Academic Advising Council Announces Leadership for 2021-22 Academic Year

The U of A Academic Advising Council transitioned to new committee chairs for the 2021-22 academic year. The council's committees give its members opportunities to participate in networking opportunities, professional development activities and leadership opportunities.

Incoming committee chairs for this academic year include:

• Fall Training: Danielle Dunn, Student Success Center
• Spring Training: Jill Geisler Wheeler, Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and Katie Pounders, Sam M. Walton College of Business
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training Program: Meagon Clarkson-Guyll, Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and Kathryn Lammers, Student Success Center
• Awards: Ryan Cox, Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

The purpose of AAC and the U of A is to provide a space for primary-role advisers, individuals who work closely with advisers and faculty-advisers to share ideas and best practices, increase institutional knowledge, inform others of the work advisers conduct on campus, advocate for and solicit resources necessary for completing stated goals and challenge each other to improve our practices in an inclusive, understanding and constructive environment. AAC leadership comprises an executive council and committee chairs, with Adrienne Gaines, associate director of student services for First-Year Engineering, serving as chair of the executive council. 

Dunn currently serves as the director for student success activities in the Student Success Center. She has worked at the U of A for over 10 years, spending time in University Housing, academic advising and now, student success. She is pursuing her Ph.D. in higher education at the U of A. In her spare time, she enjoys walking the NWA trails with her family and reading as many fiction books as possible.

Clarkson-Guyll is an associate director in the Fulbright College Advising Center, where she helps coordinate new student advising for the college. She has worked in the advising center since 2012 and is currently finishing her doctoral studies in rhetoric and composition in our English department. She enjoys working with students in both the classroom and in advising conversations and believes that both roles positively shape one another. In her spare time, you can find her reading with her local book club, playing with her dog, Millie, or - if her adviser is reading this - writing her dissertation.

Lammers is returning for a second year as an AAC chair. Lammers has just started a new position in the Student Success Center as a student instructor and advocate, working with the embedded tutor program. She has previous experience working as adviser for the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and in various roles for University Housing.

Pounders, a Hot Springs native, joined Walton in 2014 when an academic advising position was created as the college launched its first online program in general business. Walton has since expanded to include degree programs in accounting, management with an emphasis in human resources, marketing and supply chain management. As the assistant director for online programs, Pounders works with both on-campus and online students. She also teaches for the Management Department. Pounders was named the AAC Academic Advisor of the Year for 2021. In her free time, she enjoys exploring Northwest Arkansas, working out and loving on her sweet Yorkie, Marlee.

Cox has been an academic counselor in the Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences since November 2019. He works with underclassmen in human nutrition and dietetics, food nutrition and health, and apparel merchandising and product development, although he claims to be neither healthy nor fashionable himself. Before coming to the U of A, he was the director of advising and career services at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock. Although he's spent more time working from home than on campus since he came to Fayetteville, Cox is excited about connecting with other advisers on campus to learn more and hopefully give out as many awards as possible.

Geisler Wheeler earned her undergraduate and both of her graduate degrees from the U of A. Geisler Wheeler joined Fulbright Honors Program in January 2012 after five and half years of academic advising in the Fulbright College Advising Center. While there, she worked with students of all majors in Fulbright College. She is an active member of both the Arkansas Academic Advising Network (ArkANN) and National Academic Advising Counsel (NACADA), where she is the incoming chair of the Webinar Advisory Board. She was named Outstanding Academic Adviser by ArkAAN in 2010, and her co-presentation on student veterans won Best of Region 7. Prior to the advising center, she was an assistant director of admissions in the university's Office of Admissions.