Student-to-Student Learning Mentors
Recommendation: To create a University-wide opportunity that would build on the existing new student orientation programs and enable upper-class students to share their knowledge of how to succeed within the academic environment including providing timely and personal information about campus and community resources, with lower division students.
Rationale:
While lower division students receive adequate grounding when they begin the Western Experience at SummerStart and Transitions, they often need ongoing guidance during the pre-major declaration time and are reluctant to seek formal academic advising. Because upper-class students have experience in negotiating these processes and can often more easily relate to other students than faculty and staff - with some training and incentive - they could help guide their colleagues and gain a valuable mentoring experience in the process. This guidance structure could help students more confidently explore and declare majors earlier, enhance retention, reduce time to degree, and interact more effectively with the campus and local communities, as well as make the pre-major undergraduate experience less stressful.
Features:
§ Upper level students would receive credit and training to serve as Learning Mentors (e.g. through the new EDUC 297 mentoring course or perhaps a new course offered through the new Bowman Leadership Institute at the 300- or 400- level).
§ Learning mentors might continue to gain credit through departments offering practica or mini-internships, such as Communication 339 (“Applied Practicum in Communication”) or perhaps departments might choose to empower their graduate students to serve in this role.
§ Students might establish mentoring partners based on a shared interest at SummerStart or Transitions, at the Info Fair, electronically via Viking Village, or through New Student Programs regular email announcements.
§ Learning Mentors could interact with their partners virtually via email and/or in person through informal means such as coffee chats.
§ Once mentoring partnerships had been established, they might choose to meet on a regular basis either individually or in small groups in the library learning commons, the Residence Halls or the Underground Coffee Shop.
§ Learning Mentors could collectively create an online guide for incoming students (Westernpedia) that would address some of the specific issues that students face (both academic and social).
§ Initial format and contents of the online guide could be generated through a survey of current student members of TLA
§ Mentors could also create and implement a Student Majors Forum on Viking Village to provide greater access to peer and faculty advice on a potential field of study.
Special Considerations:
§ Would need endorsement from and coordination with WWU’s existing Academic Advising Program and New Student/Family Outreach Services.
§ A Learning Mentor training course would need to be created or an existing offering used.
§ Someone(s) would need to promote the opportunity and help coordinate the learning mentoring partnerships.
§ Learning Mentors who had successfully completed the GERs might also attach themselves to a specific GER class to work with a GER faculty member to offer course-specific support and guidance to students in that class.
Possible Titles: Student Mentor Program/College Knowledge/WWU Mentoring Initiative: Peer Advising/Extreme SummerStart
Proposers:
Todd Haskell, Adam Boyd, Amardeep Saini, Andrea Daisley, Megan Otis, Cyndie Shepard, Karen Hoelscher, Kelli Osborn, Annaka Bahm, Victor Zou, Australia Cosby, Melissa Reed, Jaclyn Beaudoin, Stephanie Dilbeck, Elie Hartman, Heidi Reeves, Emily Devereaux. Andrea Daisley, Carmen Werder, Kiki Penoyer, Mara Schradle, Karlie DeVine, Rhea Woolley, Bernard Ikegwuoa, Farrokh Safavi, Erika Monroe, Camille Merrill, Stephanie Shaw, NaKayla Corr
Endorsers:
Cyndie Shepard, Whitney Dunbar, Lauren McClanahan, Alex Mahlum, Kess Smith, Amber House, Cameron Schmidt, Julianna Grainer, Madison Macdonald, Marya Purrington, Kimberlee Thompson, Stephanie Shaw, Zach Scott, Nancy J. Johnson, Matthew Baylor, Rebecca Donner, Elie Hartman, Mara Schradle, Alicia Anderegg, Adam Boyd, David Carroll, Victor Zou, Lauren Zitzman, Calvin Herrmann, Daniel Espinoza-Gonzalez, Craig Dunn, Todd Haskell, Michelle Marsura, Brian Johnson, Joyce Hammond, Joanne DeMark, Penny Hutchinson, Joan Ullin, Rhea Wooley, Tara Starr, Diane Johnson, Kendra Hedges, Wesley Ball, NaKayla Corr, Sara Keitges, Matt Burrows, Matthew Tombaugh, Roberta D. Kjesrud, Michael Murphy, Amy Murphy, Kelly Gagne, Rosa Jimenez, Alex Garcia, Karen Henriksen, Camille Merrill