Editor's Note: This article was selected as the winning entry in the Mentor's fifth annual Academic Advising Writing Competition. Elizabeth Boretz, the author of the entry, will receive a $500 cash award.
Gritos davan en aquella sierra;
Ay, ¡madre! Quierom'ir a ella.
(Anon.)
Cries descended from the distant hills;
Oh, mother! I want to go there.
(Anon., translation mine)
Orally transmitted lyrical songs of Early Spain first fired my passions as a Spanish major, and they fueled my career for some fifteen years. After that, I gave in to the beckoning calls from a mysterious place beyond myself. The “distant hills” drew me away from being a tenured professor, into a career as a director of the Student Advising and Learning Center. I had never guessed that what began in school as a gift for languages would open up a world of history and literature, in addition to an internship abroad, years of extensive travels, and graduate school. This accumulation of humanistic engagement and insights, including the toils of a doctorate in Romance languages, culminated in a career as faculty in a rural liberal arts university. With that hill conquered, I turned my gaze not deeper into the world of literary studies, but outward, toward academic advising and learning support. I advise undergraduates, train other advisers, and lead workshops for struggling students, all with a focus on the power of words to conjure one's dreams and goals into reality. The mysterious couplets above capture the essence of every student-to-adviser relationship. They represent the role of spoken words as a vehicle for self-empowerment; to speak of surpassing one's known confines is the most important step in realizing that goal.
Early in my career, a student newspaper reporter and advisee of mine interviewed me about my new book. She noted that I seemed to identify with the female voices in the thousands of songs that have been compiled over the centuries, which relate yearnings to assert one's independent identity and freedom to grow and learn. She was right. Folk lyric and advising both commonly found themselves upon a theme of frustration in the face of ambition. Much of my past career revolved around defending the validity of “literature” that originated in song, with authors unknown. These compose a body of works that appear to have originated in private moments between young women and their chaperones or nannies, referred to as “madre.” It is a rite of passage in youth to look beyond one's everyday surroundings and notice the barriers that seem to shorten the horizons, rather than broaden them. For those who are fortunate and brave enough to pursue higher education, the guidance of an adviser with a background in medieval Spanish folk lyric and literature proves profitable in many respects.
What originally captivated me about medieval literature and culture was the emphasis upon efficiency of language, and the balance and harmony between the body and mind, as well as rhythm and meaning. I find beauty in rhyme and simplicity, and especially in any quest for truth and self-actualization. It came as a surprise even to myself when, six years after tenure, I chose to pursue a Master of Arts in student affairs. This new dimension in academic pursuits educated me about my own personality type, and more importantly, that learning truly is holistic and endless for all of us. Thoroughly armed with this perspective, I continue to delight in students as texts unto themselves. I look for where the “rhyme” and congruence can be found in their words and passions. I have developed a keen eye for textual harmony after years of poring over medieval songs and folk tales. Every text, just as every student, houses a theme, a style to analyze, and a purpose in the world. My advising manual's first page establishes both a campuswide advising culture that allows only for positively charged words and an intolerance for student or adviser speech that conjures failure or hopelessness. This is where a background in literature serves academic advising. Message and style of delivery are inseparable forces. Therefore, to serve students effectively, both must be forward-gazing and positive in advising.
I led the stand-in summer orientation advisers in listening exercises, reminding them that the object of the game is to absorb and not to interrupt. Writing down key words out of an advisee's brief monologue generates constellations of ideas that form haiku-like poems when given the chance. This is an effective method that I also have trained students of literature to use when trying to pin down a message within a confusing or intimidating literary piece. This is also an enlightening way for advisers such as myself to bring out an advisee's true fears, goals, or wishes. To restate a student's reflections in an abbreviated, subtly poetic summary reassures the advisee that he or she is being heard, and also naturally invites further elaboration. Every author, known or unknown, whose text has endured the passage of generations has succeeded because he or she chose his words with care. Words have the power to generate change. Every student is the author of his or her own destiny, and a literary-minded adviser is one equipped to assure the “writer” that with some editorial collaboration, the text that is his or her life path will generate its own meaning in its time.
A direction or major that is found too rapidly, for example, can also lead to a sense of confinement on the student's part. This is why advisers need to remember to keep the advisee's gaze wide. The greatest joy of working with other advisers in different disciplines and with great variance in their years of experience lies in the common space where our academic backgrounds overlap. That is, the daily acts of persuading a biology student to embrace an artistic expression requirement or emboldening a humanities major to find the pleasures of college chemistry do not always come naturally to academic advisers. By exchanging stories, which we do weekly, we continue learning where our own formal education fits into the continuum of knowledge. We are trained and credentialed social scientists, counselors, linguists, and artists. Whether viewing the student through a prism of medieval studies or sociology, we see the boundless light that shines through each learner in our presence. It does not matter that we detect different refractions, as long as we draw upon our prior learning to see more than just the demographics and statistical likelihood for success of the individual who stands before us.
I learned through my folk studies that the dominant “ah” sound in so many ancient women's songs, such as in the example above, plays a key role in their survival. “Ah” is the first vowel sound that we pronounce. It naturally simulates crying and captivates the listener. That is to say, “ah” is the sound of asking for what we want. These short verses take the reader or listener to the most primordial form of self-assertion, for eight to ten syllables are all that we can generate in one breath, and “ah” is the sound of breathing. Ancient poetry is simply a form of respiration; it affirms life. It is natural for such a medium to strike a chord with someone like me who was first a traditional first-year undergraduate who had never been anywhere but home, then a graduate student further intrigued by the life of the mind. Then I was a world traveler exploring the corners of Spain, face to face with modern-day singers of tales, and later I became an unwitting role model to my own internationally minded college students in the classroom. When I returned to graduate school to pursue my student affairs degree, my foundation of medieval studies filled the gaps in student development theory and higher education finance, contemporary issues, and history. Those texts do not contain rhymed verses, yet their organization and unity continue to celebrate the quest for any institutional or individual entity to persist and move beyond one's traditional boundaries. The medieval ideal of a timeless, refined message speaks to the same unity that I aim to cultivate in students. Their ambitions must run parallel to their identity, values, and knowledge. A good couplet, good book, great adviser, or persistent student all stand upon a common foundation of sincerity in their aims. It begins when we look to the horizon, take a breath, and express ourselves in search of a listening ear.