Integrated Social Sciences Peer Mentoring Advisory Group

At a glance

Status: Completed

The Integrated Social Sciences (ISS) program at UW Seattle, an online Bachelor of Arts degree completion program, seeks to… Read full summary

Funding received
2023-2024
Grant type
Small
Awarded
$4,500
Funding partners
  • Services and Activities Fee (SAF)

The Integrated Social Sciences (ISS) program at UW Seattle, an online Bachelor of Arts degree completion program, seeks to develop a peer support and mentorship initiative to foster connection, community, and support among its diverse student population. This program aims to address the feelings of isolation expressed by non-traditional students, many of whom balance full-time work, caregiving, and other demands, with 35% identifying as People of Color. The ISS Peer Mentor Advisory Group (PMAG) will engage three compensated students to co-design a peer mentorship network that promotes belonging, shares lived experiences, and supports persistence in the ISS program. This initiative aligns with ISS’s mission to dismantle barriers to higher education and centers on supporting marginalized identities, particularly BIPOC, queer, and disabled students.  

Set to launch in Autumn 2024, the program will be co-created through collaborative activities between student participants and ISS staff during the 2023-2024 academic year. This effort emphasizes leadership development, community-building, and equitable student retention. By aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals 4 (Quality Education) and 10 (Reduced Inequalities), the project seeks to expand access, reduce barriers, and provide tools for resilience in asynchronous online learning environments. The program reflects ISS’s commitment to educational equity and fostering an inclusive, supportive academic community.

Integrated Social Sciences (ISS) is a fully online Bachelor of Arts degree completion program at UW Seattle. “We strive to open the university’s doors to a broad population of students who may not otherwise have the opportunity to pursue a UW baccalaureate degree. Our goal is to dismantle the institutional and interpersonal barriers that have historically excluded certain societal groups from accessing and excelling in higher education, such as time constraints, family commitments, work and financial obligations, and the legacies of racist exclusion” (ISS Mission and Philosophy). 

We are enthusiastically looking to develop a peer support and mentorship program that will inspire connection, community and support for ISS students. Peer mentoring programs are well documented (Brown, 2020; Collier, 2015; Othman, 2016) as effective in increasing student persistence and promoting a sense of belonging, particularly among underserved and underrepresented students (Hastings et al, 2015; Shalka, 2022). We are looking to co-create a peer mentoring program to help students feel connected in this asynchronous online community, create space to share lived experiences and wisdom, cultivate compassion and gratitude for one another while supporting their persistence in ISS. Our students represent diverse identities including mostly non-traditional students who are working full time, caregiving and managing competing demands. About thirty five percent identify as People of Color. Staff and faculty members have heard students express feelings of isolation. Our aim with the ISS Peer Mentor Advisory Group (PMAG) is to actively engage and financially compensate three students to co-create this program, assessing student needs based on lived experiences and voices of our student community.

The ISS PMAG brings students together with advising and library staff to co-design a peer support and mentorship network for students in the ISS program. This program development project will fund three students to participate in a series of collaborative and staff-facilitated activities leading to a peer support program to be implemented beginning in Autumn 2024. In addition to resulting in a program model created in partnership with students, the PMAG will provide a substantive skills-building and leadership opportunity for student participants in the advisory group, as well as an arena for building relationships with peers and staff in ISS. The goals for the program are to expand academic and non-academic student support, create student leadership opportunities, create spaces where students can build connections and relationships through sharing experiences and acknowledging systems of oppression. Support and retention of students with marginalized identities is at the core. The PMAG especially welcomes the experiences and voices of BIPOC, queer and disabled students. The time for this program development project is to begin Autumn 2023 and to end Spring 2024, with implementation of the peer mentorship program in Autumn 2024. 

Sustainable Development

This project aligns with goals 4 (Quality Education) and 10 (Reduced Inequities) of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. This project stems from ISS’s mission to expand educational equity through increased access and aims to increase student retention among post-traditional and historically marginalized students by breaking through institutional and social barriers. This project will provide students with communication and organizing tools for community-building in an online asynchronous educational environment, and foster resilience while critically engaging with university systems. This project aligns with reducing inequities by focusing on building programs with support mechanisms specifically for students traditionally underrepresented in higher education. 

Roles and Responsibilities

The staff team is composed of the ISS Librarian, Reed Garber-Pearson and two ISS Advisers, Michelle Bagshaw and Janna Lafferty. This initiative has full support of ISS Program Co-Directors, Mel Wensel and Meg Spratt. This important work is considered within the scope of work of each team member. All funds will go directly to students as described in the budget spreadsheet.

References
  • Brown, L. C. (2020). Contemporary peer mentoring in higher education. In G. Berg & L. Venis (Eds.), Accessibility and Diversity in the 21st Century University (pp. 177-197). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-2783-2.ch009
  • Collier P. J. (2015). Developing effective student peer mentoring programs: A practitioner’s guide to program design, delivery, evaluation and training. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
  • Hastings L.J., Griesen J.V., Hoover R.E., Creswell J.W., Dlugosh L.L.(2015) Generativity in college students: Comparing and explaining the impact of mentoring. Journal of College Student Development,  56  (7) , pp. 651-669.
  • Othman, A. (2016).  A comprehensive review of major studies and theoretical models of student retention in higher education. Higher Education Studies; Vol 6, (2), 1-18. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/hes.v6n2p1
  • Shalka, T. R. (2022). Re-envisioning student development theory through a trauma lens. New Directions for Student Services, Vol 2022, (177), 81-93.

  • Michelle Bagshaw

    Project lead

    mbagshaw@uw.edu
    Staff
    Integrated Social Sciences Program

  • Reed Garber-Pearson

    Team member

    rjgp@uw.edu
    Staff
    Integrated Social Sciences Program & Online Learning Librarian

  • Janna Lafferty

    Team member

    jlaffe@uw.edu
    Staff
    Integrated Social Sciences Program

Request amount and budget

Total amount requested: $4,500
Detailed budget:
iss-seedgrant_budgetform_2023-2024-final-michelle-bagshaw.xlsx
Budget administrator: Linda Nelson

Measure the impacts

Impact / goal Metric(s) of success UW stakeholders impacted
n/a n/a Undergraduate, Graduate

Our project evaluation will focus on measuring how comprehensively we accomplished our goals and developed our planning, from basic fulfillment to reflective measurements. Using rating scales and open-ended responses, we will use a survey instrument to measure goal fulfillment regarding the three key areas of our project: recruitment, advisory group activities, and program development. Surveys will be completed by staff and student advisory group members.

Recruitment  
  • Were three students recruited to participate as advisory group members, and did they remain?
  • How do student advisory member identities represent ISS students?  

 

Advisory Activities 
  • Did the advisory group meet three times each quarter?
  • How did staff facilitate collaborative participation between student and staff advisory members?
  • What training did student participants receive through advisory group activities?
  • What connections did student advisory members build through participation in the advisory group?

 

Student Programming Development 
  • What skill-building activities did staff provide for student leaders?
  • What student needs were identified by student advisory members, and what activities were identified by staff to support retention of students with marginalized identities?
  • What [activities/venues] online did the advisory group identify that can serve as compassion-driven, community-building spaces where students can build connections and relationships, acknowledge and share experiences of systems of oppression?
  • Did the advisory group produce a logic model outlining components of student support programming that can be implemented as of Autumn 2024?

 

Project lead

Michelle Bagshaw

mbagshaw@uw.edu

Affiliation

Staff

Affiliated groups

Integrated Social Sciences Program

Categories

  • Diversity and Equity
  • Resilience and Wellbeing
  • Resilience Seed Grant
  • Education