How do I support graduate students in establishing a peer mentoring program?

Peer Mentoring programs are often started by graduate students interested in enhancing the graduate experience provided by their departments. However, faculty and administrators are usually very supportive of student efforts to start peer mentoring programs. If you are a departmental faculty member interested in supporting peer mentoring initiatives in your department, we encourage you to contact you department chair or Director of Graduate Studies.  We recommend you work with your chair or DGS and the graduate students in your department on these initiatives, and we provide some resources for getting a peer mentoring program started in our Peer Mentoring for Recruitment document.  Though this document specifically utilizes peer mentoring for recruitment of new graduate students to the program, it also provides useful templates for recruiting peer mentors from the department and communicating expectations to them, as well as templates for mentors to use in contacting their new mentees.

In addition to these recommendations and resources, SIGS' supports a Peer Mentoring Task Force, which is a group dedicated to discussing and strategizing peer mentoring programs across the departments. Any department establishing or growing their peer mentoring programming is strongly encouraged to attend, as is any student or faculty member with an interest in peer mentoring initiatives. Meeting times and dates are available on the PLAN calendar and more information is available by contacting Michelle Rodems at michelle.rodems@louisville.edu.