The Michigan Academic Advising Association has selected Leah Kicinski, 2nd year Graduate Assistant as the MIACADA Outstanding Advisor - Graduate Student award winner and will present her with this honor at the annual conference to be held May 30th at Central Michigan University.

In support of her nomination, one student wrote "I met with Leah countless times over these last couple years and every time she went out of her way to find more information that helped me, even more than what I was hoping for walking into her office that day. Leah has been friendly, caring, and has been a big reason of why my experience of planning my courses and my future here at Grand Valley has been stress free."

Another student said "I have worked with Leah a few times in the last year. She has been so helpful in making sure I'm adjusting well to college...and she was so helpful! She never made me feel like I was asking too many questions or anything."

Leah earned her M.Ed. degree in College Student Affairs Leadership in April 2014. She has done a fantastic job in our office for the past two years and will be greatly missed as she leaves us at the end of May to continue her journey into the advising profession. Congratulations Leah!

Congratulations to case study winners Theresa Lyon, 1st year Graduate Assistant in our office and Emily Davis, a Graduate Assistant in Housing and Residence Life.

The case study competition is open to all College Student Affairs Leadership graduate students and has taken place annually since 1996. Students who enter are randomly assigned a partner, and sent a case the night before which they must analyze, and develop a strategy for, to present within 24 hours. Each team is evaluated by a panel a judges composed of student affairs professionals.

This year’s case involved naming rights for a building and student unrest at a Midwestern community college. The final portion of the case involved attendance at a student meeting and teams were asked to present their next steps in solving the issues presented by students, faculty, and staff. Team members were also asked to identify key stakeholders and discuss the application of student development theory as it applied to the case presented. Winners receive a plaque and a monetary award for professional development.

Anne London, Senior Academic Advisor, recently traveled to Shawnee, Norman and Moore, Oklahoma with School of Public Nonprofit and Health Administration undergraduate programs coordinator, Quincy Williams and his class to assist in disaster relief and clean up from an EF 4 tornado that struck the area in Fall 2013.

This annual service trip is part of the PA 380, Special Topics: Service Learning course taught every winter semester.  Within the context of the course, students engage in a meaningful set of community service learning activities after a natural disaster has occurred. There were 25 students who participated in this experience this year and carried out tasks such as fence rebuilding, demolition work, roofing, and building. The group also assisted  the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma in packing lunches for the weekend lunch program which serves more than 20,000 socio-economically challenged school aged children.

Changes to the General Education will be fully implemented with the entering class of Fall 2014. New handbooks and quick guides are available which include the changes that are going into effect. Entering students will only be able to complete issues as the themes are being phased out.

There is also a new General Education Video that will be shown at new student orientation over the summer.

Students who entered GVSU prior to Fall 2014 will be able to continue using the transition plan for 8 years. There are also new quick guides available for those students.

It will be important to pay attention to catalog year when advising students...or better yet, just use the student's myPath available in myBanner...as it always contains the appropriate informaton for the students catalog year.

Over the summer we will be moving our office up to the 3rd floor. After 7 years of being neighbors with the School of Criminal Justice and the School of Public, Nonprofit, and Health Adminstration we look forward to being near our new neighbors in the School of Social Work! Our new address will be 301C DEV and we look forward to making our new space welcoming to our students as we settle in sometime in June.

This is our last newsletter issue until August. Have a great summer!

The 10th Annual Community reading selection Five Days at Memorial would be a very fitting read for members of the College of Community & Public Service as it focuses on issues very relevant to the School of Social Work and the School of Public, Nonprofit, and Health administration. However there are also criminal and legal issues addressed that may be of interest to the School of Criminal Justice.  Desk Copies will be available to borrow from the CCPS Undergraduate Advising Center over the summer if you are interested in learning more. Also, if you adopt it in your classroom there will be teaching circles, curriculum resources, co-curricular events, as well as the author coming to campus in March.  MORE INFORMATION

From the Publisher:
The book  is a culmination of six years of reporting and unspools the mystery of what happened in the days following Hurricane Katrina, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths. In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are in America for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better.