Louis Newman joined Stanford this month as the new associate vice provost and director of undergraduate advising and research. Newman will oversee all academic advising directors and undergraduate research funding as well as coordinate programs for undergraduates, including the process of academic review and progress for students facing academic difficulty.

He replaces Rob Urstein, who is now the managing director of global innovation programs and lecturer in management at the Graduate School of Business.

Newman draws on his 33 years of experience as both a faculty member in the religion department and administrator at the private liberal arts college Carleton, most notably as the associate dean of the college and director of advising.

“I loved [advising] as much as the teaching, and I began to think of teaching and advising really as being very much of a piece,” Newman said. “I was teaching [my advisees] about how to be better students and teaching them how to think about their education. That to me made a lot of sense, to bring together teaching and advising.”

Newman taught Judaic studies at Carleton and believes his experience as a faculty member and as a researcher will prove helpful for his role at Stanford.

Though the undergraduate advising and research components of his new position might seem separate, Newman views the two as connected in several ways. For example, advisors can suggest research projects and alert students to opportunities related to the $5 million in annual research support that Stanford provides for undergraduates. This research experience can lead students to change their majors or have another conversation with the advisor.

“I worked a lot at Carleton on making sure that advising was more than just a transaction where a student had a conversation with an advisor to get an answer to a very specific question,” Newman said. “I like to think about advising in a more holistic way, so I like to stimulate conversations between students and advisors about bigger questions.”

Newman is looking forward to the challenge of helping the undergraduate advising and research team work together more effectively, as well as immersing himself in the Stanford community.

“Advising plays a critically important role in helping students navigate their way through this institution and then out of it into the world,” Newman said. “Academic advising is really at the heart of what educational institutions should be concerned with.”

Contact Caitlin Ju at ju.caitlin ‘at’ stanford.edu.