Some of the most important work we do in academic support is difficult to see. It might be a student who reaches out for help before falling behind. It could be a bar studier who you coached after a hard practice set. But, because the work (and often the outcome) is quiet, it doesn’t always make for an obvious line on an institutional report. As a result, it may go unseen entirely.
Academic support professionals often work in the space between a problem emerging and that problem becoming a crisis. We build relationships, teach skills, develop resources, collaborate with faculty, interpret data, and help students make decisions that may affect their academic trajectories for years. When the work is successful, the outcome can look deceptively simple. The student passes and doesn’t need a larger intervention. All the work that helped make that outcome possible can disappear into the background.
As a result, we cannot assume that the value of our work will speak for itself. We have to learn how to tell its story.
Don’t Just Report What You Did. Explain Why It Matters.
One of the easiest ways to make ASP work more visible is to move beyond activity-based reporting. Consider this statement: “I met with 35 students this month.” It certainly communicates an activity, which can be useful, but it doesn’t fully explain the significance of that activity. The statement doesn’t add context to what you achieved in those meetings.
Instead, add that context. You might say, “I met with 35 students this month, with recurring concerns around rule synthesis and application, which led to my identifying opportunities for targeted instruction.” This connects the activity to its larger purpose. It helps your colleagues and supervisors understand what happened and why it was worth doing.
When reporting your work, try asking three questions:
- What did I do?
- What student, faculty, or institutional need did it address?
- What did I learn, change, or make possible as a result?
You won’t have a measurable outcome for every activity – you don’t need one. But you should be able to explain the reasoning behind the work and the problem it was intended to address.
This is also true of data. Data can be one of the most powerful tools academic support professionals have for communicating their value. Appointment counts, workshop attendance, student feedback, bar outcomes, course performance, and patterns in student referrals can all provide useful information. But data without context can be misleading. We have to interpret the data responsibly by adding the necessary context. Good advocacy requires explaining what the evidence supports, what it does not support, and what you plan to do next. This approach builds credibility. It also demonstrates that academic success is delivering services that are consistently evaluated and improved.
Stop Waiting for Annual Reviews to Advocate for Yourself
One mistake academic support professionals make is treating self-advocacy as an annual event. In preparing for an annual review, we gather our accomplishments, try to remember everything we did over the previous twelve months, and scramble to reconstruct the impact of projects that may have started long before the review period.
This is an unnecessarily difficult way to tell your professional story. Instead, develop a simple habit of documenting your work throughout the year. Keep a running record of:
- Programs and resources developed or improved.
- Student and faculty needs identified through your work.
- Collaborations that produced a meaningful change.
- Assessment findings and resulting program adjustments.
- Presentations, publications, and professional contributions.
- Problems you helped prevent or resolve.
- Positive feedback that illustrates the value of your work.
- New skills, responsibilities, or areas of expertise you developed.
This record serves several purposes. It makes annual reviews easier, helps you prepare for conversations about resources and staffing, and gives you a clearer picture of how your own professional responsibilities are evolving. It also allows you to see the great work you’re doing throughout the year. Don’t be afraid to post an exciting update to an internal accomplishment board, talk up your latest workshop at a faculty or staff meeting, or share some of the positive feedback you’ve received with your supervisor. It can feel like bragging in the moment – reframe that. You are sharing the work and outcomes that excite you with others in your community.
A Practical Challenge for the Next Month
If you are unsure where to start, try a simple exercise. Choose one project, program, or recurring responsibility from your work. Write a short account answering five questions:
- What need or problem was I trying to address?
- What did I do, and why did I choose that approach?
- What evidence do I have about its reach, effectiveness, or reception?
- What did I learn, and what would I change?
- Why should a faculty member, administrator, or other institutional stakeholder care about this work?
Then share that account in an appropriate setting. It might become part of a departmental report, an annual review, a conversation with your dean, a conference proposal, a presentation to faculty, or a short professional post.
This one exercise will not transform how an institution understands your work, but it can help you begin to consistently advocate for it. By consistently communicating the purpose and impact of your work, you can gradually change the conversation. You may discover that this exercise changes how you think about your own work. When you identify the problem, articulate the strategy, and evaluate the results, you begin to see not just the tasks you completed but the professional judgment you exercised. That matters.
Ultimately, your work deserves to be understood and celebrated.
(Dayna Smith)
