Fisher started working at Furman in Fall 2021 and began advising majors in the Art Department and undeclared students as an advisor for the first cohort of Furman\u2019s Pathways Program<\/a> in 2022. Before she was formally an advisor, \u201cshe was already demonstrating her consistent record of advising excellence,\u201d said former student Ava Shutze \u201925, from Atlanta. Fisher helped Shutze create her own major through Furman\u2019s individualized curriculum program to study multimedia storytelling.<\/p>\n \u201cShe helped me curate my course list and continuously revise my 20-page proposal,\u201d Shutze wrote in a letter supporting Fisher\u2019s nomination for the award. \u201cWithout her, I would not have been able to complete my individual program and study what I\u2019ve always wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n Kylie Fisher, assistant professor of art history, won a national award for advising students like Hannah Rich ’26, shown here showing her work to Fisher. Photo by Jeremy Fleming.<\/p><\/div>\n Fisher\u2019s recognition is part of the attention Furman has earned for its commitment to advising and mentoring of students. Mentoring is central to the Furman Advantage and Future Focused, Furman\u2019s strategic plan. Furman\u2019s excellence in the area was recognized by NACADA last year when the two-year, integrated advising Pathways Program won the 2024 Advising Innovation Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Fisher, connection seems to come naturally. She fosters students\u2019 ambitions and dreams while being realistic and firm with them when needed, building their confidence and showing them how capable they are of taking advantage of the opportunities college and their future careers offer.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s part of what students get coming to a place like Furman. Sometimes I wonder in the day-to-day if I\u2019m making a difference, and this was really reaffirming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n At Commencement in May, Fisher won two other awards<\/a>. The Class of 2025 recognized her efforts with the Chiles-Harril Award for a member of faculty or staff with the greatest impact on the senior class. She walked and sat with the seniors at Commencement, where she also earned the Alester G. Furman Jr. and Janie Earle Furman Award for Meritorious Advising.<\/p>\n Fisher, seen here with psychology and studio art major Eliana Britman ’26, won a NACADA award as an outstanding faculty advisor a year after the Pathways Program won the 2024 Advising Innovation Award from NACADA. Photo by Jeremy Fleming.<\/p><\/div>\n Beyond instruction and office hours, Fisher\u2019s research has provided students opportunities they\u2019d never imagined.<\/p>\n Alex Aradas \u201926, a politics and international affairs major from Rock Hill, South Carolina, was an undergraduate research fellow working with Fisher<\/a> in 2024. Their collaborative work research with the Queer Arts Initiative\/Upstate SC LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce introduced Aradas to new networks of professionals throughout the region.<\/p>\n \u201cHer mentorship has profoundly influenced my self-perception and aspirations,\u201d Aradas said.<\/p>\n A summer research project Fisher began in 2022 to narrate Furman\u2019s connections with Asia became \u201cUntold Journeys,\u201d<\/a> a multi-media digital humanities publication that involved multiple students. Working on this project gave Eli Kibler \u201924, who majored in English and Asian studies, the opportunity to present at Furman Engaged<\/a> as well as professional conferences in Texas and Georgia. Their work was published in Carolina Currents.<\/a><\/p>\n Fisher invested in Kibler, he said, and she \u201chas certainly been the most impactful mentor and model for professorship in my life and career as an aspiring college professor.\u201d Kibler is now working on a master\u2019s degree in English at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Students supported Fisher\u2019s nomination by sharing the impact she had on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":40218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,3269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-honors-and-awards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40282,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40214\/revisions\/40282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2025\/11\/FurmanU_KylieFisher_AdvisorAward_JF2025_047-768x512.jpg\")
Making a difference by empowering students<\/h2>\n
Mentorship outside the classroom<\/h2>\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2025\/11\/FurmanU_KylieFisher_AdvisorAward_JF2025_035-512x768.jpg\")