Sargent Mentors Win Annual Academic Advising Awards
(2/28/20, BU Today)
The Undergraduate Academic Advising Awards are given each year to advisors “who have engaged students in the collaborative process of advising and have had a significant impact on students’ academic careers.”
Clinical associate professor of occupational therapy Nancy Lowenstein, who has been an advisor ever since coming to BU in 1999, knows the power of advising from her own college days, when she bonded with a professor through extracurricular activities. “My nonacademic life was even more important than my academic life,” she says. “If my personal life was in a mess, my academics would be, also.” Having an adult who was “not my parents”—to run such matters by was invaluable.
Advising Terriers, Lowenstein says, has exposed her to pressures students face, allowing her to talk with them beyond just coursework: “roommate issues, health issues, family issues, and BU issues. Some take me up on this and others don’t, but I always try to check in on these when we meet.”
Her most important advice: “Be open to taking an unexpected opportunity…that may not clearly lead to the goals they have set.”