Part teaching assistant, part older sibling: Skidmore's peer mentors

Audio Piece Transcript 

Charlotte: Skidmore College’s Scribner Seminar is designed to introduce first-year students to the rigor of a college class and ease them into the more subtle aspects of the college environment.  

Each seminar has its own upperclassman selected by the professor to serve as an academic and social role model. These peer mentors support the transition to college by encouraging new students to integrate into the larger community.  

This semester, I am a peer mentor for Associate Professor of Spanish Language and Literature Grace Burton. Professor Burton teaches the Space of Modern Thought, a seminar that discusses the intellectual history of the idea of nothingness. I took this seminar as a first-year student, and I absolutely loved it. The perspective I have gained now, having led a group of first-years through the same seminar I took, is one I am very grateful to have.  

I wanted to hear from other peer mentors about their own experiences in this leadership role, so I interviewed some of my fellow peer mentors about their experiences and quickly discovered the people behind the success of the Scribner Seminar are kind and talented, but more importantly, they care about others and want to make sure first-year students succeed.

Liz: Hi, I'm Liz Bracht. I am the peer mentor for Professor Mao Chen’s seminar Ideal Worlds, and last year I was a peer mentor for Professor Kate Berheide’s section of Human Dilemmas. 

Sophia: I am Sophia McGowan. I'm a senior, and my seminar is called Earth Elegies with Professor Robert Park Harrison.

Jackson: I'm Jackson Smith. I'm a senior, and I'm peer mentoring for Can Literature Save the Environment?, a seminar from Professor Michael Marx.  

We help answer questions that relate to the material, but we also act as guides as the students transition into college life — telling them all about resources we have, helping them meet people through clubs, and organizing activities for them to better bond with each other. 

Sofia: I would say it’s a little bit similar to a TA, in that we’re helping the students with whatever the material or subject is, but it's a little bit more of a sort of older sibling role. A little bit more formal, I guess. 

Charlotte: I asked Liz, Jackson, and Sofia to reflect on their own first-year experiences. 

Sofia: My first year was the COVID year, so we had the lovely delight of being online. 

Jackson: I remember that my peer mentor was really great. She did everything that she was supposed to, you know, giving us presentations about campus life and resources. She did the readings, she would answer questions for us, and she even set up times to meet with us outside of class to make sure that we were doing things. 

Liz: She was a really good person to come to if I ever had questions. There were nights where I was studying with people from the class for our midterm or for different things like that, and we would reach out if we had questions. She was there for questions in the class because she had taken the class for her Scribner Seminar, as well as things outside of that class. She brought snacks to our study sessions and organized a reunion for us in the spring. She was a really great resource. 

Charlotte: I asked them to reflect on how their first year impacts the way they serve as peer mentors, and this is how I learned just how wonderful this group is. 

Sofia: I think since my first year was online, and I didn't have a chance to be with my peer mentor as much or connect, I really just wanted to be available or make myself available for the mentees. Even if they don’t take me up on that, just to know that I am there if they need any help. 

Jackson: When it came time for me to be a peer mentor, I thought, “Wow, all I want to do is avoid 100% of the things that I experienced” — hearing about offices, hearing about resources, but not going after them. So, in my experience as a peer mentor, I want to bring people to these opportunities and connect names and faces.  

Liz: My first semester was hard. The transition to college — it was a new environment, new people, new classes, and new structure of the day. I've tried to check in with my students throughout the semester in a variety of ways, just to make sure that if things come up, I'm aware of them and that I can be proactive in helping them solve any problems. We had a dinner and other informal events — things like that to make them feel supported and let them know that someone's invested in their time here at Skidmore. 

Sofia: I think I've just tried to use what I didn't have to give them what they could have, if that makes sense.  

Charlotte: These are people looking to make the world better than they found it, one Scribner Seminar at a time. I know for a fact that Liz, a second-time peer mentor, makes an effort to see performances that her mentees are a part of, and Sofia spends a good chunk of her time helping her students learn the photography skills she has mastered over her past three years at Skidmore.  

Jackson told me a story about his first day of leading orientation and how nervous he was to do icebreakers with this group of people he’d never met, but he remembered something that someone in our peer mentor group said during our training and found a way to connect immediately with his mentees. 

Jackson: “What's one weird thing about yourself? What don't you get to talk about with your friends often, even though you're close with them? What’s your niche interest?” I had them turn to whoever's next to them, talk for five minutes, and then share it when we come back. But what they're sharing is the other person's, so you’ve got to remember, you got to keep up.  

I set a timer on my phone for five minutes, and they were talking so well. I was so surprised. So, I set another minute. And then I said, another 30 seconds. And after that I was like, oh my god, we got to get off of this somehow. So, I told them, “Alright, we’ve got to stop. Go ahead and share what your partner said.” They did that there were a lot of great things. We learned a lot of cool things about each other. And I think it was a way to kind of knock that wall down.  

Then I thought to myself that we had more time before we met up for the class picture later on.  I also wanted to take a walk, but there was still a good amount of time to do that. So, I said, “Wow, you guys are talking so well, like I don’t want to stop you. So, I want you to turn to the person on the other side of yourself — to a new person and a new fact — but I don’t have another question.” And one girl raised her hand, and she said, “How about something that you’re proud of?” My heart melted and I said, “Alright, that’s a great question.” I set another five-minute timer, and when that was up, they did the same thing. 

Liz: A lot of schools have first-year seminars, but I think having someone assigned to such a small group of students, especially as another student — not just a faculty advisor or something of the sort — who is able to and actually assigned to give attention and support to these students, is really wonderful, and it’s a really helpful thing.  

Maybe not every student takes full advantage of their peer mentor, but for the ones that do, they’re there, which I think is really wonderful. They don’t have to go out of their way to find somebody and then maybe get frustrated with that process. We’re in class with them, reaching out to them, presenting to them each week, having office hours, and making ourselves available. I like to go to their events, or, if they’re having a problem, make a meeting time outside of that and just stay connected with them. Having that role is a really wonderful thing that Skidmore offers first-year students, and if you get to extend that connection beyond your first year, I think you’re even luckier.  

Charlotte: When first-year students can not only go to an upperclassman either for academic or social advice but for anything under the sun, they begin to realize that Skidmore is a place full of people who only want to make their community just a little bit better.