🎙️ Emerging Voices: From TRiO to Trailblazer – Featuring Aric Faulkner

In this inspiring episode, Matt and Bri sit down with Aric Faulkner, academic advisor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Grainger College of Engineering. From his early days in the TRiO Upward Bound program to teaching ESL and now guiding future engineers, Aric’s journey is all about mentorship, resilience, and paying it forward.

He shares how his experiences shaped his passion for advising, the lessons he’s learned from his special-needs pup 🐾, and why confidence, compassion, and community are the keys to student success. We also dive into his adventures in the NACADA Emerging Leaders Program, his advice for new advisors, and his dreams for the future of academic advising.

If you’re looking for a mix of heart, humor, and hope, this episode will leave you motivated to invest in students!

*Emerging Voices is a spinoff of the Adventures in Advising podcast!

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Meet Kate Earnhardt—academic advisor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, Roman-history superfan, and proud cat mom to the incomparable Frank N Beans. Kate shares how a NACADA webinar on her second day in the job lit a fire for professional development, why advising adult and contemporary learners feels like solving a joyful credit jigsaw, and how a recent ADHD diagnosis reshaped her practice and her advocacy for neurodivergent advisors and students. We also dive into her Emerging Leaders Program journey, bold goals for building community, and the hill she’ll die on: take your lunch break.

In this episode:

• Tough-love meets big-sister energy: Kate’s “advising chameleon” approach
• ADHD myth-busting and practical ways to design an ecosystem that works
• Inside UNO’s Division of Continuing Studies and the art of puzzle-piecing credit
• ELP milestones, Region 6 shoutouts, and turning a talk into a workshop

*Emerging Voices is a spinoff of the Adventures in Advising podcast!

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Join Bri and Matt as they welcome Jing Yao, an academic advisor within University of British Columbia's Faculty of Arts whose journey runs from teaching test-prep in China to immigration advising, community college work at Douglas, and now student success at a research university. Jing opens up about empathetic advising, navigating academic concessions, supporting students after withdrawals, and helping students find majors that actually fit. She also shares how maternity leave has not paused her growth as well as leveling up in NACADA’s Emerging Leaders Program!

You’ll hear:

• Two-year vs. four-year advising—what truly changes (and what doesn’t)
• Practical language for hard conversations that restore confidence
• Real talk on redefining “your best” as a parent and professional
• How to turn curiosity into leadership, writing, and proposals that stick

A warm, hopeful episode packed with strategy and a Canadian sparkle ✨.

*Emerging Voices is a spinoff of the Adventures in Advising podcast!

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Follow us on Instagram and Facebook!