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The NASPA Annual Conference is one of our favorite times of year. Something about standing in front of a room full of passionate administrators and leaders dedicated to encouraging first-generation students…we can’t help but feel a sense of pride and excitement for the work we do and the people we meet. At this year’s conference, we had the pleasure of presenting with two partners: The University of Delaware and The Georgia Institute of Technology.
Read on for our recap of our presentation with Dr. Charmaine Troy of Georgia Tech.
Dr. Troy is at the helm of Georgia Tech’s First-Generation Student Programs Division. A first-gen student advocate, educator, scholar-practitioner, and author of ‘Developing and Implementing Promising Practices and Programs for First-Generation College Students,’ Dr. Troy’s career has been dedicated to understanding the intersectional nature of student identity and discovering high-impact practices that take her findings into account. Through her partnership with Mentor Collective, Dr. Troy has not only honored the many barriers and responsibilities that first-generation students negotiate on and off campus, but has optimized her department of one for maximum student impact.
Why focus on first-generation students?
Georgia Tech doesn’t have a retention problem. In fact, quite the opposite. Georgia Tech undergraduates are earning their degrees at record rates. However, first-generation students are a growing population at the research institution, and they confront a unique set of challenges foreign to their peers.
Within Georgia Tech’s commitment to identity-conscious student success, Dr. Troy has made it a priority to develop practices and programs that validate first-generation students as assets to the larger student body. By keeping identity in mind, she is focused on creating inclusive programming that promotes holistic well being, sense of belonging, and resource utilization by challenging the negative opinions and stigma of help-seeking proven to affect the outcomes of first-gen students.
Aligning with Institutional Goals & Strategy
Dr. Troy’s extensive experience with mentorship is well documented. When asked what mentorship means to her, she immediately responds, “Access! Access to information, access to people, and access to opportunities.” As such, when Georgia Tech’s 2020-2030 Strategic Plan was being developed, Dr. Troy knew that first-generation student success was a key pillar to it.
The strategic plan challenged Dr. Troy to expand access within her First-Generation and Limited Income Program department. Well-prepared and eager to begin, Dr. Troy started creating programming that is committed to visibility, increasing a sense of belonging, and building a sense of connection with first-generation students. She did this by developing First-Generation Student Initiatives that advance first-gen and limited-income students’ success through partnerships that build community, strengthen well-being, develop leadership, cultivate academic success, and foster retention and graduation.
At the core, these initiatives were formed to help students develop a sense of belonging and academic self-efficacy, not only to the Georgia Tech community, but also to the entire collegiate experience.
How can peer relationships become part of an institutional strategy?
While skill acquisition and knowledge are known cognitive factors that impact a students ability to thrive at college, non-cognitive factors such as a sense of belonging and academic self-efficacy also play a major role. Mentorship is the bridge that closes this cognitive gap. Mentors can help build self-esteem by providing positive feedback, connecting students to much needed resources both on-campus and off, recognizing their strengths and celebrating their successes.
Building the Buzz & Creating Momentum
Georgia Tech’s First-Gen Jackets Mentoring Program is playing a crucial role in developing and fostering both a sense of belonging and academic self-efficacy. As a department of one, running a full-scale mentorship program can be challenging. From recruiting mentors and mentees to training, follow through, documentation, and assessment, it’s more than a full-time job. While it’s certainly possible (especially if you know Dr. Troy), it would leave little time for other initiatives within her department.
This is where Mentor Collective’s expertise was a welcomed asset. We designed and implemented a high-impact mentorship program at scale for Georgia Tech’s First-Generation and Limited Income Program Department. What does that mean? It means Mentor Collective blended the best of technology and human expertise to provide Georgia Tech with both the opportunity for student voice insights and individual student intervention at scale.
Desired Program Outcomes:
- Connect incoming first-generation students with relevant, identity-aligned upper-division peer mentors
- Identify top concerns and topics during key periods of the student experience
- Foster sense of belonging and academic self-efficacy
- Assess student behaviors, nudge accordingly
- Benchmark efficacy of the First-Gen Jackets program
Buzzing with achievement
Key to this program's success was institutional adoption and Dr. Troy’s methods of using the program to amplify other first-generation signature initiatives on campus: including a speaker series and mentor professional development opportunities. Having the responsibility of recruiting, mentor training and matching facilitated by Mentor Collective, Dr. Troy was able to create more robust programming that allows her the time to interact with students and amplify program awareness.
In the pilot year of the program (21-22), more than 115 students were matched with a peer mentor, nearly two-thirds of whom were considered highly engaged and logged more than three conversations. Now partially into its second year, the program has nearly doubled; serving 210 incoming students and with many former mentees electing to come back to the program as mentors.
Part of measuring program efficacy for Georgia Tech included deploying peer-reviewed surveys that assess student sense of belonging and academic self-efficacy throughout the year. We know through academic literature these non-cognitive factors are leading indicators of positive student outcomes. While retention wasn’t a concern for Georgia Tech, making sure historically marginalized student populations feel like they belong is of the greatest priority; especially when the majority of students at the institution are pursuing careers in STEM.
In the first year of the program, mentee and mentor sense of belonging increased by more than three percent and mentee academic self-efficacy increased by 2.27 percent. In a April 2023 product update, Mentor Collective is now making these survey results more easily accessible to administrators throughout the year and identifying individual opportunities to intervene when students are feeling disconnected from the institution and their studies.
Flagging Concerns & Getting Actionable Data
In addition to these positive program findings, Mentor Collective provides the opportunity to be alerted, in real-time, when a student is in need. Mentors can ‘flag’ conversations when a student is experiencing something challenging through the Mentor Collective Dashboard. On the institutional side, Flags enable Dr. Troy to track the needs and scale personalized support at critical moments in the educational experience.
Mentor Collective’s ability to provide valuable data and the means to intervene throughout the entire mentorship process means a deeper understanding of first-gen students attending Georgia Tech. From enhanced decision making to improved accountability, increased efficiency and improved institutional collaboration, the ability to assess and provide data is a valuable tool for Dr. Troy, but the real beneficiaries of this data are her students.
Partnership As A Force Multiplier
As we recounted this exciting road to student success with Dr. Troy, we were reminded of the power of partnership in optimizing limited human resource. Many academic institutions don’t have an entire department dedicated to first-generation students. Even in the small percentage of campuses that do, implementing peer mentorship programs consume a lot of administrative time when they should uplift the work already being done and route students to existing resources in an efficient manner. We are honored to work alongside Dr. Troy and be the force multiplier that puts wind in the sails of identity-conscious student success strategies that bring about whole-institution change.