"Academic Advising Administrators’ Early Career as Midlevel Managers: S" by Kim Bock
 

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Abstract

Academic advising administrators are midlevel administrators responsible for coordinating advising programs and meeting institutional outcomes directly tied to student retention and completion. These roles manage personnel and fiscal resources but often do not receive formal managerial training when hired. They subsequently must learn to navigate their new role in isolation. This phenomenological study examined the training and onboarding of midlevel academic advising administrators (n = 11) to explore how those experiences influenced their self-perceived job effectiveness. Through semistructured interviews, participants were asked to describe their training and onboarding experiences, including the management and leadership preparation they received. Participants were also asked to reflect on their job performance as new academic advising administrators and describe their job responsibilities, successes, and challenges to collect their perceptions of job effectiveness as new leaders. Findings indicated participants were thrust into leadership roles without training, onboarding, or structured support; leveraged their networks to navigate the trial by fire; and reacted to challenges rather than engaging in forward-thinking, strategic work, undermining job effectiveness. Implications for practice call for intentionally designed midlevel leadership training, installation of deliberate networking and mentorship structures, and engaged senior leadership.

Year of Submission

2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Department of Educational Leadership and Postsecondary Education

First Advisor

Shelley Price-Williams

Date Original

5-2025

Object Description

1 PDF (39 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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Available for download on Sunday, April 11, 2027

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