By Caitlyn Spencer
It’s not just any student who walks into class dressed as Aristotle, or makes podcasts of required readings for their classmates to listen to. But the students within the Curricular Peer Mentoring Network (CPMN) are not just any students—they are, assistant professor Tania Smith asserts, a small army determined to enhance learning on campus.
Founded in Communication and Culture by Smith in 2005 and now co-directed by instructor Lisa Stowe, CPMN is based in the Teaching and Learning Center with the university-wide network’s main branches in nursing and arts. The Arts Peer Mentoring program places mentors across faculties and up to a third of them serve in courses outside of the arts faculty including the Haskayne School of Business and Science and Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies (CRDS).
The Arts Peer Mentoring program has admitted 24 interdisciplinary peer mentors for the Fall 2011 term, mentoring in 12 different courses ranging from Psychology and Canadian Studies to a senior level Biology course.
Students and faculty benefit from the Peer Mentoring Network. From left to right, fourth-year student and an assistant with the network, Maia Fuhrman, assistant professor Tania Smith, instructor Lisa Stowe, and fourth-year student and mentoring assistant Charlotte Langlois. Photo by Caitlyn Spencer |
Based on the idea that a student who flourishes in a course can make invaluable contributions to future learning in that course, the program offers 500-level seminars for peer mentors, who partner with host instructors in courses they’ve previously taken. Together, host instructors and peer mentors make sure the students enrolled in their “host courses” get the most out of their education.
While students get imaginative and collaborative assistance and peer mentors earn credits and gain valuable experience that accentuates grad and law school applications, the host instructors also benefit, gaining insight into how their students learn and how to make the course most effective. “They learn more about what is really engaging to students,” Smith says.
The CPMN, having been awarded SU Quality Money for 2008-2011, recently received an additional $130,400 for 2011-2014. The portion of money earmarked for the arts faculty will be used in part to introduce another seminar of peer mentors, raising their yearly maximum from 30 to 45, and to offer research and development grants to participating professors and students.
The deadline to apply is Dec. 1 for the winter semester, though applications are accepted until the mentoring courses are full. Interested students and instructors should contact Smith and Stowe.
Read more about the Peer Mentoring Network.
This article orginally appeared in UToday