What is an Academic Peer Mentor?
The Academic Peer Mentor position comes from the office of Retention and Graduation. As an Academic Peer Mentor, I pioneered the Humanities Living Learning Community in the first two years of its existence. I met with faculty, department chairs, and developed a rich rapport with over 150 students each year to foster an academically successful social atmosphere through programming and community building. This position is the academic sister of a resident assistant. While RAs handle the more social aspect of residents and dorm life, APMs ensure that residents have access to resources that can help them achieve their full academic potential. A living learning community is a dorm that houses students with majors in the same colleges. According to Ball State, “Living Learning Communities are where academics and residence life converge. Our communities extend our immersive approach to education to our residence halls through peer mentoring, makerspaces, and major specific programming… Each community partners with faculty and staff to provide students with the opportunity to explore their intellectual curiosities outside of the classroom. With this supportive environment, students perform better in the classroom and make stronger connections with students in their field.” The purpose of LLCs is to create a community of residents that share academic experiences supplement online description with my experience within their major courses in order to facilitate socialization and academic success. APMs are the people that implement the goals of LLCs.
Programming Model
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Weekly Academic Initiative
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The academic initiative that I have created for this community is Assignment Development, which is a study tables-esque homework session where I invite residents to snack and work on projects, since we tend to have more long-term assignments such as essays and projects in the Humanities departments. I advertise it like this to encourage students to learn time management and plan ahead so that they have a specific time to work on such assignments over a period of time.
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Monthly Program
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Each monthly program is specifically catered to Humanities majors and fulfills an academic goal for the residents.
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In the first year of my position, I partnered with the English department to create a legacy program that will become a tradition for the Humanities LLC, even after I am no longer its APM. This program showcased everything the Humanities department had to offer such as immersive learning courses, clubs, honors societies, and included advisors from each department and a featured speaker.
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Semester Trip
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APMs are required to plan an academically-oriented and major specific "field trip" each semester.
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During Fall 2018, I partnered with Ball State's Career Center to take my residents on a site visit to the Indiana Humanities Council in Indianapolis to help them understand the Humanities on a greater scale while also exposing them to alternative career paths.
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For Spring 2019, the Humanities LLC will be visiting the Chicago Art Museum while discussing how the art interacts with our majors.
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Administrative Duties
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Being that I was the APM for the Humanities LLC during its first year, I worked to establish relationships with faculty in each Humanities department, educating them about the position and encouraging collaboration.
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Programs
