Maria Aladjova (Health Sciences), Elizabeth Johnson, Sheetal Survase (both Academic Success Center), Kevin McVay (College of Sciences), Janelle Yasukochi (Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education), John Starkey, Stephen Sumnner, Tashauna Stewart, Jason Kantrowitz, and Beth Gersten (all Lee Business) all are part of the UNLV academic advising community and recently were awarded two grants from the Stupski Foundation to focus on wellness initiatives for academic advising professionals within NACADA Region 9 institutions. Two teams submitted a proposal that addresses the needs for wellness, sustainability, and retention in the academic advising profession. Through this opportunity, academic advising professionals will take an active role to improve their mental health and wellness on a systemic level.

Team 1:
Members: Aladjova, Johnson, McVay, Survase, and Yasukochi
Award Amount: $25,000

This team will create a new academic advising commission that focuses on wellness for academic advising professionals. The commission will invite all 100+ academic advising professionals to join the group to share their voice and ideas to address the mental, physical, and emotional needs of the academic advising community. This group will advocate for the academic advising community at large and research internal and external best practices to improve the work environment.

Team 2:
Members: Starkey, Sumnner, Stewart, Kantrowitz, and Gersten
Award Amount $17,000

This team has designed three opportunities to counterbalance the cumulative fatiguing impacts on the academic advising role. These opportunities will focus on the three pillars they created: agency, compensation, and engagement. They will create an undergraduate research project that tracks academic advising professional sentiment before and after exposure to the project opportunities and create a fund to incentivize departments through mini-grants to participate in the project opportunities.