Natalie Peirce, senior advisor at UCM’s new Success Advising Center, has been an advisor at UCM since 2012. She has helped numerous students get through their academic careers.

Now she is nationally recognized for her advising work. She received the Outstanding Academic Advising Award in the Academic Advising Primary Role category from the Global Community for Academic Advising on Sept. 30 at a ceremony in Phoenix.

“Because I didn’t win the state one or the regional one, I kind of wrote off the national one,” Peirce said.

To apply, Peirce had to send in her resume, job description, letters from students and colleagues and her personal philosophy.

The first point in her philosophy as an academic advisor:

“First and foremost, it is the student that matters. I want to make a positive influence on my students’ lives. I understand that each student is an individual with their own story and future goals. It is important to realize that every student’s needs are different.”

Peirce said she was surprised when she won the national award since it was a big jump from winning the UCM award.

“You don’t always feel like from day to day that you might be making a difference, so it’s good to be recognized and you’re making more of a difference than maybe you think you are in your day-to-day life,” she said. “I meant a lot more than maybe I thought I did to those students.”

Mike Godard, interim provost and chief learning officer, said Pierce deserved the national advising award for many reasons.

“Natalie consistently shows evidence of excellence in advising and supporting her students in their goals for success,” he said. “She is also looked up to by her peers as a leader in advising.”

Peirce said the reason she went into advising was to help other students get the most out of their college experience.

“I really enjoyed my collegiate experience. I did a lot as an undergrad and a grad student,” she said. “I just did everything that was presented to me, and so I really took a lot of those experiences and when I came close to graduating, I was like, ‘I want to transcend this to future students.’ This was important to me to kind of share my experience and…I like helping others be successful. So it was just really a good fit.”

Peirce said Madison Saunders, former speech language pathology major, was close to her when she was advising her through her degree. Saunders wrote Pierce a letter of recommendation for her application process.

Saunders said Peirce helped her get through her college degree in a shorter amount of time than normal.

“She sat with me for about two hours helping me enroll in classes because I had 29 college credits coming in, so I needed special authorization to take certain classes,” Saunders said. “By doing this, she helped me complete my bachelor’s degree in three years instead of the four it would normally take.”

Saunders said Peirce deserves this award because of how she treats her students.

“Natalie Peirce was very deserving of this award because she always goes out of her way to help her students,” Saunders said. “She is always so caring and helpful. She makes the time to be available for her students and is very knowledgeable about all the programs under the college.”

Peirce said advisors are important to help students stay in school by having an someone cheer them along through their collegiate experience.

“I think when students can connect with someone on campus, it gives them a reason to stick with it,” she said. “There are other offices on campus but we’re one-on-one with a student and there’s proven retention that if students can connect with that one person and they know that somebody is there and their cheerleader, then they’re more likely to stick.”

Godard said UCM now has three nationally recognized advisors working on this campus: Paula Brant, Jennifer Pint and now Peirce.

“So as a team, we have some of the very best advisors in the country,” he said. “The new success advising model is aimed at leveraging their skill sets in a way that maximizes their impact on student success.”