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Since its founding, NACADA has identified many of the issues and concerns involved in academic advising and has supported individual advisers and institutions as they have identified, analyzed, and solved these problems. The most recent issue to appear of national interest is the concern of full-time professionals who enter advising as a career path. Although nationally faculty members still provide the primary delivery system for academic advising, the number of full-time professional advisers serving in this capacity has increased. While some institutions have used non-faculty advisers for inany years, the growing number of advisers in this category has initiated a new professional identity. Full-time advisers are legitimately concerned about opportunities to expand and deepen their expertise and grow professionally.There is little information available to provide an accurate profile of professional advisers, the tasks they perform, and their perceptions of what "professional" advising means. In response to this growing interest and concern, NACADA's president appointed a Task Force to gather information about the current state of full-time professional advising through the attitudes and experiences of NACADA members.A questionnaire was mailed to 1,000 NACADA members (the entire membership at that time). The questionnaire included questions about titles; salaries; other responsibilities; contractual rights; criteria for promotion and evaluation; posting of and criteria for new adviser positions; attitudes toward advising as a profession; certification and credentialing of advisers; training; and the degree of awareness and interest in advising on individual campuses. Seventy-two percent of the membership responded, indicating to the Task Force that the state of professional advising was indeed an important topic to begin studying.

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