A Promising Prospect for Minority Retention: Students Becoming Peer Mentors.

The study examined academic and interpersonal growth of peer mentors (N = 19) by analyzing comments in journals written during the mentors' first quarter of tutoring and mentoring within a minority engineering program at a large land-grant university in the Southeast. Although the intent of the program was to improve retention rates for the participants, the mentors experienced both academic and interpersonal growth. In addition, preliminary data regarding grades and retention status also indicate that the mentors benefited academically from the mentoring experience. The findings of the study suggest that, although the upper-class peer mentors are not the target population of the minority engineering program, they were positively impacted from their roles as mentors within the minority engineering program. Mentoring-"an intensive, one-to-one form of teaching in which the wise and experienced mentor inducts the aspiring protege into a particular, usually professional, way of life" (Parkay, 1988, p. 196). Such was the definition adopted by the participants of a minority engineering program which encouraged relationships between freshman pre-engineering students and upper-class division mentors at a predominantly White land-grant university in the Southeast. The intent of this program, as is typical of many other support programs, was to improve retention rates of minority students within a given area of study and hopefully, capitalize on the benefits of the program for marketing purposes and recruiting of additional minority students into a college of engineering. The program encompassed many components, from formal tutorial instruction to informal dinners and celebrations, in which peer mentors played a vital role and, as suggested by Parkay's (1988) definition, inducted their fledgling students into the engineering "way of life. " Part of the impetus for including a mentoring component into the minority engineering program from the program's inception was the results of a qualitative study in which engineering students recommended the need for networking with upper-class mentors to ease the transition of freshman students into the university environment (MacGuire & Halpin, 1995). In this particular minority engineering program, African American students were targeted as at risk of possibly leaving the engineering program and potentially the university. Gainen (1995) reported that the greatest attrition among collegiate students occurred between the freshman and sophomore years of study with students who chose to major in science, mathematics, or engineering. In addition, "among students of color, attrition is much higher" (p. 5). Seymour and Hewitt (1997) asserted that African American students contend with four broad areas of difficulty when entering engineering, science, and mathematics fields: "differences in ethnic cultural values and socialization; internalization of stereotypes; ethnic isolation and perceptions of racism; and inadequate program support" (p. 329). These areas of difficulty, particularly internalization of stereotypes, ethnic isolation and perceptions of racism, can be exacerbated when African Americans enter predominantly White institutions as opposed to historically Black institutions. Thus, the inclusion of mentors as an integral component within this support program was hoped to ameliorate some of these difficulties. Peer mentoring and tutoring gained popularity as an intervention over two decades ago. Researchers (Cloward, 1976; Maxwell, 1994; Pickens & McNaughton, 1988; Strodtbeck, Ronchi, & Hansell, 1976) have concluded that the tutoring process has academic and psychological benefits to the tutor as well as the tutee. For instance, Cloward (1976) stated that "the tutor was the major beneficiary of the tutorial experience" (p. 227) in terms of academic gains. Although research exists regarding the effect of tutoring on the tutor, little research has explored the effect of the mentoring relationship on the mentor. …