teaching and advising practices require faculty to consider their own biases and perspectives concerning how their curriculum is designed and their advising is carried out. Moreover, new faculty often find themselves spending an exorbitant amount of time on curriculum planning and assignment development, and addressing the different learning and advising needs of adults.

Based on recent research (Powers & Wartalski, 2021) and continued inquiry, the authors present information for addressing teaching and advising practices for junior faculty.