Mentor Collective

Celebrate with us this Thursday as Mentor Collective's Joe Michie welcomes Hartnell College's Director of the Office of Equity Programs and Student Affairs Dr. Gabriela Lopez!

Dr. Lopez will talk about how peer mentorship is a critical facet of the Salinas Valley Promise Program, the role her institution plays in the greater Salinas Valley community, and how students receiving the multi-dimensional support are retaining at higher rates!

Register to save your seat or receive a recording following the event! https://hubs.ly/Q02t2zMF0

Exciting News! Mentor Collective announced the appointment of Christine Burse as Chief Financial Officer. Burse comes to us following an extensive, eight-year career steering the financial future of leading Faculty Information System Interfolio by Elsevier.

As Chief Finance Officer at Mentor Collective, she will serve as a financial advisor to the executive team, guiding strategic planning and optimizing operational performance.

"Working with companies like Mentor Collective that are poised for significant growth has always been where I feel most connected and engaged to the financial community," said Burse. "I'm excited to join such an innovative organization focused on enriching the human experience and to help leadership uncover untapped opportunities."

Read the full press release here: https://hubs.ly/Q02t1DDd0

Indiana University Bloomington, believes in the power of peer mentorship to help students foster a sense of belonging in their first year on campus. Learn how they're working with Mentor Collective to take actionable steps toward welcoming the next incoming cohort and how they're using logged data from peer-to-peer interactions to direct students to critical student services at the right time and make significant improvements in retention as a result.

“Academics who study sense of belonging know that when it's present, students are engaged and motivated to continue to graduation is certainly enhanced. The absence of a sense of belonging has been shown to have a profound negative effect not just on motivation and academic achievement, but also in the way that students face their adversities on campus and how they see themselves receiving support.” - Dr. David B. Johnson, Vice Provost of Enrollment Management, IU Bloomington

Threading Belonging Into the First-Year Student Experience at Indiana University, Bloomington Learn how Indiana University, Bloomington embeds belonging into the first-year experience through peer mentorship, enhancing student success and retention rates.

The NASPA Virtual Conference is today! Don't miss our session at 1:30 p.m. EST to hear from VP of Partner Success Annemieke Rice about how our scalable peer mentorship technology has been impacting first-generation students – from boosting sense of belonging to increasing resource utilization. Our presentation highlights metrics from our partners at Georgia Tech First Gen and Duke University and features commentary from University Of Wisconsin Green Bay's Kathryn Marten.

Register here and we hope to see you there! https://hubs.ly/Q02rw99l0

NEW NEWS 📣 Andrew Rosen – Co-Founder of global learning management system Blackboard and former CEO of Interfolio from Elsevier– has joined Mentor Collective's board of directors, bringing with him three decades of expertise scaling problem-solving technologies within .

Full release here https://hubs.ly/Q02rv97s0

Online student success has emerging strategies helping keep students enrolled and on-track to graduation. Don't miss hearing about how meaningful peer connections can deliver actionable insights into the online learner experience during our UPCEA session in Boston on Wednesday! Partnerships Director Eric Scheuller will show how Mentor Collective helps reimagine one of online's most untapped and underdeveloped (but powerful 💪) strategies – intentional community building – through tech-enabled peer mentorship.

Stop by our booth and ask any questions about how our unique combination of technology and exceptional service can be tailored to the unique goals of your institution.

Don't miss our panel at American Association of Colleges and Universities DESS tomorrow at 11AM! We're uplifting legacy partner San Francisco State University and their compelling story of how the Peer2Peer initiative has evolved to serve nearly 9,000 students in five years. Through institutional analysis, Peer2Peer has shown its value. First-year retention for students participating has been consistently higher, melt has been consistently lower, and when disaggregated by demographic historically resilient populations are positioned to thrive!

The session will include an engaging conversation with Marisa Jimison, Transfer Support Coordinator at SFSU and Mentor Collective's Partnership Development Director Vaishali Gahkar. There will also be an additional guest appearance and commentary from Susanna Jones, Professor and First-Year Experience Director at SFSU.

Don't miss a chance to see how your peers in higher education are getting actionable insights from meaningful peer relationship with Mentor Collective and serving their students in more thoughtful ways! Can't wait to see you there.

Don't miss our session at the Innovations Conference this weekend in Anaheim! On Sunday, Senior Partnerships Director Joe Michie will be joined by Dr. Gabriela Lopez, Director of the Office of Equity Programs at Hartnell College to discuss the growth and positive outcomes of the Salinas Valley Promise initiative.

First-time, full-time Promise participants were found to have on average a:
📈 6.7% higher course success rate in spring 2023
📈 11.4% higher course success rate in fall 2022
📈 10.9% higher persistence from fall 22’ to spring 23’

Hartnell College is the only institution of higher learning in a 100-mile radius of its location, amplifying its connection to the surrounding community. Part of the school's commitment to encouraging positive student success outcomes is providing holistic student support that fosters belonging. We're excited to dive into this conversation about our role in the Promise initiative and show how peer connections are a driving force in supporting community college students! See you there!

Don't miss Mentor Collective's new CEO Erin Mayhood on Edtech Insiders: This Week in EdTech!

https://hubs.ly/Q02nXz8p0

"Mentorship itself is an intervention that works, but when you have the power and funding of an organizational body paired alongside of that, that's when the outcomes grow exponentially. You can see it in the movement of higher education right now. Think of the changes that we're seeing in communities of practice for advising. Imagine what happens when Mentor Collective's student voice data gets into those practices. Imagine how much more student centered we can be and how we can unblock the very real blockers that many students are facing to achieving success."

A recent study from New America found that 27% of community college students who stop-out cite loss of motivation as the primary reason. Even more revealing, 73% of those surveyed said they experienced 4+ hardships while enrolled.

With the responsibility to serve students and their communities, what sustainable measures can community colleges take to ensure that students receive timely support for their challenges and have the psychosocial support to remain engaged in their chosen pathway?

We're headed to San Francisco next week for the Chief Student Services Officers Conference (CSSO) to discuss how peer-powered mentorship initiatives are blazing a pathway for student success strategies. Don't miss our session where VP of Sales Rob Montgomery and Associate Partnerships Director Jenni William, M.Ed. will share outcomes from our partners at Saddleback College and provide best practices you can bring back to your institution.

Don't miss our session next week at NASPA with UC Berkeley's Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Stephen Sutton and Florida Atlantic University's Director of Assessment and Research Dr. Rebecca Goldstein.

🤯Billions are invested annually in student services, but many students never access them. When the value of higher education is being publicly questioned, institutions can't afford to have under-utilized services. See how these prominent institutions are leveraging the power of peer relationships with Mentor Collective to break down the barriers preventing students from accessing student support.

Participate in the discussion and stop by Booth #415 to ask us questions about how peer-powered insights can accelerate your strategies.

Download our latest case study to learn how Mentor Collective informed the strategies of predictive analytics while fostering incoming student sense of belonging at University of Wisconsin Superior.

https://hubs.ly/Q02nn2JK0

Students utilizing Mentor Collective during the 2022-23 academic year:
⚡Showed an average sense of belonging increase of 5.9 percent from start to end of the program
⚡Retained at rates 7-12 percent higher than peers who did not participate

Importantly, UW-Superior gained access to peer-powered student insights – conversation topics and challenges reported via the Mentor Collective platform by trained peer mentors – and proactively addressed gaps in student support throughout the year!