Shuangfu English Majors Friendship Program Plan

Shuangfu English Majors Friendship Program

Background

On the new campus of my university (Shuangfu campus) there are only going to be sophomores and freshmen. They just opened last year so there were only freshmen last year. As I said before, they were pretty disappointed and downright angered by how isolated they were and the fact that the school didn't tell them this is how it would be until they got there. Since it's an hour and a half away from the city and the old campus, teachers don't spend any time there outside from teaching and no upperclassmen go there. They can't get any guidance. Essentially they just have each other. By the end of the year, the students told me they had adjusted and become very close with each other. Most of them like it there now and they've formed pretty tight communities. However, they expressed anxiety about the freshmen coming in this year because they're afraid the campus will get crowded and they won't know these people. Furthermore, when the sophomores become juniors, the school intends to move them to the old campus. You can see how this is going to suck for them. The facilities on the new campus are far better in just about every way, most notably the dorms. They'll have to adjust all over again. The seniors they will meet will be too busy looking for jobs, doing internships, and preparing for graduation to get to know them. Also, the juniors will be strangers to them because they were on the new campus the first two years, so the seniors will have no motivation to really get to know them. Anyway you look at it, this class is kind of screwed, but they're paving the way. They will have the opportunity to help the classes coming after them by sharing their experiences. The freshmen this year will probably also be upset about being thrown out to the new campus, but they won't be alone this time. I know they wouldn't have much motivation to do it on their own, so creating this mentorship program would provide some structure for the sophomores and freshmen to get to know each other.

Purpose
I hope that as a result of this program, students will have a stronger sense of community, help each other learn and learn together, share knowledge and skills, grow up and mature together, build leadership and interpersonal skills (yeah, they really lack this coming out of Chinese high school), and just have fun. A key component to the program is networking, which is crucial in Chinese professional culture. I'm hoping that the effects of this program will carry well beyond their college years and into their careers. Who you know is extremely important when finding work and making money in China. Once the mentors graduate, they will be in unique positions to help their younger counterparts find jobs when it's their turn to graduate.

At the heart of this program is the one-on-one interaction between sophomores and freshmen. I would say that the rest can be dispensed with when it comes down to it, but this provides some structure. I want there to be a stronger sense of solidarity, community and friendship among the student body because it's sorely lacking. I especially want students to have an outlet for the stress they are faced with in college. Even if they have one friend who cares about their well being and success, I think it will make a big difference.


Method
There are entirely too many students at my school for me to reach out to all of them in this program, so I've limited it to just the English Majors on the new campus. This is convenient for me because I've taught all of them for a year and I know them all fairly well. Next year, I will personally match them up with their freshmen counterparts on the basis of common interests, personality, goals and priorities, etc. There are 5 English Major classes/groups. Each has a particular focus. For example, Class 1 is "Civil Engineering English Majors," Class 2 is "Marine and Coastal Engineering English Majors." For all intents and purposes these distinctions are meaningless. They all learn the same thing, but I can use this to match up Sophomore classes to Freshmen classes. I decided to call them "sister classes," just because most of the students are girls. Each class/group will elect a representative or "ambassador" who will keep track of who is matched with who in their class and their sister class. This helps me keep track of things and helps me communicate with all the students. A representative can organize events for their whole class and collaborate with the representative from their sister class for activities together. I am the leader of the program. I recruit, make matches, and organize events for the entire program. If students have issues with their matches, they can tell me and I'll do my best to make a better match. Also, if a mentor is concerned about the well being of a freshmen or vice versa, they can tell me about it confidentially. I will keep an eye on that student in my classroom and may intervene to communicate with that person to try to help. I consider this one of the most important roles of my position. Beyond this, there is little other structure to the program. So far at least.

Events
I will try to organize some whole group events and activities, but I realize that the logistics of this will be very difficult considering there will be about 400 students in the program. I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do about that, but I would like to at least have a meet-and-greet event at the beginning of the year. This could be an opportunity to apply for a RELO grant for funding. As I said before, events can be organized by class representatives for their classes and sister class. These can be anything including lunches, dinners, sports, movie nights, game nights, hiking, outings into the city, etc.


Recruiting
On the last day of classes last semester, I gave a presentation to my students telling them about this program. I emphasized that membership in the program would be a very small, informal commitment. Instead of advertising it as a mentorship program, I advertised it as a friendship program. Each mentor really doesn't have to do much except reach out to the freshmen, make some friends, and be good role models. I even went so far as to say that the freshmen may not want to communicate with their mentors and that's okay. All they have to do is be there for them and make an attempt. When the program starts, I'll send out an email or have the representatives hand out some suggestions I have for things mentors can do with their freshmen. I appealed to their experiences adjusting to their new life on the new campus and the difficulties that they faced and that the next class of freshmen will face. I think this was particularly effective and they all really wanted to help. I really only expected about 10 students per class to be interested, but all of them signed up. I created an application asking the following information: name (English, Chinese, Pinyin), phone, email, QQ, hobbies and interests, accomplishments, career goals, habits, priorities in college and life, and room for comments. When the next semester starts, I will hand out pretty much the same application to the freshmen and I'll make matches. I thought there'd be fewer mentors than freshmen so that each mentor would have 3 or 4 freshmen, but since all my students signed up it will be 1:1.

Sustainability
I hope to phase this in so that it starts with this group, class of 2015, as the first mentors who will mentor the class of 2016. They in turn will mentor the class of 2017, and so on. Seniors will mentor juniors, juniors will mentor sophomores, sophomores will mentor freshmen. Each year they can keep or elect new representatives for each class. I would also like presidents to be elected for each grade who will take on my role. The Freshen will have a president to represent them and keep track of the members and who their mentors are. The sophomores, juniors, and seniors will have the same thing. After I leave the school, I intend for the presidents of future sophomores to be in charge of recruiting and matching or they can delegate that task to the class representatives… I still haven't figured out exactly what the presidents will do.

Hopefully this structure will keep the program going year after year. I'd love to see this replicated across the school, maybe for each major.