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Abstract
Many college students need assistance as they navigate academic, departmental, and university requirements necessary to complete a degree. Many students also require assistance in connecting academic learning to their vocational interests. Although academic advising and career development are both necessary to student success, academic advising functions and career development processes most often occur independently of one another on college campuses. Career advising is a model that combines academic advising and career counseling processes to emphasize relationships between educational choice and general career field to help students form appropriate academic and career goals based on this information. This dissertation used a qualitative single case study research design to gain an understanding of how one college chose the career advising model of academic advising, including exploring decision making and implementation processes that occurred as a means to move the institution from a more traditional model of advising to career advising. This qualitative approach allowed an opportunity to discover and examine why such decisions were made, how the change process occurred, how such a change affected the structure and function of the advising office, and staff impressions regarding the success of the model, in an effort to provide guidance for institutions that may wish to restructure their own advising program toward career advising. Implications for other institutions considering this model of advising were discussed and future research ideas identified.