UA’s Division of Student Affairs’ First Year Experience is currently accepting applicants for its Peer Leaders program until Monday.
“The biggest objective of the Peer Leaders program is to give new students the tools they need to be successful, to teach them about campus resources, to teach them about having successful study skills and to help them learn what it is that students do for fun,” said Jim Dawkins, coordinator of UA’s First Year Experience.
The Peer Leaders program is a response to research showing that students learn study skills from fellow students better than from professors, Dawkins said.
“Basically everything a student needs to know, they are much, much more likely to learn from fellow students than they are from professors,” Dawkins said. “You have this issue that when students try to learn study skills from a professor, the professor says, ‘Hey, study for an hour, study for two hours for every hour you’re in class,’ and it goes in one ear and out the other.”
According to the First Year Experience website, fye.ua.edu, Peer Leaders will help faculty or staff members in Compass Courses and Freshman Learning Communities, which are courses designed to help first-year students adjust to the University.
“We are sort of a different approach to mentoring,” Dawkins said. “It’s actually students going in to class and helping professors teach, and the mentoring isn’t one on one.”
Students interested in applying to be a peer leader can download an application form by visiting the First Year Experience website. Applicants must have at least a 3.0 GPA and have attended UA for a year. Candidates also have to sign up for one of four two-hour group interview sessions conducted on Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.
If selected, Peer Leaders must commit to attend four training sessions in the spring and a retreat on March 3. Dawkins says preference is not based on class standing or involvement in other extracurricular activities, but on a candidate’s availability and motivation.
“We are looking for motivated students, students who really want to be part of the Alabama community,” Dawkins said. “We need students who have been in the shoes of first-year students before, who are willing to look at problems from the other side and the other perspective and say, ‘What can I do to help this student be the best they can? What can I do to help them acclimate to the University of Alabama?’”
Although this is the first year of Peer Leaders, the First Year Experience has high hopes and expectations for the mentoring program. Dawkins says students are excited about having the ability to go into a classroom, teach and help students adjust to college life.
“There are a lot of intrinsic benefits to being a peer leader,” Dawkins said. “You’re being a part of the University community. You’re helping your fellow students achieve their dreams of being a successful student.”
