Mentoring for success
By Shannon Milliken
The Collegian
The Fresno State Mentoring Institute is dedicated to enhancing the educational experience for students.
This year, the institute is offering one-on-one mentoring to insure all students, but primarily incoming freshmen, get the best support, said Albert Valencia, the program’s director.
Mentors are usually staff and faculty members, along with some trained student mentors.
In the past, each mentor has been given as many as eight students.
Valencia has trained approximately 220 mentors, he said, and 130 of those will be available this fall.
He has sent out 250 e-mails to freshmen not enrolled in University 1, inviting them to get a mentor.
However, he welcomes anyone interested. “We won’t say no to anyone,” Valencia said.
Students interested in the program must sign up before October because the first activity is on Oct. 12. At the event, students will get free food and no one will leave without talking to his or her mentor.
Following the preliminary meeting, students are asked to meet with their mentor at least once a month, though usually they choose to meet more.
Meetings don’t always have to be face-to-face, though, Valencia said.
Often students are more comfortable meeting over the phone or through e-mail. Some students meet with their mentors and go for a walk, or go to get coffee.
“Usually students are very eager to meet at the beginning of the year and again around exam times,” Valencia said. “Around the beginning of the year they may want our help with getting emergency loans or making a certain phone call, which we will definitely do for them.”
If a mentor doesn’t know how to help a student solve their problem, several staff members are on hand who have information about nearly every department or office on campus.
Valencia said that he believes the mentoring program is helpful to the students. He gets calls from students he mentored years ago telling him about how well they’re doing in graduate school, he said.
There is no other program out there like it, he said. “We’re a little ahead of the game,” Valencia said. “Or a lot ahead of the game, I guess I should say.”
One of the other mentors, Lynnette Zelezny, agrees with Valencia that programs like this are not available at other schools.
Zelezny said she believes more schools should have it because mentoring is the key to success. She said the mentors involved in this program are “very passionate and enthusiastic” about it.
Zelezny, who is also chair of the Department of Psychology, conducted a survey of Fresno State mentors in June, and found that mentors really want to help the students and really enjoy doing it.
According to the results of the survey, mentors said they benefited from just knowing they helped, and valued this benefit more than when the university gave them recognition for helping.
Zelezny said she thinks students sometimes are hesitant to speak with the faculty, because they are too afraid or they think the faculty mentors are too busy to meet with them.
Even if they are busy with other things, they prefer meeting with students one-on-one, Zelezny said. “That’s what we like doing,” Zelezny said. “We are literally waiting for students to connect with us.”
For more information about the mentoring institute call 278-7766.
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