Harper College in Palatine has launched a mentorship program for first-year Black and Latino students. Two faculty coordinators support the 10 student mentors and 40 mentees in the GLIDE Mentorship Program. (Courtesy of Harper College)
Harper College in Palatine has launched a mentorship program for first-year Black and Latino students that aims to address equity gaps while affirming their identity and ensuring representation.
It is a peer-to-peer group mentorship model to help incoming freshmen cope with college life, said Esmeralda Guerrero Lopez, coordinator for student diversity initiatives, including the GLIDE Mentorship Program.
“One of the goals definitely would be to address the persistence, retention and graduation of these students,” said Lopez, a first-generation college graduate and Harper alumna.
One student mentor, who has been at Harper for at least a year, is responsible for overseeing four mentees. Two faculty DEI coordinators, including Lopez, support the 10 student mentors and 40 mentees in the program, which includes academic, professional and social activities. “They support the students with information and resources on how to navigate higher education,” Lopez said. “They work from that peer relationship model. They share about their experiences … and when they need to, connect the students with one of the (faculty) coordinators. That’s the idea that they are not alone and they are always connected.”
Mentees attend sessions on financial aid, scholarships, resume- and cover-letter building, and time management and go on one group excursion per semester.
“This is the first year of a two-year pilot,” Lopez said. “We are still assessing how the program is going given that we’ve only had one semester behind us.”
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