Spirit of Success Starts with Advising

Written By: Ian Silvester

Moving from residence halls to academic advising might seem like a career pivot. For Kayla McIntosh, it was simply another aspect of helping students navigate college and reach their goals, which has always been the bedrock of her career. 

“I was a housing person, and that’s where I got my start and where I spent 11 of my first years in higher education,” she said. “But at some point, I was really interested in supporting students in their academic space, knowing that’s really the big reason why they’re here.” 

McIntosh often jokes that when she showed up to a college campus, she never left. Her work began as a part-time student worker in 2010 at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where she received her bachelor’s degree in business administration. She then moved Northern Arizona University as resident director. Before joining the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith as the director of first-year advising, McIntosh was the director of student support services at Arkansas Tech University – Ozark. 

She added a master’s degree in college student personnel from the University of Central Arkansas to accompany her background working with students. All of this made her fit to take on her role with the ROAR a little more than a year ago. 

“When I was talking with students, the academic piece, although the most important piece, is also often the most confusing, like ‘How do I even get here? Here’s my roadmap and this is what it looks like, but how do I really do that? What are all the things that are going to intertwine with that?’ So, advising really does touch so many different areas of their lives. People think about advising as just registration, but it’s so much more than that,” she said.  

As director of the ROAR, McIntosh and her team start working with first-year students as early as the May before their fall semester and will continue to see them until the following May. Throughout that time, McIntosh said they are working with students about their degree plans, not just telling them what to do. 

“It’s a really collaborative process. Your advisor is there to guide you, but ultimately, the student has the onus in their decisions and can make decisions after they leave an advisor’s office. We really encourage students to be good advocates for their academic progress and use their advisors as tools and resources,” she said. 

For McIntosh, this process is part of what makes UAFS successful at helping students start on the path toward graduation before even stepping foot on the campus.  

“Advising helps students and contributes to UAFS’ spirit of success by helping students carve out their academic plans to get to graduation and beyond,” she said. 

It’s a mission that resonated with McIntosh as she reflected on her own collegiate journey. 

“I was aggressively first-gen,” she said with a laugh. “There were so many things that I didn’t know. I got a scary email from financial aid and almost ended up on a drop-for-non-payment list. Finally, I went in and asked the question. Now, I get to give back to students who are very much like me. … and I’m so grateful for that.” 

In her year at UAFS, McIntosh has been at the front of the line helping students, especially first-generation students like herself, make generational changes. She said she is committed to demystifying the college process for students and their families, and it all starts with advising. 

“Everybody’s journey through education is different, and some people’s journey looks very much like a straight line to the outside, but oftentimes, our journey through education is very wibbly-wobbly and has a lot of twists and turns to get to where we want to go,” she said. “We want students to understand their degree requirements and understand that there are a lot of things that interact with advising that really aren’t necessarily advising, but we’re going to talk about it anyway.” 

According to McIntosh, that support can range from helping students understand financial aid and scholarship requirements to guiding them through grade-replacement paperwork to improve their GPA. 

“Advising really touches a lot of things that other offices are also very responsible for,” McIntosh said. 

It is her hope that when a student leaves the ROAR and transitions to the college and faculty advisors, they do so knowing a little more about the nuances of advising, student support, and that no matter what, the people of UAFS are here to help every student find success.

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