CALS Peer Mentor Program

The College Peer Mentor Program is designed to facilitate top student leaders; providing students the opportunity to further develop leadership and mentoring skills through a variety of activities involving recruitment, campus outreach, and new student mentoring.  In addition to this experience, they will receive one academic credit in the Fall semester.  Peer Mentors welcome new students to college life by answering questions about the college, University of Idaho, recreation, Moscow, etc. They also create awareness of the academic and extracurricular programs and make themselves available to guide students through the end of their first semester. They meet these objectives by mailing, emailing, and calling new students throughout the summer and fall semester. 

The Peer Mentor Program is administered by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) Academic Programs Office.  Peer Mentors are assigned to admitted students who correspond with their major or department.  This department/major correlation is very important for our new students to feel that CALS is a welcoming family. The Peer Mentor is able to answer specific questions about the department & major and provide advice on the transition to college life.  To make the program a success, each peer mentor needs to keep in regular contact with their mentees. 

Peer Mentors also help decrease the attrition rate between admitted and attending students. Training will be provided to help the students who are selected gain or improve upon phone and email etiquette, public speaking, knowledge of the university and CALS, and networking abilities.  The students that are selected for the program will need to register for the credit during the fall semester, but about half the work is done throughout the summer. 

Having each department select their Peer Mentor will guarantee that each incoming student will be able to communicate with a current student in their interested major. CALS Academic Programs is looking for students to be advocates for the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and their department in the Peer Mentor Program.  As a Peer Mentor you are given set dates by which you may call, email or snail mail your list of students.  These must be met for you to receive credit.  This is a great way to give back to CALS and you may even make a lifelong friend in the process.  The experience will look great on your transcript and your resume for future employers.

Each department chooses their peer Mentors and nominations are given to Dr. Foltz.  If you are interested, contact your Department Head regarding submitting your name.  Coming to college is scary for a lot of students.  Most will never admit they need you, but when you have the relationship established from the past summer, that new student has a greater chance of success.

Thank you to Dr. John Foltz for providing information for this article.