This month we are spotlighting Rachel Pawlowski, Academic Advisor from Wayne State University!

What has your career path been like up to this point?

I have a master’s in counseling from Oakland University. I originally thought I would be a therapist forever and practice therapy in a more traditional sense. My internship in graduate school focused on juvenile justice, and I served as a juvenile probation officer. I worked with folks who were on probation several times but not incarcerated. I thought I would transition into that role after graduating, however, the company I worked for went on a hiring freeze.

I found a job as a therapist in Flint in a facility for children who had been removed from their home at a court order due to abuse or neglect. I did individual and family therapy. I worked with DHS and the courts on adoptions.

I had also interviewed at Baker College in Clinton Township when seeking out that therapy role. Nine months in, the college called me back. They explained that they were piloting a first year advising program and felt my counseling background would be helpful. They were only hiring part-time, and I knew it was a risk. My resume was extremely clinical. I didn’t have advising experience but really wanted to do it. I took advantage of the opportunity in September 2009 and have been in higher education ever since.

I wanted to work for a university on a campus with a diverse population. I found a job at Wayne State University (WSU) in the Irvin D. Reid Honors college in August 2012. I just celebrated my 12-year anniversary this fall. 

What brings you joy outside of work?

I have two beautiful children! I have an 8-year-old named Lucy and a 5-year-old named Danny. They are fun and energetic. I love seeing the world again through their eyes.

I love movies. I was a projectionist for 10 years during undergrad and grad school. I have a deep love for all things cinema!

I also play volleyball. 

Tell us about your role in the Irvin D. Reid Honors College and how it is different from the typical advising.

It is a role that has grown. When I started at WSU, the university had just undergone a gigantic student satisfaction survey in 2011. Students were unhappy with advising all over campus. They reconfigured how many advisors each department should have. Honors has 2000 students, but it is a co-major. Honors hired a full-time and a half-time advisor at that time. We now have four full-time advisors.

I took what I learned at Baker and integrated it into the work I was doing with Honors. We share all the students on our team, but I tend to see more first- and second-year students. We want students to be able to see someone when they need it. We hold open advising twice.

I have a first-year probation program where students need to maintain a 3.3 GPA. This is to monitor if something is wrong or alarming because these are typically high achieving students. This would indicate a transition issue that needs to be addressed. I do a lot of collaboration with faculty to have honors seats in their classes. Because we are smaller and do not have a Director of Advising or Student Services, we do a lot of abnormal things, and I sit in meetings that an advisor might not find typical. For example, I am the chair of our scholarship committee. Advisors oversee a lot of what goes on in the background in the program.

Your nomination highlighted the many different capacities you have served MIACADA. Could you tell us about those and what you have learned from them? 

I wanted to get involved in MIACADA and I started as a Member-At-Large. I did not win the first time I ran. If you really want something, don’t quit. We had three people at my institution running for that role and we split the vote. I ran again next year and won and was terrified. I thought I would do my two years and then maybe run for another role on the board, but someone tapped me and encouraged me to run for president.

My first year as president we had a regional conference, but not a state conference. So, we had no conference revenue. It was a challenging year fiscally. We already had to look at everything we spent funds on closely and then the pandemic happened. I had this passion to have the conference north of Grand Rapids, so I had a goal to try and secure having MIACADA further north. We secured a location in Traverse City in 2020, but the pandemic required that to be cancelled. I was very excited to have the conference in Marquette.

When WSU hosted the conference in 2022, I was a Conference Co-Chair. We were the only state in the region to host an in-person conference. We had lots of folks drive in without having to make overnight travel arrangements. It was exhausting but so much fun to be the first event back in-person and to consider COVID protocols. Seeing that from start to finish was the real highlight of my time in MIACADA.

What advice would you give to new advising professionals entering the field?

The first thing to pop into my head is network, network, network. Don’t live in your bubble. The most impactful part of MIACADA or NACADA for me, is being able to see what is going on outside of my world. Sometimes you don’t have the funding to go cool places and do cool things. With NACADA and MIACADA you often don’t have to leave your office to do cool things. The NACADA learning communities have meetings that you can go to and learn more about specialized advising and meet folks doing similar work.

An example is that we recently hired a university-wide advisor on-boarding model. I had gone to a presentation at NACADA from University of Texas at Austin and University of Maryland and I emailed the presenters. They have been our mentors through the whole process. They have been a sound board and met with us several times.  You can do similar things on your campus. Even if you are in a specific college and don’t have a lot of opportunities, you might need to create those opportunities. You can give up a lunch to talk to someone and learn from them.

Don’t be shy. Reach out, collaborate and network, network, network.