Rocket-2-Rocket Peer Mentorship Program to benefit first-year students

April 27, 2009 | News, UToday
By Jeffrey Romagni



The University of Toledo will offer a new program to increase retention and help first-year undergraduate students.

The Rocket-2-Rocket Peer Mentorship Program will pair all students admitted under the 2009-10 UT Guarantee Scholarship with a trained peer mentor. All other first-year students will be given the opportunity to sign up during summer Rocket Launch orientation sessions.

“The 2010 academic year will be the pilot for Rocket-2-Rocket,” said Jeff Witt, director of the UT Student Recreation Center and lead staff member for the program. “We are planning on providing peer mentors to around 400 first-year students. That means we need around 200 trained peer mentors and around 80 faculty and staff mentors for next year.”

As part of the program, student leaders serving as peer mentors will interact with their assigned peers and provide assistance and support when needed.

In addition, peer mentors will be assigned their own faculty or staff mentor to help support and encourage student leaders to persist and succeed at UT.

“Rocket-2-Rocket is designed to not only support first-year students, but to support their mentors as well,” said Michele Martinez, interim dean of students. “Many of our UT faculty and staff already mentor students on an informal basis. This program is just an organized extension of that great work.”

Two informational meetings will be held for those interested in the program — Tuesday, April 28, and Wednesday, April 29, from noon to 12:40 p.m. in Student Union Room 3016 on Main Campus.

For more information, contact Witt at 419.530.3700 or jeffery.witt@utoledo.edu or Martinez at 419.530.5323 or michele.martinez@utoledo.edu.

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