In the complex ecosystem of a major research university, the bridge between a student’s academic potential and their ultimate success is often built by those working behind the scenes. While headlines frequently focus on breakthrough research or campus expansion, the true architecture of student development relies on a human-centered practice: academic advising. The recent announcement of the 2025-26 Letters & Science (L&S) Academic Advising awards at the University of Wisconsin–Madison offers a rare glimpse into the specific, often quiet strategies that define effective mentorship in higher education.
Redefining the Infrastructure of Student Success
The study of institutional support structures often assumes that "advising" is merely a bureaucratic task of ensuring degree requirements are met. However, the work of Stacy Harnett, an Academic Program Manager in the Information School and recipient of the Early Career Advising Excellence Award, suggests that advising is fundamentally a design problem. When Harnett helped launch the school’s undergraduate degree, she did not simply create a checklist for students; she engineered an advising infrastructure meant to foster belonging.
What this distinction highlights—as opposed to the common perception of advisors as mere administrative gatekeepers—is the importance of proactive community building. Nikki Wiessinger, Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Information School, notes that Harnett’s success stems from her ability to build trust as a professional practice. By intentionally designing the student experience to provide support during moments of transition, Harnett moved beyond the traditional transactional model of advising, turning a structural role into a catalyst for student confidence and entrepreneurial growth.
Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Employment
For many students, the transition from the classroom to the professional workforce is marked by significant anxiety. Christina Matta, the Career Development Manager for the Department of History and winner of the Mid-career Advising Excellence Award, has spent years addressing this "fear gap." Since joining the department in 2016, Matta has implemented interventions that are as much about economic empowerment as they are about career guidance.
One of her most notable achievements has been the pioneering of funded internship programs, which included raising departmental wages for interns by 70%. This figure is particularly significant; it demonstrates a shift from advising as abstract advice to advising as tangible resource allocation. By removing the financial barriers that often prevent students from pursuing positions in their intended fields, Matta has fundamentally altered the professional trajectory of her advisees. Her approach challenges the notion that career development is solely the student’s responsibility, proving instead that institutional advocacy is a necessary component of career readiness.
The Role of Emotional Labor in Graduate Mentorship
The Graduate Student Advising Excellence Award recipient, Charlotte Frascona, Graduate Program Manager for the Joint Program in Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology, offers a counter-narrative to the idea that universities should be purely impersonal, data-driven environments. Her colleagues Eric Grodsky and Tina Hunter describe her approach as "proactive love," a methodology that incorporates emotional support into the standard advising framework.
While headlines might focus on degree completion rates, Frascona’s work focuses on the sustainment of the individual. By integrating graduate students into her own life—even hosting prospective students in her home—she creates a support system that mirrors familial care. This highlights a critical limitation to consider in current higher education policy: while universities can standardize curricula and digital resources, the "superpower" of retention often relies on the unquantifiable emotional labor of staff members who choose to operate beyond the confines of a job description.
Mentorship as a Lasting Academic Legacy
The final recipient, Morris Young, the Charles Q. Anderson Professor of English, received the Distinguished Achievement Award for a career spanning nearly two decades. His work, particularly as the director of the English 100 program, demonstrates how mentorship scales across thousands of students. Young’s methodology emphasizes transparency and access, ensuring that students fulfilling the Communication A requirement receive high-level support at a pivotal point in their education.
For Young, effective advising is a collaborative effort that balances rigorous standards with deep humanity. As he continues to serve on dissertation committees and mentor future scholars, the next measurement of his impact will not just be the number of students who pass through his programs, but the long-term professional outcomes of the graduate student instructors he has shaped. The ongoing success of the English 100 curriculum and the professional trajectories of his former mentees will serve as the primary indicators of whether this model of inclusive, thoughtful mentorship continues to influence the culture of graduate education at UW–Madison.
