The Authors

Dr. Wes Habley has held numerous positions at ACT, Inc. and is currently the principal associate and coordinator of ACT’s Office of State Organizations. He earned his BS in music education and MEd in student personnel from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, and his EdD from Illinois State University in educational administration, where he was recently inducted into the College of Education Hall of Fame. Prior to joining ACT, Habley served as an academic adviser and later as director of the Academic Advisement Center at Illinois State. Habley also served as the director of Academic and Career Advising at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Habley is coeditor of two editions of Academic Advising: A Comprehensive Handbook. Among more than 100 additional publications are ACT’s What Works in Student Retention? (2004, 2010), monographs on four national surveys of academic advising, and book chapters in Fostering Student Success, Developmental Academic Advising, and Faculty Advising Examined. Additional work has appeared in the NACADA Journal, The Journal of College Student Personnel, NASPA Journal, NACADA Monograph Series, the Jossey-Bass New Directions Series, and monographs from the First-Year Experience Program at the University of South Carolina.

Habley has delivered more than 400 presentations at meetings of professional associations and has served as a consultant or workshop leader at more than 125 colleges in the United States, the Middle East, and Canada.

Habley has served the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) as a founding board member, past president and past treasurer of the. He inaugurated the Summer Institute on Academic Advising (1987), and served as its director for 22 years. In 2006, Habley was named director emeritus and in 2007 the Summer Institute Scholarship was named in his honor. He is the recipient of NACADA’s awards for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Academic Advising and Service to NACADA.

Jennifer L. Bloom, EdD, is a clinical professor and director of the master’s degree program in the Higher Education & Student Affairs Program housed in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies at the University of South Carolina. Prior to her appointment at the University of South Carolina in August, 2007, she served as the associate dean for Student Affairs & the Medical Scholars Program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her doctorate in Higher Education Administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995.

Dr. Bloom served as the 2007–08 president of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). She received the NACADA Outstanding Advising Administrator Award in 2005 and University of Illinois’ Campus Academic Professional Excellence Award in 2007. In 2008, she received the University of South Carolina’s Black Graduate Student Association’s Faculty Mentor Award as well as the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign’s Senior Class Special Tribute Award.

Dr. Bloom has coauthored three books, three book chapters, and eleven articles. The first book, Career Aspirations & Expeditions: Advancing Your Career in Higher Education Administration, was released in 2003 and coauthored by Nancy Archer-Martin. The second book, The Appreciative Advising Revolution, was released in September 2008 and is coauthored by Bryant Hutson and Ye He. The third book is titled Appreciative College Instruction: Becoming a Positive for Change in the Classroom and is co-authored by Bryant Hutson, Ye He, and Claire Robinson. In addition, Dr. Bloom has delivered 10 national webinars and over 160 presentations on her work at institutions and conferences across the country.

Steve Robbins is principal research scientist in the Center for Academic and Career Readiness and Success at Educational Testing Service (ETS). He is a nationally recognized social scientist and scholar interested in the interplay of career, personality, and cognitive factors as they affect education and workplace readiness and success. Steve and his coauthors have addressed the evidentiary basis of post-secondary practices on retention, academic mastery, and degree attainment behavior. He has published over 90 research studies and is the author and coauthor of several personality and career-based assessments. These include the Career Factors Inventory (Consulting Psychologist Press) and the Personal Skills Assessment suite in ACT’s WorkKeys system. He led the development of ACT’s ENGAGE for students and teachers, aimed at measuring academic behavior readiness and risk for college, high school, and middle school students.

Previous to ETS, Steve served as vice president of research at ACT, which supports Education and Workforce business units. He oversaw a complex, highly technical staff organized into several departments, including Validity and Policy Research, Psychometric and Measurement Research, Reporting Services, Survey Services, and Education and Career Transitions Research. As a member of the ACT executive leadership team, he participated in product architecture and delivery, and product innovation and development.

Steve is a former professor and chair of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He helped build a nationally ranked and accredited counseling psychology program and was elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association in 1992. More recently he served as adjunct professor in the Department of Management, Tippie College of Business, at the University of Iowa. He taught strategic employee development in the MBA program.

Steve is a skilled management consultant and adviser to business and industry and to academic and education organizations. He is a highly sought-after public speaker and workshop presenter, and has mentored multiple doctoral candidates and professional-level staff. He is a licensed psychologist in Iowa and Virginia, and a member of the National Register of Health Service Providers.