2019-2020 AMP Kickoff Event "Pop & Popsicles"
Advisor Mastery Program (AMP) - Professional Development
What is AMP?
AMP (Advisor Mastery Program) is MTSU’s professional learning community that was created, implemented, and is sustained by advisors in order to help foster a more cohesive and collaborative advising culture ate MTSU. The charge of this volunteer based committee is to foster communication, collaboration, commitment, comradery, and continued growth for the benefit of students, the university, and the professional advisor. AMP offers programs and interactive workshops that bring together university advisors to engage critically with advising scholarship, and with the relationship between both its theory and practice. AMP is sustained by extremely dedicated, volunteer advisors representing all MTSU colleges.
MISSION STATEMENT
The Advisor Mastery Program (AMP) will build a collaborative social and intellectual community to nurture the professional growth of MTSU advisors. Through intentional program development, we will provide tangible resources and strategies for staff to support themselves and students through their intellectual, professional, and personal development. We believe strongly that quality advising enhances student learning and empowerment.
VISION STATEMENT
The Advisor Mastery Program (AMP) will enable academic advisors at Middle Tennessee State University to build an inclusive community on campus intended to foster advising excellence. Through interactive programs designed to facilitate advisor training and development, AMP will create a space for advisors to connect and to collaborate. Together, advisors will explore the relationship between theory and practice in order to build supportive learning communities, and to create a shared language of both academic advising and student support within the campus community. AMP aspires to contribute to the advising profession by articulating our innovative advising practices, engaging in conferences, and developing publication opportunities. AMP aims to cultivate a more intentional academic advising philosophy that will foster staff and student growth by promoting lifelong learning.
OBJECTIVES
Motivated by core values of integrity, accountability, compassion, respect, and social responsibility, we are committed to the following:
- building ourselves as advisors through professional enrichment, personal development, and self-care
- learning, growing from, and teaching our advising community through collaboration
- exploring, questioning, creating, and reexamining advising scholarship and practice
- contributing to and advancing the field of academic advising
- implementing a holistic advising approach that integrates students’ academic, social and personal lives
- fostering the intellectual, professional, and personal development of students
- empowering students to become active agents of their learning experience
- promoting a culture of life-long learning in a diverse and ever-changing world
PURPOSE OF AMP
“At their core, advisors are focused on the successes of their students. They do the work of advising not for money or fame but because advising is meaningful work, ensuring that students get the support needed to reach their goals. However, advisors cannot do the work alone. They rely on their own supports to ensure that they serve their students well.
Perhaps the best way to ensure that students are successful is to support the development and training of the advisors to affirm that those who serve students have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and encouragement to do their work. By investing time, energy, and resources in both training and development, institutions of higher education and individual advising units increase the likelihood that the students in their care will find success” (Archambault, K.L., & Hapes, R.L., 2022, p. 1).
TRAINING VS. DEVELOPMENT
“’Training’ refers to anything an advisor does when they are either new to a position/institution or when something gets introduced to their position (e.g., new advising technology or new job duties). Training is, by its nature, task or job specific and time limited.
‘Professional development’ refers to any activity designed to advance an advisor’s competencies and provide greater depth of knowledge and breadth of understanding (e.g., leadership training)” (Archambault, K.L., & Hapes, R.L., 2022, p. 1-2).
Advisor Mentor Program: Calling all mentors and mentees!
