The UV Mentor Program at UVU of which I am a member is a part of The Department of Student Success and Leadership Studies. The mission of the UV Mentor Program is to maximize student opportunities for leadership in and facilitation of self-knowledge and self-awareness, academic learning strategies and study skills, student socialization and engagement. The mentors are a group of peers who partner with faculty to help students make the transition into college. Each mentor is assigned a class to attend where they collaborate with and support the instructor; contribute in the planning and facilitation of class; and provide classroom, group and individual mentoring to students. Mentors have five roles they are taught to fulfill for their students
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At UCAS, I felt like my hands were tied behind my back since they are minors and therefore I couldn’t apply most of the things I had been taught to do as a mentor. I could only communicate with my students during school and one-on-one contact is prohibited with minors. How do I build a friendship when I can’t talk to them? Not only that, I was applying training and techniques meant for a college setting to a high school. I found inviting the UCAS students to come to activities on campus wasn’t working. A lot of activities are during the day when sophomores can’t leave campus and as a parent, I wouldn’t be comfortable with my child going to the UVU night activities, especially at age fourteen and fifteen. I started going to school early so I could spend fifteen to thirty minutes before school hanging out and talking with my students and hopefully not being weird or creepy. I was getting frustrated. I could see there needed to be a change; I just wasn’t sure where or what that should …show more content…
I found the mentors thought being at UCAS was just “weird” and the students thought a mentor was a TA or student teacher. Most people at UVU had no idea what UCAS was. To me this said communication is a BIG problem as in there is none.
The rest of this semester I will be working on formulating/writing new policy for how mentors do things at UCAS. Some of the changes will include going to UCAS activities, facilitating joint class study groups, and weekly mentor collaborations. I will be at UCAS next semester also which will allow me to see the changes and revise what doesn’t work.
It is my first semester as a mentor and I decide to stir the pot, shake things up, and change policy, not bad. That was about half of my volunteer hours; for the rest of my hours I was doing one-on-one interviews with other mentors, going to different activities on campus, and helping mentors and other students with various things, sometimes just
At UCAS, I felt like my hands were tied behind my back since they are minors and therefore I couldn’t apply most of the things I had been taught to do as a mentor. I could only communicate with my students during school and one-on-one contact is prohibited with minors. How do I build a friendship when I can’t talk to them? Not only that, I was applying training and techniques meant for a college setting to a high school. I found inviting the UCAS students to come to activities on campus wasn’t working. A lot of activities are during the day when sophomores can’t leave campus and as a parent, I wouldn’t be comfortable with my child going to the UVU night activities, especially at age fourteen and fifteen. I started going to school early so I could spend fifteen to thirty minutes before school hanging out and talking with my students and hopefully not being weird or creepy. I was getting frustrated. I could see there needed to be a change; I just wasn’t sure where or what that should …show more content…
I found the mentors thought being at UCAS was just “weird” and the students thought a mentor was a TA or student teacher. Most people at UVU had no idea what UCAS was. To me this said communication is a BIG problem as in there is none.
The rest of this semester I will be working on formulating/writing new policy for how mentors do things at UCAS. Some of the changes will include going to UCAS activities, facilitating joint class study groups, and weekly mentor collaborations. I will be at UCAS next semester also which will allow me to see the changes and revise what doesn’t work.
It is my first semester as a mentor and I decide to stir the pot, shake things up, and change policy, not bad. That was about half of my volunteer hours; for the rest of my hours I was doing one-on-one interviews with other mentors, going to different activities on campus, and helping mentors and other students with various things, sometimes just