Brian Horick Wins Staff Excellence Award

When asked about his job as the Director of Academic Advising, Brian Horick decisively states: “My favorite part is the interaction with the students.” Apparently, he is one of the best, as he recently won a Staff Excellence Award this past June. As for advising his students, Horick stresses the importance of helping students think through tough situations or choices and making sure they are aware of all their options, instead of “feeding them an answer.” This, he says, is because every student is different: “You get to meet all kinds of people and you learn…something different every time."

Horick first discovered his passion for advising during his graduate studies at the University of Maryland. After graduating from Pennsylvania State University with a degree in finance, and working as an accountant, Horick decided to pursue a graduate degree at Maryland. Originally, he also thought about getting a PhD, but decided against it: “The more I researched, the more I realized that it was not a good fit for my personality.” Horick became a graduate assistant in the business program, and he discovered that he enjoyed advising more than anything else he did in his graduate program. So after receiving his Smith MBA he took a full-time job as an undergraduate advisor.

So what exactly do full-time advisors do? They guide students through the college process. Often, students want to take advantage of every opportunity they can during their college careers; it’s the advisor’s job to help them do the math. “If you add up everything the student wants to do, they’d be here for five years,” says Horick. That is where advisors come in: they help students make good decisions and decide what their priorities really are. Advisors also keep track of the courses students take to make sure they have enough to graduate and get a degree in their major. As an administrator, Horick has around 225 students to advise, while full-time advisors serve about 400 students.

Besides his half-hour advising sessions, Horick also answers many e-mails and questions from both students and staff about how to navigate the university’s complex bureaucracy. “I know the process and the procedures and I usually know the context,” says Horick. “For many people, it’s really hard to figure out who you actually have to go see to get something done.” He spends a lot of time in meetings, as he runs several different committees at Smith, and works with to make sure students get the information they need about programs, scholarships and the like.

But he is always available when students need him. Often, a student’s advisor is the first person the student turns to when he or she needs to talk to about a problem, whether it be academic, health or family-related; self-inflicted or out of the student’s control. Horick’s other big challenge is keeping up with the pace of change. However, he also finds that to be the most exciting, and crucial, part of his job. “Because students are changing, you have to change, so you’re always learning new things. You can’t just be doing the same thing you did ten years ago,” says Horick. Finding the best way to communicate with students is also a big challenge; nowadays, Horick says, if you send a student an e-mail, you can’t just assume he or she has read it. He liked when the course requirements transitioned to a Web site, because it was easier to change and find relevant information. The downside: it’s harder to be sure that students took the time to review the changes on the web and are aware of how the changes may or may not apply to them.

Horick hopes that his administrative role will not change his relationships with students, and that he still gets to what he loves best: advising.

Megan Cooley-Klein, Special Correspondent, Office of Marketing Communications