The Faculty Mentor Program at Gordon State College pairs first-year students (students under 30 credit hours) with faculty in the student's major area/area of focus. Faculty mentors act as part of the student's success team. They provide professional and career guidance and encouragement and help connect students with campus resources. All tenure-track faculty members serve as faculty members. Faculty mentors act to provide services and support that complement the services offered by GSC's professional academic advisors.
Spring 2023 was the first full semester of the Mentor Program at Gordon State College. New GSC students under 30 credit hours were assigned mentors within the first month of the semester. This addition slightly increased the average of 13 students per mentor in Fall 2022. On the mentor side, mentors continued to follow the touchpoint timeline distributed in the Fall of 2022. Mentors were encouraged to contact and meet with their mentees at critical times in the semester. During this term, GSC saw increased faculty involvement and interest in the program. For example, a college-wide faculty committee (AARFA) met several times to discuss changes to the mentor program and to investigate ways to increase mentor-mentee interaction.
The most significant recommendation that the committee made was to reform the way that mentees are assigned to mentors. Going forward, more faculty stakeholders will be involved in the assignment process. In addition, different departments and schools could design their ways of assigning students to mentees. For example, the Education faculty at Gordon took a more hands-on approach and divided up mentees among themselves based on whom the faculty had a pre-existing familiarity.
The new approach to assigning mentees was implemented in Fall 2023. However, due to data-related problems, mentees were not assigned to faculty until the third week of the term. This ran contrary to our goal of assigning mentees during the first week of the term (or even before). We were, however, able to have our IT Department create an Argos report so that we can get the list of new students under 30 credit hours much earlier in future semesters. For Spring 2024, we should be able to begin assigning mentees during the first or second week of classes.
One significant adjustment we made during 2023 was how mentees are removed from mentors. The program aims to provide new GSC students with a faculty mentor during their first year when they receive professional advising. Most students, though, are assigned a faculty advisor after they move beyond 30 credit hours. That faculty advisor can then also serve as a mentor for the student. Ideally, a student's faculty mentor should become their advisor when they move beyond 30 credits. However, due to program changes, faculty shortages in certain areas, and other problems, this does not always happen. As a result, we have established a process for removing mentees from mentors who have moved beyond 30 credit hours and have a different faculty advisor. This is a process we will need to continue to refine and improve.
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Evaluation Plan and Measures:
The initiative's efficacy will be measured by analyzing data collected in Navigate and surveys sent to students.
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KPIs:
KPI 1. The number of uses of the "mentoring" service listed in Navigate appointment summaries. KPI 2. Student survey question asking students to identify their mentor. KPI 3. Student survey question asking students if they received one or more communication from their mentor. KPI 4. Faculty survey question asking faculty if they reached out to their mentees at least three times (question will ask how faculty reached out to students, too).
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Baseline measure (for each KPI):
KPI 1. One "mentoring" service per mentee (KPI Discontinued) KPI 2. Each student respondent who can identify their mentor KPI 3. Each student respondent who responds that they received one or more communication from their mentor KPI 4. Each faculty respondent who responds that they reached out to their mentees at least three times
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Current/most recent data (for each KPI):
KPI 1. This is still being implemented; faculty will need more training, and we will need higher participation among faculty to get good data. (KPI Discontinued) KPI 2. 26.315% (of survey respondents could name their mentor) KPI 3. 28.205% (of survey respondents received at least one communication from their mentor) KPI 4. The survey will be launched in Spring 2024 *Update for Fall 2024 – Spring faculty survey: 39% of respondents reached out to mentees 3 or more times (31 respondents in total).
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Goal or targets:
KPI 1. One-half "mentoring" services listed for the total amount of mentees. KPI 2. One-half (50%) of student respondents identifying their mentor. KPI 3. One-half (50%) of student respondents stating that they had received a communication from their mentor at least one time KPI 4. One-half (50%) of faculty respondents responding that they contacted mentees three or more times
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Time period/duration:
The end of Spring 2025.
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In Fall 2023, after we submitted the Momentum Report update, we surveyed all students paired with a mentor at the start of the semester. The Mentor Program survey was sent to 834 students via text and email on November 15, 2023. Students surveyed included all FTFT students under 30 credit hours in Fall 2023 (this includes transfer students). Only 79 students responded. This represents 9.472% of students who received the survey. The survey asked students to respond to various questions regarding the program. Our conclusions based on the survey results are below:
- Only 26.315% of respondents had heard of the program, could name their mentor, and received at least one communication from their mentor.
- The majority of respondents are not familiar with the program.
- Most students familiar with the program think it is beneficial (96% - Q6).
- Many students would like more information about the program and would like to meet a mentor (Q8).
- We need to do much more to communicate the program to students. This communication should come through a) administration and the faculty mentor coordinator and b) faculty mentors.
We built on this data and previously identified problems in several ways. First, we assigned new FTFT students under 30 credit hours for Spring 2024 to mentors during the first week of the semester. This was an improvement over assignment during Week 2 in Fall 2023. In addition, academic departments sent individual emails to new students (FTFT under 30 CH) informing them that they were paired with a mentor. We also emailed all students, campus-wide, explaining the mentor program and the difference between mentors and advisors. Finally, we sent an email through Navigate to all new students (who received a mentor) stating that they were paired with a faculty mentor and explaining how they could identify their mentor on Navigate. These activities resulted in students receiving three mentor program-related emails. As we have done previously, we have also sent email reminders to faculty concerning recommended touchpoints.
Update for Fall 2024 – We will be sending out another student survey and faculty survey in early December. This will help us gather information about the progress of the mentor program. During Fall 2024, we performed outreach to faculty in order to promote the mentor program. We emailed out three pre-written activities and emails that they could send to students. We also emailed information about the mentor program and reminded them of touchpoints. In terms of adjustments, in Spring 2024, we engaged in a discussion with faculty leaders about how to improve faculty buy-in. This is an on-going process, however.
The most significant challenge in the year ahead is increasing engagement between mentors and mentees. Above all, this requires substantial communication at all levels. We plan to continue to use global emails and other messaging to explain the program to students. We will also spend more time discussing the program during new student orientations. One change we plan to implement is to assign faculty mentors to mentees before the start of the semester; we will do this just before a student's NSO so they will know who their mentor is before the beginning of the semester.
In addition to communication, we need to increase faculty buy-in by discussing the program and changing the program based on faculty feedback and suggestions. We will do this by promoting more interaction between professional advisors (for first-year students) and faculty mentors (we will outline this more in the advising redesign section of this report). This way, we can promote the idea that faculty mentors are part of a larger success team that each student has supporting them. Adding to this, we have already started to create a library of emails and activities (pre-written and pre-designed) that will be available to be used by faculty. This way, faculty can easily access the library, pick messages or activities they like, and send those to students.
Another significant step we need to take in the year ahead is how we gather quality data. Based on our conversations with our EAB Navigate representative, we concluded that the best way to collect data about mentor-mentee interactions was through the appointment summary in Navigate. We then created a "mentoring" service in Navigate and asked faculty to select it when they completed appointment summaries after meetings with mentors. That way, we could quantify (at least in terms of a base) how many interactions mentors and mentees had. This new approach to gathering data has been problematic due to faculty adoption; many faculty are not completing appointment summaries or selecting the mentoring service after meeting with students.
Update for Fall 2024 – Many of the above steps will need to continually be taken as we move forward. In March 2024, we will offer a training and information session about the mentor program to the majority of the faculty body (at one time). The training in March will serve as a springboard for further training and efforts to gain more faculty buy-in. In addition, we plan to draft more pre-written activities and communications for faculty mentors. Finally, we hope to work with academic departmental leadership to plan program-based mentor activities for the 2025-2026 AY.
The most significant challenge for the program is related to how useful and effective the program is perceived to be by students. The program's success requires mutual interest and involvement between faculty and students. We believe that the solution to this challenge lies in data and communication. If we can collect data demonstrating that the program is effective, we can communicate that data to faculty and students and hopefully convince them of the usefulness of mentee-mentor interactions and engagement. As a result, we believe it will take time and effort to brand the program so that both groups see it as something extraordinarily valuable for them to participate in. We believe that when we can show that the program leads to positive outcomes for students, more faculty will embrace the program and increase their engagement in it.
Update for Fall 2024 – Faculty buy-in and perceptions about the program continue to be a problem. Many faculty note their workload and their inability to devote substantial time to mentoring students due to large class size, a high teaching load, and other service-related responsibilities. Some also believe that since the program is not organic (mentors/mentees are assigned rather than “opting in”), then it will not be effective.
We could use ideas about collecting data related to the program's performance. In addition, if there are other platforms/systems (other than EAB Navigate) that other institutions use, that would be helpful to know.
