Supporting Student Learning

Case Studies, Experience and Practice from Higher Education

Glenda Crosling, Graham Webb, Glenda Crosling, Graham Webb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135727451
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This volume focuses on the support programmes that all higher education establishments have in place to aid and develop student learning. The work is designed to equip HE professionals with an accessible guide to some of the best practices in this field from around the world.

SECTION 1
RELATING TO STUDENTS

CHAPTER 1
MENTORING ROSIE

Case reporter: Martha Bean

Issues raised

This case study raises issues of cultural diversity within a university faculty-student mentoring programme, including the effectiveness of mentoring for mentees from different cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Background

The events in the case study occurred at San José State University, a public university that is part of the California State University system USA. The San José State campus serves approximately 27,000 students, most of whom live off campus, and is located in the South Bay area of California, also known as Silicon Valley, about an hour south-east of San Francisco.

PART 1

Rocío, or Rosie, Ramirez was a young woman of Mexican-American descent. She had graduated from high school and decided to apply to the local four-year university in San José, where she lived. This was a momentous decision. Rosie’s parents had migrated from Mexico and speak little English. As Rosie’s mother said to her, ‘I only went to middle school and your father only went through fifth grade. Neither of us know much about going to university or going to college.’ Rosie’s mother let her know how proud they were that she wanted to go to college. But both Rosie and her parents knew that her parents were struggling with a mortgage and low wages. They couldn’t possibly co-sign a loan for Rosie’s tuition. And as her parents had been so busy with work and keeping things going, they had neither been monitoring her courses in high school nor exploring future university options with her. And even if they had the time, Rosie knew that they did not have the knowledge or experience to be able to help her.

Rosie knew that she was at a distinct disadvantage compared to her classmates from more middle class, non-immigrant families, who saw going to college as a natural next step. Their only concern was which college they would attend. But Rosie learnt from her high school classmates that a degree in criminal justice would enable her to join the police force and that she would have to attend a four-year university. She had received little guidance counselling from school on her ambition, but she knew that living in California was an advantage. There is a network of public two-year community colleges, as well as two parallel university systems: the prestigious University of California (UC) system and the more working class oriented California State University (CSU) system.

Rosie noticed that her classmates were talking about going to four-year schools, so she decided to visit the local CSU in search of application materials. ‘This is so different from high school,’ she thought as she reached the college campus in her search of information. She began to feel anxious. Who would she turn to for help when she had problems? Her parents would not be able to help her; they had never been to college themselves. She knew that this was a college, but how did it relate to the university? Who could help her when she had problems with her studies? Where would she go if she was ill? How would she use the college library? Rose did not know it yet, but there were many other things that she would have to learn, such as choosing the optimal slate of courses for her intended major, the greatly increased academic load in terms of reading and writing, and dealing with unfamiliar professors in large classes and with students of all ages.

Finally, Rosie applied to San José State University (SJSU), a campus that, as a result of recent waves of immigration, was very culturally diverse. She had already found out that there were students from Latino, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Filipino language and cultural backgrounds. Fortunately for Rosie, the SJSU realized that its many minority students needed significant help in order to succeed.

The spring before she actually started attending the university, among her admissions materials Rosie caught sight of a flier for the Faculty Mentor Program, a programme designed specifically to help entering students. She signed up for the programme.

What do you think Rosie’s major difficulties will be?

How do you think the mentor programme will help Rosie?

PART 2

August was fast approaching, and Rosie had been accepted at San José State University. Her parents were proud of their youngest daughter’s accomplishments, but anxious about the unknown challenges she would face, especially as she adjusted to her freshman year. A few weeks into July, a paper arrived from the Faculty Mentor Program. It told her the name of the SJSU faculty member who was to be her mentor during her freshman year.

The paper went out of Rosie’s mind as she struggled to survive her first two weeks of classes: getting to school on time, finding parking in the crowded environs of the university, and using the campus map to locate her first classes. The workload seemed enormous compared with high school, and her college textbooks seemed outrageously expensive, but Rosie was determined.

During week three, the phone rang at her home during the evening. It was me calling. ‘Hi, my name is Dr Martha Bean and I am your faculty mentor. It is my job to help you with any questions or difficulties that you might have.’

Rosie was one of the first mentees I worked with in the Faculty Mentor Program. I was concerned about the age gap (I was in my early fifties and Rosie in her late teens), but felt very comfortable with Rosie’s Mexican- American heritage. Years earlier, I had worked in Central America and South America and become familiar with the Spanish language and the core values among Latino cultures, mostly a great love of family and of the church.

I invited Rosie to join me for a meal at the University Room, a faculty dining room in which students are also welcome. When we met, Rosie was shy and quiet. This concerned me, because I knew that in order to survive well at the university, students needed to be proactive and, at times, outspoken. I was also concerned about Rosie’s academic programme. Some universities block registration until a student has seen an adviser, but not SJSU. Therefore, many students sign up for a schedule of classes that is not in their best interest. I began our first conversation with a discussion of backgrounds and interests and Rosie’s academic and career goals. I did not know anything about her intended major, administrative justice (AJ), but I did know that she would benefit more from seeing an adviser in AJ rather than a general adviser in Admissions and Records.

Rosie told me that she was uncertain about her college experience; she was not sure that her courses were the best for her AJ major. I helped her locate the office of the AJ department on campus. In fact, I called a personal contact in that department and asked him about advising procedures. He was most encouraging and suggested that Rosie go to the departmental office. Rosie was nervous about what to say in this setting, so we practised what she might say to the departmental secretary to achieve her goal of getting an AJ adviser.

Over bi-monthly breakfast or lunch meetings, Rosie told me that she was concerned about her academic writing. She did not understand the campus milestones such as the Writing Skills Test (at the end of a student’s sophomore year or the beginning of a student’s junior year), and even graduation requirements: 120 units in all. I explained to her the next steps at the sophomore-level Writing Skills Test and advised her to aim for at least a B or 3.0 grade point average in succeeding semesters, especially in her last two years of study, if she wanted to do graduate work.

But Rosie had more immediate concerns. Her low score on the English Placement Test taken over the summer (an admissions requirement) meant that she was in a remedial Acadmic English class. She had to do a lot of writing. She also had to pass a final exam of a timed essay to go on to the required English 1A class. I could sense Rosie’s stress when she told me that, unlike high school, many of her courses required extensive writing assignments. Although her high school teachers had praised Rosie’s writing, her papers were now coming back with many red marks and negative comments. This was distressing Rosie; she realized that a much higher quality of writing was expected in her academic work, and also in her professional work after graduation. Would Rosie be able to cope with the writing demands of her study, and would I be equipped to support her in this process?

If you were the mentor in this situation, what would you do?

What do you think actually happened?

PART 3

I could help Rosie a little in her maths and AJ courses, but writing was where I had special expertise. So I referred Rosie to a writing centre on campus, the Intensive Learning Experience, which provides direct assistance with grammatical points and suggestions on academic writing style, as well as planning and getting started on writing assignments. With this extra help, Rosie became more confident and at ease in her course assignments. They helped her analyse her task so that she was clear on the focus she should take in her written piece, and about structuring particular pieces of writing, such as reports and essays. Another area where they helped her a lot was with the more formal type of language used in academic writing. Gradually, Rosie came to understand that the way she spoke at home was different from what was expected in her writing. At first, Rosie was upset about this, thinking that the way her family spoke was in some ways inferior, and she struggled to retain her developing confidence as she addressed this point. But I made a point of explaining to Rosie that the way she spoke at home to her family was not wrong. Using examples, I helped her to see that we use language in different ways for different purposes. For example, when we were speaking in our mentoring sessions, the words we used were sometimes quite different from those we would use if we were writing. Gradually, Rosie came to understand that the ways she was used to doing things were just different. The result was that, rather than completely wiping her home style of language from her repertoire, Rosie soon learnt to use language appropriate for particular situations. She became proud of her ability to use language in different ways for particular purposes.

Rosie and I began to communicate much more easily following this development. It seemed that we understood each other and Rosie was able to confide in me. In fact, a family situation had been causing her great distress. Although it was in an area beyond my role and expertise as a faculty mentor, I had access to information about campus and community resources and I could direct Rosie to places for assistance. I knew that Rosie was feeling anxious, so I directed her to Counseling Services on campus, where there were counsellors who were highly sensitive to the culturally diverse population. As Rosie was unaware of other resources available to the student body, I provided her with information about the Student Health Center, the Disability Resource Center, the Career Center, the Chicano Resource Center, and the Student Life Center. I was pleased when Rosie inquired about the sororities and fraternities on campus; she realized that she needed friends as part of establishing a balance between her studies, her part-time job, and personal life.

What do you feel are the most important ways in which faculty mentors can help students such as Rosie?

What other ways could the faculty mentor have helped Rosie?

How might a mentoring programme work in your own situation?

CASE REPORTER’S DISCUSSION

A seminal aspect of my relationship with Rosie was that we were able to establish a successful relationship early on. Both she and I kept in contact and kept our mentoring appointments. Feedback from faculty mentors and mentees suggests that as many as one-third of mentoring relationships never ‘get off the ground’. The faculty mentor is unable to establish initial contact because phone calls are not returned or appointments are not kept. Although the Faculty Mentor Program has not formally investigated why this might be so, experienced mentors guess that in some cases, students who sign up for the mentor programme grasp neither the time commitment required in terms of talking or meeting with the mentor, nor the very real advantages that the programme offers long term.

Areas in which the mentor programme is able to offer little help are problems like family health crises (mental or physical) or serious financial problems. When students fail to return to the university for such reasons, faculty mentors are powerless to offer assistance, beyond providing information on sources of possible assistance on campus or in the community. Rosie and I were fortunate that her family crisis did not derail her college education. However, if Rosie had had to leave the university for a semester, I could have told her how to make a ‘returning student’ application. This would have allowed her to return to the university after an unplanned leave of one semester rather than having to apply all over again. Likewise, if Rosie had to drop a class after the drop period, I could show her how to do a retroactive drop that would give her a ‘W’ or ‘withdraw’ on her transcript. This is far less damaging than the ‘F’ that students get who fail to do an administrative drop on time or retroactively.

One area in which Rosie received little or no assistance from me was in her major. I knew little about the subject area of administrative justice, and even less about conferences and career opportunities that might be available to AJ majors. I was able neither to be a successful AJ role model for Rosie nor to share with her career tips or suggestions that might have made her adjustment to her chosen field a smoother affair. As a result of this disadvantage, at least one college of SJSU, the College of Humanities and the Arts, has requested that incoming students who have declared a major in one of the eight departments of the college be assigned faculty mentors from those departments. In humanities and in the arts particularly, it turns out that a faculty mentor in theatre, dance or music can mentor a student in these areas far more effectively than a faculty member from engineering or business. At SJSU, however, the practice of matching mentors and mentees on the basis of major soon breaks down. Most of the entering students, declare a major in business or engineering while most of the mentors are from other areas of the university.

Two areas that did seem to work well for us were ethnicity and gender. I generally request Latino students because of my own familiarity with Latino culture. This ‘match’ seems to work well for me and for my mentees. Because of my interest in things Latino, I am aware of the area’s demographics and of the socio-economic situation of many Latino families. Another helpful attribute was my ability to speak Spanish. Sometimes initial mentee contact calls fail because of language; the faculty mentor is simply unable to communicate with a family member who answers the phone beca...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INTRODUCING STUDENT LEARNING SUPPORT
• SECTION 1: RELATING TO STUDENTS
• SECTION 2: DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC SKILLS
• SECTION 3: WORKING WITH STAFF
• CONCLUSION
• FURTHER READING