If you identify as a lifelong learner and crave discourse with like-minded individuals…

If you have ever felt alone or adrift in your advising practice and are looking for some focus…

If you would like to nerd out on a topic that you care about with a community of peers…

Then ACE Reads is perfect for you!

ACE Reads is an initiative that seeks to provide intellectual and communal spaces for colleagues to engage with scholarship on topics that relate to advising. ACE Reads was designed to build community through collaborative study; practice theory as it pertains to topics of interest within the advising community at UCLA; and theorize practice by connecting readings to advising tools, strategies, and resources.

Please stay tuned for updates and Like/Follow  the ACE Reads Facebook Page to stay connected!

2024 Study Group

Our theme for 2024 is “learning from lived experience.” We’ll spend our Winter and Spring meetings discussing Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land (author of Maid, which you may have read or seen on Netflix.) Class is available as an audiobook, e-book, or book-book. Check below our signature for tips on how to access the full text via your local library!

Our Winter meeting will focus on Chapter 4: “Economics Learned, Not Taught,” which recounts the author’s return to college while she balances parenting and providing for her young daughter. We’ve attached a PDF of Chapter 4 here.* If time allows, we encourage you to start the book at the beginning, and to keep reading/listening if you’re enjoying it!

2023 Study Group

As you may know, ACE Reads is trying something new, having one larger super group that explores diverse topics rather than multiple small reading groups with set areas of focus. This year, the super group will be led by Annelise Werhel, a Graduate Advisor in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and Steph Bundy, an Undergraduate Advisor in English!

WINTER 2023 – We will be discussing student basic needs in light of the new Basic Needs center opening soon in the Strathmore building. In the spirit of trying new things, our “reading” for this meeting is actually a podcast. The episode is titled “Talking Basic Needs” from the “Talk Policy to Me” podcast put out by the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. You can find the podcast episode here. The transcript is also available on that page for those who would prefer to read rather than listen.  Thursday, Jan 26th, from 12:30-1:30 PM. This will be a hybrid meeting. For those joining us on campus, we will be meeting in Murphy Hall A316P. This is the Center for Academic Advising in the College (CAAC) Conference Room. For those joining remotely, Zoom information is included below. We hope this format will allow as many people to participate as possible.  (Only 2 people joined in person)

SPRING 2023 –  We will be discussing how to support parenting students at UCLA. Our “reading” for this meeting is actually a podcast! The episode is titled “How Universities are Failing Student Parents” from the The Higher Ed Spotlight podcast. You can find the podcast episode here (Season 1, Episode 6). The transcript is also available on that page for those who would prefer to read rather than listen.  Thursday, May 4th from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm via Zoom 

2021-2022 Study Groups

ADVISING APPROACHES & THEORIES

  • Facilitators: Steph Bundy and Danielle Carreon
  • First Group Meeting: Wednesday, November 17th,  1:00pm-2:00pm via Zoom
  • First Reading: TBD
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

Do you want to be more intentional about how you advise our diverse student population? Do you want to feel more prepared for any kind of student interaction? Would you like to be a more scholarly advisor? Join us in the Advising Approaches and Theories study group as we sharpen our advising toolkit.  We will synthesize and evaluate best practices with the intention of applying these techniques in our valuable work with students.

ADVISING NOW: COUNSELING STRATEGIES IN THE CONTEXT OF CURRENT EVENTS

  • Facilitator: Annelise Werhel* (*If interested in becoming a co-facilitator, please contact Annelise at awerhel@lifesci.ucla.edu)
  • First Group Meeting: TBD- Availability poll forthcoming
  • First Reading: “Predictors of Stress in First Generation College Students” by Hembrecht & Ayers
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

The goal of this group is to read and discuss current events, their impact on students, and best practices for working with students in the context of current events. Each meeting will focus on a different topic currently impacting students, from supporting students in times of increased political division/tension, to advising students in a hybrid model, to supporting new and transitioning students. The goal of this group is to provide a space to read and discuss advising literature on different topics as they become relevant to our field. Input from study group members on future topics is welcomed and highly encouraged.

CULTIVATING YOUR COUNSELING SKILLS IN SUPPORTING FIRST-GEN AAPI STUDENTS

  • Facilitator: Jaine Park
  • First Group Meeting: Friday, November 19th,  11:00am-12:00pm via Zoom
  • First Reading: TBD
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

This study group focuses on how to be a mindful counselor/advisor for first-generation AAPI students as they have consistently been viewed with the model minority stereotype, grouping all 57 distinct ethnic subgroups into one label as Asian. In return, this phenomenon applied a false sense of identity that all Asians are portrayed to be smart, obedient, privileged, and successful, undermining and negating certain AAPI student population’s struggles (i.e., Southeast Asian Americans, undocumented students) such as internalizing identity crisis, finding a sense of belonging, navigating higher ed as first-gen, and searching for financial resources. This study group will discuss Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth Model as the foundation to discuss intersectionality and read narrative interviews of students conducted from qualitative research. The goal is to provide a space to discuss and utilize this group as a positive method of learning on how advisors/counselors can impact and support AAPI students by providing transparent resources, information, and conversation.

STUDENT BASIC NEEDS INSECURITY

  • Facilitator: Sheehan Parker
  • First Group Meeting: Tuesday, November 30TH, 2:00pm-3:00pm (with overflow to 3:30pm) via Zoom
  • First Reading: “Leadership learning through the lens of social class” and “Who we are impacts how we lead: Social class influence on leader identity, capacity, and efficacy” by Ardoin & Guthrie
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

Our group will engage with campus partners and emerging scholarship on basic needs insecurity in higher education in order to merge theory with UCLA specific knowledge in the practice of advising. Furthermore, we will work to identify and address the hurdles in our students’ experiences that limit their engagement with resources that address basic needs insecurity.

2020-2021 Study Groups

Advising theories and approaches

  • Facilitators: Steph Bundy and Justin Javier
  • First Group Meeting: Thursday, October 29TH, 12:00pm-1:00pm
  • First Reading: “Difficult Dialogues, Privilege and Social Justice: Uses of the Privileged Identity Exploration Model in Student Affairs Practice” by S. Watt
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

Do you want to be more intentional about how you advise our diverse student population? Do you want to feel more prepared for any kind of student interaction? Would you like to be a more scholarly advisor? Join us in the Advising Approaches and Theories study group as we sharpen our advising toolkit.  We will synthesize and evaluate best practices with the intention of applying these techniques in our valuable work with students.

Advising Now: Counseling strategies in the context of current events

  • Facilitator: Annelise Werhel
  • First Group Meeting: Tuesday, October 27TH, 12:00pm-1:30pm
  • First Reading: Supporting Students Through an Election (article links to be provided by facilitator)
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

The goal of this group is to read and discuss current events, their impact on students, and best practices for working with students in these times of unprecedented change. Each meeting will focus on a different topic currently impacting students, from supporting students in times of increased political division/tension in an election year, to working with online students during the COVID crisis. The goal of this group is to provide a space to read and discuss advising literature on different topics as they become relevant to our field. Input from study group members on future topics is welcomed and highly encouraged.

Student basic needs insecurity (formerly “Basic Needs”)

  • Facilitator: Sheehan Parker
  • First Group Meeting: Wednesday, November 4TH, 9:00 am – 10:30 am
  • First Reading: “Parenting While in College: Basic Needs Insecurity Among Students with Children” by S. Goldrick-Rab, C. Welton, & V. Coca
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

Our group will engage with campus partners and emerging scholarship on basic needs insecurity in higher education in order to merge theory with UCLA specific knowledge in the practice of advising. Furthermore, we will work to identify and address the hurdles in our students’ experiences that limit their engagement with resources that address basic needs insecurity.

Feminism in Higher Education

  • Facilitator: Shantel Daniels
  • First Group Meeting: Wednesday, October 21st, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
  • First Reading: Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot, Chapters 8 & 9, by M. Kendall
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

We will focus our study group on such topics as current events, the history of feminism, current use of feminism, feminist theory, intersectional feminism, future uses in academic advising.

Wellness in theory & practice

  • Facilitators: Kelsey Duff and Jessika Herrera
  • First Group Meeting: Thursday, November 5th, 8:30 am – 9:30 am
  • First Reading: See details in description, below!
  • Interest form: Please sign-up HERE to be on the listserv for this study group

Too often, we think of ourselves (and our students) as a mind with a body, instead of thinking we ARE our bodies and our bodies ARE us. This perception impacts our views of illness, health, disability, intellect, social economic status, race, and so much more. Join the Wellness study group this year as we examine the body’s role in our lives through an exploration of the works of Black poet Sonya Renee Taylor, author of The Body is Not an Apology and White researcher, Kelly McGonigal, author of The Joy of Movement: How exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connection, and courage.  

  • How does physicality and embodiment impact resilience?
  • How do we find joy in spite of violent systems of oppression?
  • What ideas or preconceived notions about The Body (or our bodies) impact our lives, explicitly & implicitly?
  • How are certain bodies excluded from wellness practices, research and cultural messages?

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

  • Develop a practice of self-initiated scholarship
  • Explore advising scholarship and related fields
  • Assess and evaluate articles, studies, and sources
  • Critique existing academic advising scholarship
  • Implement new practices in both professional and personal contexts
  • Synthesize connections between theory, research, and practice
  • Identify and discuss gaps in existing scholarship
  • Formulate new theories, practices, and possible research

Additional Learning Outcomes for Facilitators

  • Develop a reading list/curriculum
  • Lead a collaborative learning community
  • Facilitate discussions about complex topics
  • Negotiate different perspectives
  • Conceptualize a deliverable

Committee Members

Current Committee Members

  • Alina Avila (College Academic Advising)
  • Stephanie Bundy (English)
  • Marian Gabra (Director)
  • Jacyln Robbin (Neuroscience)

Please email ace@college.ucla.edu to join the ACE listserv.