Graduate students in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia have been organizing the Sociology Student Mentorship Program since 2010. Approximately 36 students participate in the program annually. This poster provides a detailed overview of the three program streams: undergraduate mentoring, teaching assistant mentoring, and graduate student mentoring. This group of students is often overlooked within the mentorship literature focused on first year undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty (Countryman & Zinck, 2013; Goff, 2011; Le Cornu, 2005). The poster also includes information about the program goals, structure and events. Student photos and experiences are profiled. This facilitated poster session will enable participants to engage directly with the organizers of the peer-mentorship program to discuss experiences, challenges and best practices. By the end of the poster session, participants will be able to identify the key characteristics of each mentorship stream and will be able to articulate the ways in which the program supports mentoring partnerships throughout the term. Overall, our presentation can help establish best practices for the structure of academic peer mentorship programs in post-secondary institutions.
References:
Countryman, J . & Zinck, A. (2013). Building connections in the first-year undergraduate experience. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), 1-18.
Goff, L. (2011). Evaluating the outcomes of a peer-mentoring program for students transitioning to postsecondary education. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2(2), 1-13.
Le Cornu, R. (2005). Peer mentoring: Engaging pre-service teachers in mentoring one another. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 13(3), 355-366.
