Student leaders at Stevens can get busy. Very busy.
Some work closely with administrators. Some take on leadership positions in RSOs with time commitments similar to most full-time jobs.
And some choose to come back to Stevens one week early and serve as “Peer Leaders” during orientation for first-year students.
The “Peer Leader” program, which merged the now defunct positions of orientation leader and peer mentor into one position, still confuses students.
What makes it so different? Is it better or worse than last year’s program? Are “Peer Leaders” prepared to take on the workload of both orientation leaders and peer mentors?
To learn more about this new program, I sat down with Madison Telles, a mechanical engineering student in her last year at Stevens who serves as the first “Peer Coordinator.”
Portions of this interview have either been edited or condensed for space.
The Stute: Hi, Madison! How are you?
Madison Telles: Stressed, but doing great.
First off, as you may know, some students are confused by the new “Peer Leader” program. What does it mean to be a peer leader?
A peer leader is a combination of the orientation leader and peer mentor. In the past, we found that there was an awkward cutoff for orientation leaders and an awkward beginning for peer mentors. New students were confused about “when do I go to my orientation leader,” “when do I talk with my RA,” and “what is a reason to talk with my peer mentor?”
There was a lot of overlap between all these roles.
Chris [Shemanski, Director of Student Life,] had a few preliminary meetings with Julia Aitchison[, Assistant Director of the Academic Support Center] in the Office of Undergraduate Academics, and they were just like, “Why don’t we just do both in one position?”
Peer leaders during orientation are doing the typical orientation stuff, like making sure that the first-year students are showing up to all their sessions, facilitating conversations around College 101, Title IX, bystander intervention, different stuff for undergraduate academics – so the peer leaders are filling that conventional role.
But in the fall after orientation, they’ll be doing some continuity events, doing stuff that peer mentors used to do, like teaching how to register for classes, how to appropriately write an email to a professor, how to inform the school that you’ll be sick — all these little things that both roles did are combined into one semester-and-a-half long position.
New students seem to benefit from this consolidated position. But it also seems to put more responsibility on peer leaders. Are peer leaders in charge of fewer people than the orientation leaders or peer mentors of the past?
We restructured how the groups operate. Before, as orientation leaders, there would be two orientation leaders for a group of about 35 to 40 students. Now, for peer leaders, we’ve separated the students into major-specific groups (for the most part), and if in the case that the group isn’t entirely in the same major, then the students in the group will be at least somewhat related by major or in the same school.
Now, we have a staff of 54 peer leaders, with each group of 14 to 22 students overseen by only one peer leader. The size of the group just depends on the number of incoming students per year.
Are peer leaders receiving additional training because of the heightened responsibility of the role?
We, as a staff in the Student Life office and Office of Undergraduate Academics, made training intentional to what incoming students are likely to see during orientation and at the beginning of the school year. They got a lot of training on-campus resources, whether it be everything involved in the writing center and the tutoring center, how people sign up for a tutor. We got information from CAPS and disability services, so we were very much intentional about how we trained these peer leaders.
Have Peer Leaders responded well to the new “Peer Leader” program?
Yes, they’ve loved it from what I’ve heard. Of course, there will always be growing pains; people who had only been orientation leaders in the past are adjusting to this new role. But all I’ve heard is positive feedback from the peer leaders, even after putting them through six days of nonstop training.
Who oversees the “Peer Leader” program?
The Leadership Team, which is me as peer coordinator, Chris Shemanski, Kristie Damell, Danielle Maxson (who is our new Student Life Advisor), Olivia Ballhagen (who is our NODA intern for the summer), and Julia Aitchison in the Office of Undergraduate Academics.
I focus more on the background stuff during training, which means ensuring that everything is organized for all our sessions.
A lot of my summer focused on ordering the swag for the incoming students; that was a large point of stress for me. This will be the first year that incoming students will be provided undergraduate academic planners.
I also worked on a lot of the night events during orientation, making sure that they’re all staffed and ready to go. One of the new night events that we’re doing is the ‘New York City Street Fair’ in lieu of the Luau, and we’re doing a ‘Play Fair Event Night’ instead of what was previously Casino Night.
Have you always wanted to serve as “Peer Coordinator?”
Yes, yes. I actually applied to be the “Orientation Coordinator” last year, and having been involved with orientation once, I thought, “This is great. I want to do more of this but in an elevated role, and do more of the behind-the-scenes stuff.” They ended up picking Zach George and Mary Libera, which was a phenomenal choice because they’re two lovely people.
I was a little butthurt at first, because I wanted it so bad. But coming back this year and having seen orientation now twice, and being an upperclassman and just knowing my way around with more connections, it made my role easier, especially in a transition year where nobody necessarily knew exactly what was going to happen with this new program.
Will you, as the “Peer Coordinator,” be more involved or less involved in the “Peer Leader” program after orientation?
That’s still something I’m discussing with Chris since this is a new role. We’ve never really had to have the Coordinators in the past continue into the fall semester.
I definitely want to stay involved because I have worked so hard with the leadership team and with the peer leaders. I would love to do it, but Chris is looking into whether it will be a possibility.
Be First to Comment