Reinarz, Alice G. and White, Eric R., eds. Teaching Through Academic Advising: A Faculty Perspective. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass (1995).

In this volume (no. 62) from the series "New Directions For Teaching And Learning" Reinarz and White present the topic of advising through many different lenses and from many different perspectives. As they point out in the introduction, while most books on advising cater to professional advisers, this volume is centered on advice for faculty members in advising both from a general standpoint and in terms of specific challenges that faculty may face.

Aside from the important but expected sections on diversity and women, there are also chapters on advising undergraduates, assessing advisement techniques, and word-choice for advisement. Other chapters explore inter-relations between advisement and teaching as well as helping faculty to recognize the importance of continuing to work on becoming better advisers.

Part of what makes this volume especially interesting is that many of the chapters are written not by professional advisers but by faculty members. Given that the advice is intended for faculty members, having authors who start from that perspective is valuable. Several of these chapters are explicitly aimed at particular academic fields which, while perhaps being not quite as helpful to less closely-related disciplines, allows those who share that perspective to more easily follow the advice. Advice from within a discipline also has the advantage of being able to focus more clearly on issues which may come up with that specific discipline.

In addition to the aforementioned chapters, one other chapter will be of particular use to faculty seeking out more information on advisement. The last chapter is devoted specifically to resources on advisement. Not only does this chapter cover books and journals, there is information on national organizations, conferences and more.

Daniel Feuer (10/19/08)