Changing educational landscapes, globally, regionally and nationally, present new challenges for sustaining student enrolment, engagement, retention, and success in higher education (Alexander, 2000; Trowler, 2010; Curtis, Mahabir, & Vitullo 2016).
Within this shift, the roles and responsibilities of 'academic advisers' have become increasingly complex, with the introduction of performance-based management systems such as mandated completion agendas, performance funding models, and access programs, at both public and private institutions (Darling 2015, 91).
These competitive and increasingly performance and results-based management contexts reinforce the need for a scholarly treatment of academic advising and mentoring within higher education institutions. There is need to ask specific questions related to the dynamics and effectiveness of academic advising and mentoring practices across these institutions of higher education; the challenges of context (history and culture) in delivering these effectively; and the implications of these for both students and staff.
Such attention to academic advising and mentoring is particularly important given its significance to the successful integration of students into wider academic and professional communities (Mullen, 2005; NACADA 2006), and, for how we treat with the impact of these processes on the professional practice and trajectory of faculty (Altbach, 2000).
