Peer Mentoring Project Summary

Introduction

A peer mentoring relationship can be highly valuable as a method to help colleges design and enhance intervention strategies and to support relationship-building among schools. A mentoring experience can promote new learning and inform the conversation around effective interventions for improving student access to, preparation for, and persistence in postsecondary education. In addition, it allows participants to benefit from expertise to which they might not otherwise have access. While a peer mentoring relationship may focus on a specific initiative or challenge, it has the potential to more broadly affect the college and its students.

Project Overview

This project will support the formation and maintenance of mentoring partnerships among community colleges for the purpose of developing and disseminating practices and initiatives that improve the success of students in postsecondary education. The project will provide the opportunity for colleges to exchange ideas and experiences, receive technical assistance and expert advice, and collaboratively build strategies for program development or the enhancement of existing initiatives within the framework of a facilitated mentoring relationship.

The peer mentoring project is aimed at providing a fast-track, intensive, and well-supported learning experience for colleges interested in developing or improving a program or initiative. The project will offer a constructive experience for all participants. Mentee colleges will have the opportunity to work closely with a mentor college team experienced in the development and implementation of an effective strategy for improving student success, a facilitator who is an expert in the field of community college education, and another mentee college team in an engaged mentoring community oriented toward practical learning. Mentee colleges will receive guidance, technical assistance, and advice, and be able to collaboratively build or strengthen strategies for initiative design, implementation, and improvement. Mentor colleges will have the chance to share their expertise and knowledge with other colleges in the common support of effective practices that improve student success.

The project will provide participating colleges, both mentor and mentee, with the opportunity to participate in a collegial learning environment that centers on relationship-building and collaboration. They also will be able to work with a senior consultant, in the form of a facilitator, and to benefit from their experience, guidance, and expertise. In addition, JBL Associates, Inc. and the facilitator will provide mentor and mentee college team members with access to recognized experts in content-specific areas, in order to support the learning process. JBL Associates, Inc. also will support the dissemination of information about the colleges’ programs and initiatives, as well as project activities, to local and national news outlets. This will provide a way for colleges to gain visibility for their own work, and also serve to build understanding across the community college sector about the value of mentoring relationships.

Peer Mentoring Process

A learning network will be developed, comprising eighteen colleges divided into six mentoring communities. Within each mentoring community, two mentee community colleges will be paired with a peer mentor institution which has successfully implemented an intervention strategy aimed at improving student access, preparation, learning, or persistence in college.

Each mentoring community will define a learning process that best suits the experiences, needs, and objectives of its members. It will function as a self-directed team. Each community will work collaboratively toward common objectives which they, as a team, define, in a manner they determine to be most suitable for accomplishing these objectives within the framework of the project design. Mentoring is a joint venture, and successful mentoring means sharing responsibility for learning. In this regard, each community will develop strategies for achieving definable learning outcomes, and take meaningful steps to implement the strategies.

Mentee colleges will be committed to participating as active partners in a mentoring relationship with representatives from a mentor college and with a facilitator. Team members will use the opportunity to develop or strengthen specific areas related to an initiative at their college. It is expected that the mentee colleges will have activities they would like to have supported by the mentoring relationship as these activities relate to a particular program or initiative at the college. These activities might include:

• Project planning and design
• Integration of program activities or administrative units
• Curriculum development or redesign
• Program-related staff training and professional development
• Program evaluation and assessment
• Data collection and analysis
• Student recruitment and outreach
• Community partnering
• Funding strategies and resource identification
• Building support from internal and external constituencies

Community Participants and Roles

Mentor and Mentee Colleges

Each college will designate three or four individuals who will be actively involved in the mentoring relationship for the duration of the project. Team members should be directly involved with the program or initiative, and related activities, which will be the focal point of the learning experience. Each team will designate a leader to serve as a primary contact. The lead team member should have program leadership responsibilities or be the principal for the initiative at their college. The second member should be a senior college administration official who is directly involved with the initiative, preferably with oversight responsibility. Both these team members should have the capacity to make decisions, or actively participate in the decision-making process, related to the initiative, including developing and implementing action plans related to achieving project outcomes.

Additional participants should be closely involved with the daily operations of the initiative and may include a staff person, faculty member, community partner affiliate, student, or a representative from the college’s institutional research department.

Facilitator

The mentoring community will be closely facilitated by an individual who has strong academic credentials and extensive practical experience working with community colleges, and who can directly assist team members in accomplishing the goals of the partnership. The facilitator will be central to the operation of the mentoring community. He or she will serve as an advocate for learning. The facilitator will work in collaboration with the mentor college team, and independently, to promote intentional learning, idea development, and capacity building among the mentee team members through such methods as instructing, coaching, advising, information sharing, and developing contacts with other experts.

JBL Associates, Inc.

Oversight of the peer mentoring process will be the responsibility of JBL Associates, Inc. The project coordinator will work closely with each facilitator and with members of the mentor and mentee teams to monitor the activities and learning outcomes of each community within the learning network, and to ensure the process remains aligned with project objectives. JBL Associates, Inc. will monitor the peer learning process to ensure it is aligned with project goals, engage in regular communication with facilitators and the mentor and mentee college team leaders, and gather information and prepare reports.

Peer Mentoring Community Activities

A variety of activities will be offered over the course of the project to frame the peer mentoring process and support learning outcomes. The key pillars of this framework will be several face-to-face meetings held at mentor and mentee colleges over the duration of the project, and conference calls among the members of each community and also between facilitators. All colleges and facilitators are expected to participate in these activities and to contribute to building and maintaining an active and goal-driven network of communication and information dissemination. While these activities provide necessary structure, it is important to allow for flexibility with regard to the manner in which each mentoring community uses these activities to support their interaction. Adjustments to the activities will be considered in consultation with the mentoring team members, the project coordinator, and the Department of Education.

Project Meetings

Opening Project Meeting (Nov-Dec 2008)

A kick-off or initial peer mentoring project meeting will be held on the campus of each community’s mentor college during the first six weeks of the project as agreed upon by all community members. The meeting will be attended by representatives from the mentor and mentee project teams, the facilitator, and the project coordinator. At this initial gathering, all members of the mentoring community will have the opportunity to meet, begin to develop professional relationships and build trust within this context, and generally become oriented to the project and the mentoring process. The mentee college teams also will have the chance observe the operation of the initiative with which the mentor college team members are associated and the institutional and community setting for the initiative, and to meet with initiative affiliates and stakeholders. At the initial meeting, a peer mentoring action plan will be developed. The plan will serve as a road map for mentor-mentee collaboration. It will identify the activities which will be the focus of the mentoring process and outline a strategy for addressing the learning needs of the mentee college.

Facilitator Site Visit to Mentee College

The mentee college will host a site visit for the mentoring community facilitator. It is recommended that the visit take place approximately half-way through the project period; however, the date will be determined by the mentoring community. The gathering will enable the facilitator to visit with college officials, program affiliates, and stakeholders, observe the institutional and community setting of the initiative, and review the mentoring process, including progress made toward identified outcomes.

Final Project Meeting (Oct-Nov 2009)

Closing mentoring community meetings will be held at a college campus during Oct-Nov 2009. Attending each meeting will be representatives from the mentor and mentee project teams, the facilitator, and the project coordinator. At the meeting, community members will have the opportunity to review the mentoring process as a method of supporting collective learning, program development, and community network formation among colleges, discuss lessons learned from participating in the project, identify strategies to carry forward the work begun within the peer mentoring relationship, fill in knowledge gaps, further develop professional relationships and networking, and open doors to continued contact in the future.

Mentoring Community Communication

Regular telephone conference calls will be held over the duration of the project with team members of each mentoring community. The community may also decide to use other interactive electronic media in lieu of or in addition to conference calls to support communication among members. The calls will be led by the facilitator or project coordinator and planned in conjunction with team members. This will be an opportunity for the participants to share experiences, ideas, and information, discuss issues, address questions, and review progress toward objectives. At least two members from each college team will participate, along with the facilitator and project coordinator. Additional participants, such as a content area specialist, may be added to the calls to discuss a topic of interest to the community.