An advisor in the Honors College since 2020, Savannah Woodall is responsible for developing programming, resources, and coursework to support Honors students. Understanding the importance of student engagement, Woodall has initiated several projects that effectively blend her inherent knowledge of students with her professional experiences. These projects include creating an Honors Student Canvas Course that has improved how the Honors College effectively communicates with students and the strategic redesign of the Honors College Faculty Resource webpage.

In addition, her passion for helping students grow personally and professionally is often applauded throughout Auburn’s advising community, where she has held several leadership roles in the Advisors Caucus. In 2021, Woodall was selected as Auburn’s recipient of the NACADA New Advisor Annual Conference Scholarship and is currently a member of Leadership Lee County.

With a passion for helping students develop greater self-awareness and confidently discover academic opportunities, David Adkison has spent nearly a decade supporting Auburn students by providing academic advising, most notably through Auburn’s Exploratory Advising Center. Strengthening the center’s primary mission of empowering students to confidently declare their major and better understand the connection between their educational and career goals, Adkison provides students with personalized advising plans that reflect the breadth and depth of majors across campus.

In addition to his advising responsibilities, Adkison teaches courses, coordinates student events, develops assessment plans, and streamlines processes to expand the center’s capacity to serve students better. In addition to his roles in the Exploratory Center, Adkison also serves as the advisor for Summer Start students and actively contributes to Auburn’s advising community.

A key administrator and student advocate in Auburn’s Exploration program, Dr. Craig Kaplowitz has been instrumental in developing the center’s professional staff and expanding its programs to support undergraduate students exploring potential majors or those transitioning majors. With extensive experience as a faculty member, Kaplowitz also has led the center’s efforts to re-design assignments, class activities, and presentations to ensure they are accessible and informative for exploratory first-year students. Under his leadership, the center developed and implemented course designations to assist students in selecting appropriate majors that encompass their academic interests, skills, and career goals. Building on this success, Dr. Kaplowitz continues collaborating with campus partners to extend the center’s programs to new cohorts of students, most recently Auburn First.

In addition to program and course development, Kaplowitz works with staff to develop approaches to monitoring student progress, including innovative outreach, intervention, and follow-up strategies. Following the center’s alignment with Career Discovery and Success, Kaplowitz continues to develop new initiatives to partner with pathway programs and integrate career counseling for all students into the center.

An Auburn faculty member for over 30 years, Dr. Wheeler Foshee is widely recognized for his investment in student learning and his efforts to mentor undergraduate and graduate students in the College of Agriculture. A passionate instructor who advises students to find their ‘sense of wonder,’ Foshee’s work has led him to create courses for students to explore academic paths in the field of agricultural science and provide them with broader exposure to professional opportunities.

A champion for student success and increased engagement with programs across the college, Foshee is committed to enhancing relationships with community colleges and high schools to promote the successful matriculation of students. In addition, as the Agricultural Science undergraduate program coordinator, Foshee connects the students with potential job opportunities, industry connections, and scholarship options to ensure they have a meaningful and productive Auburn experience. While he maintains an impressive research portfolio and robust extension programs, Foshee’s greatest impact remains in the classroom, where he is known for translating his professional and research experiences into student learning opportunities.

As the Engineering Academic Support Program manager, Kathy Friedenreich’s contributions to the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering have impacted thousands of students through enhanced tutoring, expanded academic counseling, and increased mentoring resources. Through her vision and leadership, Friedenreich has grown the college’s student support program from a small tutoring center into a full-service Learning Center with a professional team that includes a tutor coordinator, more than 40 peer tutors, graduate assistants, and trained peer academic coaches.

Advocating a shared commitment to student success, more than 2,500 tutoring sessions are completed during the fall and spring terms, and the unit has expanded its reach by collaborating with faculty to provide tutor training and regularly developing academic resources for students. Since its inception, the center has completed over 1,500 academic coaching appointments, improving student satisfaction and retention in the College.

With the creation of an advising model and referral system to address pre-engineering students’ critical progression and mitigate GPA issues, Engineered for Success integrates advising best practices with psychological theories to support student success. Through structured Academic Success Meetings, academic advisors and students work together to create personalized Academic Success Contracts. By using motivational interviewing techniques, advisors use these meetings to help students set goals, identify potential obstacles to success, and determine critical strategies and resources to overcome individual academic challenges.

Piloted by Dr. Janet Moore and Candi Vann in 2017, the program’s immediate outcomes resulted in an impressive 95% retention rate among pre-engineering students, with 89% achieving the goals created as part of their contract. Since its inception, the program has expanded in scope and now includes a referral system to the Engineering Academic Support Program, where students can access weekly academic coaching. By ensuring all pre-engineering students experience at least two semesters of intentional intervention, the program supports those who may struggle to meet GPA and progression goals and are prepared to transition into their chosen engineering major.