Faculty And Peer Mentors Within A Critical Thinking Class

Abstract

This paper presents a retention initiative designed to create a stronger learning community among first term students through the linking of both faculty and peer mentors with Critical Thinking (COLL) classes and to increase the number of students progressing to the third term with the overall goal of increasing completion rates at the DeVry College of Technology, North Brunswick campus. The study focused on nontraditional, commuting, full-time students at a technical proprietary college in central New Jersey. The initiative also connects students to their program of study and exposes them to programrelated technical concepts. Faculty mentors teach a critical thinking lesson with technical application and visit their classes informally throughout the term. Additionally, peer mentors are assigned to each class to work directly with the students, support instructors, and provide yet another connection to the DeVry community. Because of their presence in the classroom and availability throughout the term, peer mentors can become an important part of students' lives. Study results indicated that the COLL Mentoring Initiative did positively impact the experimental students. Although the program increased contact with both faculty and peer mentors, peer mentors proved to be the strongest component of the program in terms of their effect on the students. Even though students indicated that faculty mentors did not affect them significantly, the experimental group still rated their impact much more positively than did the control group. Mentoring Initiative students also rated their COLL class activities more highly than control students and appeared to particularly value their group experiences. Study results, however, failed to support hypotheses dealing with a stronger sense of community with the college, intention to reenroll if starting over, and actual rates of retention. Both quantitative and qualitative data examining both student and faculty response to the new program in comparison to the previous model are presented as well recommendations to further develop the initiative.