Coordinator for Rosen College\u2019s Office of Student Services, Vanessa Cogswell, developed a creative way\u00a0that\u00a0could potentially increase retention and graduation rates.\u00a0 She recently began a new Peer Mentor Program which consists of undergraduate students with GPAs above 3.0, who are partnered with peers to enhance their overall college experience academically, socially and personally.<\/p>\n
Mentors and mentees convened for the first time in September for a Meet and Greet event.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Eleven students were in attendance to include: Alexis Altamirano, Albert Cummings, Ryan Dowling, Stephanie Ford, Megan Joyce, Leanna Karpf, Jasmine Kouly, Ruth Prewitt, Alicia Strout, Diana Wechsler and Rachel Williams.<\/p>\n
Participants were introduced to the program\u2019s vision, mission and goals, and the mentor-mentee relationship, with the underlying message being that both mentors and mentees will get out of the program what they put into it.\u00a0 All students involved were encouraged to take the initiative to regularly meet, communicate and work together when needed.<\/p>\n
Cogswell shares, \u201cThe Peer Mentor Program provides Rosen students with the opportunity to give back as well as improve leadership and team skills.\u00a0 I am very excited to be a part of this retention initiative and the students involved in the program have amazing attitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the meet and greet, mentors facilitated ice breakers to practice leadership skills.\u00a0 Activities included \u201cwho has the most items,\u201d \u201cquestion ball,\u201d and \u201ccreate your tattoo,\u201d among others.<\/p>\n
In addition to one-on-one sessions between mentors and mentees, Cogswell has organized meetings and activities throughout the semester.\u00a0 Program participants recently embarked on a \u201cKnow Your Rosen Resources\u201d scavenger hunt in early October, which encouraged visits to offices\/areas at the Rosen campus to learn about the college\u2019s student resources.<\/p>\n
Cogswell hopes that the program will continue to grow, resulting in increased retention and graduation rates.\u00a0 \u201cMentoring truly matters and the Office of Student Services is happy to offer this type of program to our students at Rosen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coordinator for Rosen College\u2019s Office of Student Services, Vanessa Cogswell, developed a creative way\u00a0that\u00a0could potentially increase retention and graduation rates.\u00a0 She recently began a new Peer Mentor Program which consists of undergraduate students with GPAs above 3.0, who are partnered with peers to enhance their overall college experience academically, socially and personally. Mentors and mentees convened for the first time…","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":29077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5884,5889,7053,4068,5880,5877],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-29074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","tag-jasmine-kouly","tag-office-of-student-services","tag-peer-outreach-mentoring-program","tag-rosen-college-of-hospitality-management","tag-ryan-dowling","tag-vanessa-cogswell"],"yoast_head":"\n