The Advising Palaver Hut: Case Study in West African Higher Education

Abstract

Although international research regarding advising is burgeoning, most of the research on the role of and advantages related to academic advising has been limited to U.S. colleges and universities. This ethnographic case study conducted at a Liberian university examined the organizational culture of advising from student, faculty, and staff perspectives after the establishment of the Student Academic Advisement and Career Counseling Center. The findings suggest two primary elements that shape the role of advising and college student experience: postwar challenges in Liberian higher education and the shifting perspective on student centeredness. As a result, these elements have redefined the preliminary role of the advising center into a concept referred to as the advising palaver hut.

Examining the Relationship Between College Advising and Student Outputs: A Content Analysis of the NACADA Journal

“…Our analysis revealed that of those that did report the sample's race (n ¼ 39), only six did not have majority white samples. Four of those six studies were focused on a particular non-white population, two of which were international studies conducted in Liberia and Hong Kong (Cheung et al, 2017;Sy, 2017). As a result, only four of the 85 total studies examined majority non-white samples in the United States.…”