Often for the first time, faculty have someone they can muse with about why a certain student seems to respond adversely to certain content and why that lecture didn t quite captivate their audience in the way they had planned. Faculty report that their teaching and their own learning have improved due to their work with a mentor. The continuous feedback loop allows them to continually fine-tune their curriculum. Often input from mentors allows faculty to see their topic of their course with a fresh eye. In addition, faculty report that they enjoy getting to know their students better through their input and the mentor s encouragement of students to use their office hours.
Mentors help faculty reconnect with why they decided to teach in the first place.
As with many peer helping programs, the greatest impact of the Mentor Program may be on the mentors themselves. While mentors, as a whole, are extremely successful students before they become mentors, they seem to become even better students. In spite of increased commitments and incredible challenges, mentors GPAs, in general, improve. Mentors describe that mentoring forces them to organize themselves and their schoolwork. They have little free time and they also feel the pull to be an example for their students.