Q&A: Peer Mentoring Program

In this podcast, we talk with Salus students and staff who participate in the peer mentoring program on campus. They discuss the benefits of the program and why it's important to get involved.

• Monae Kelsey, director of student engagement and coordinator of the peer mentoring program.

• Chantana Moapichai ‘24OD, second-year optometry student and a student coordinator for the peer mentoring program.

• Shayna Sawyer ‘24AUD, second-year audiology student and a mentor.

• Sierra Niesen ‘24AUD, second-year audiology student and a mentor

• Wing Yan ‘25AUD, first-year audiology student and a mentee

Q: Monae, can you explain what the peer mentoring program is, and how mentors and mentees are paired up?

Kelsey: The peer mentoring program was put together a few years ago with the purpose of helping first-year students, or incoming students, acclimate to Salus University. Acclimate in two ways: one is through being a part of the general community and also, two, how to navigate through their program.

We bring in mentors who are typically second-year students, and those students across those programs serve as mentors to those first-year students. They're paired through an outside matching service that we subscribe to called Compatibility, and it's like the eHarmony of mentoring matching.

Each pair fills out an in-depth questionnaire and then they are paired with someone in their program. And what we hope that all the mentees get out of it is that they know that they have a resource, someone that they can go to, an informational liaison. We know that they have someone that is willing to guide them through their first year and also get them introduced to people, and just resources around campus.

And then the last thing is for mentors, of course, this is a nice leadership experience for them, and we hope that they will be able to build and refine their different skill sets that they’ll need as a future clinician as they leave Salus and go into their future professions.

Q: Generally, how is this program beneficial for students?

Moapichai: I think the program is designed to build connections between incoming and current students. It's beneficial because it allows them to create, to build these interpersonal relationships with their peers in informal settings because we have our monthly peer mentoring events, like our end-of-the-year barbecues. We had a really successful meet-and-greet earlier in the year, and we already have some events planned for next semester as well.

I think it gives the mentees, or the incoming students, a seamless transition into their first year of optometry school because we all know how challenging that can be, and then I think it gives the mentors an opportunity as well to serve in a leadership role throughout the entirety of their time here at Salus.

Q: How does this program help individuals in their respective programs?

Sawyer: This really helps specifically our new incoming students. I think it acts as a bridge between our incoming students and the class above. The new students, the mentees, can come to the mentors with any question, whether it's life related, or Salus related, or specific to the program.

I know my mentee comes to me if she has questions about classes or, "What do I wear to the clinic?" Or some super specific question that only an audiology student would know. It's really helpful because as a mentee, you have someone to go to who has been in your shoes just last year. So they have personal experience with being a new graduate student, and being new to the school and maybe new to the area.

The mentors can empathize with their mentee about the stresses of classes and the excitement of starting clinics and being in new experiences, in new learning situations. I know for the audiology students, I think that the mentor program helps to connect the classes. So the first-year class connects with the second year, and the second years to the third years. And it really helps to just give everyone the people they can ask questions to, and get that information from.

Q: Do you have a story or maybe a certain time that you remember that you were just very thankful you were in this program?

Yan: I think this program definitely extends to outside of school, too. My mentor went above and beyond in terms of an emergency situation that happened in my personal life, I had an emergency housing need. And I'm actually not native to the state of Pennsylvania. So, I came in pretty much knowing no one.

I was in the state of panic, I needed to find a new place relatively fast. And my mentor, I just brought it up to her because we were on a good relationship. We would chat on a day-to-day basis. She sent me two long streams of housing recommendations and also her insight on whether or not that's a safe location and all that information that is extremely valuable to someone who's non-native and someone who is living alone, like the safety factor, stuff like that. That's not really readily available on Google per se.

I was super thankful that she went ahead and did that because when I signed up for the program, personally I wasn't expecting really much guidance. I just thought, "Oh, hey, I've received the invitation for this program. I might as well apply because it's good to have an additional resource." I wasn't aware of how much I would be utilizing it, but yeah, I'm super thankful to my mentor, Emma, and this program in general for connecting us both.

Q: Why do you think that new students should participate in this program?

Niesen: Being a second-year student, I actually look back and I must have missed the email as a first-year to be like, "Hey, sign up for this program." So, I actually didn't have a mentor when I was a first-year, but I quickly made friends in my class who did, and as a first-year, that became really important to give us a little bit more insight on what to expect with exams, and what professors are like and what realistic expectations that they have. I know my mentee and myself, a lot of times she comes to me to say like, okay, what things do I really need to be focusing on for exams, or how do I go about to communicate to one of my professors, and just different stuff like that.

And I always loved having friendships that were like a brother/sister, or older sister/younger sister kind of dynamic. I feel I get that a little bit, especially with one of my mentees. We do have a really great relationship. I see her on campus a lot. And being the youngest sibling, I always wanted someone who was younger than me to be an older sibling too. I feel the mentor program has given me that opportunity.

It also just really gives students who want to then become a mentor the opportunity to really learn how to be, like Monae said, a leader and get leadership experience. I know that when I become an audiologist and I'm practicing in the field, one of the things that I want to do to give back to audiology is to become a preceptor, to help other students on their journey to becoming licensed audiologists.

I feel this is a practice for that almost, and the fact that I can really help guide and navigate someone who's coming up in the field and give some support and advice to help someone else in the place that I was. I think this group of mentor and mentees are in a very interesting position with COVID happening and figuring out how do we do grad school online because that's not a common thing. It's definitely an interesting dynamic, but it's been really nice to be like, "Okay, we've been there, we get it." It's such an interesting situation and no one really knows what's going to happen next, but having someone who's been there where it was definitely uncertain, I think is really helpful.

Q: How can students sign up for this program?

Moapichai: I believe we will be sending out applications to the incoming students over the summer before this upcoming fall semester. Anyone who is interested can apply and send us an email back with their completed application. We will have a deadline listed within that email, and then once we receive those applications, we will be in contact with them about the compatibility questionnaire and things like that.

Q: Is there anything else that anyone wants to add?

Kelsey: I would just add that if any current students end up listening to this, that if you are a first-year now going through this program, or a first-year period, when we go to open up for mentoring applications, we're going to ask you all to be the ones to step forward to be mentors to the incoming first-years. So your time will transition very soon. Sometimes it can seem like it is a slow-going process, but your time here really does go by really quickly.

The time for our current first-years who are mentees now to step forward to be mentors will happen in around April. We would love to have you consider applying and we do a one-time training in everything to make sure that you're all set to go.

To learn more about the Peer Mentoring Program, you can email mentors@salus.edu.