Advising Students, Marketing a Network, and Learning AI Along the Way: A Conversation with Jennifer Browning

Jennifer Browning has spent 12 years at Austin Community College, the last five and a half of them as a Senior Area Study Advising Specialist. She also serves as the elected VP of Marketing and Communications for TEXAAN, the Texas Academic Advising Network, managing social media, newsletters, webinars, a quarterly journal, a mentorship program, and an annual statewide conference, all while holding down her full time advising role.

In this episode Jennifer talks about the surprising duality of those two worlds, how supporting students every day gives her a ground level view of what advisors across the state also need, and how AI has quietly become the thing that makes switching between those two very different headspaces actually possible. She also gets real about where AI fits in academic advising right now, how she talks to students about using it as a tool rather than a shortcut, and the catch-22 of advising computer science students in a job market being reshaped by the very technology they are studying.

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