Ms. Kimberly Ramos, Director of Student Success, and Dr. Vivian Medrano, Student Success Coach, successfully presented “Making an IMPACT: A New Mentoring Program for Student Success” during the 32nd Annual Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities (HACU) National Conference Championing Hispanic Higher Education Success: Building America’s Future. The conference was held October 6-8, 2018, in Atlanta, GA. Ms. Ramos and Dr. Medrano highlighted HBU’s new mentoring initiative, Innovative Mentoring Program Achieving College Transformation (IMPACT), as a formal and informal mentoring program designed to empower first-year students to actively engage in all aspects of their academic journey.
IMPACT is meant to be a post-support program for students who went through Summer Launch. The foundation for IMPACT was informed by, in part, Dr. Medrano’s dissertation study. One of the study’s recommendations was to implement formal and informal mentoring as part of higher education programming to increase student persistence. As such, formal mentors include faculty and staff, while informal mentors are upperclassmen students.
Research shows that effective mentoring programs accelerate students’ overall success, ease the transition into university life, and foster the skill development and connections that will help them persist to graduation. In the conference, Ms. Ramos and Dr. Medrano shared the IMPACT model which was built to motivate students, help them set goals, destigmatize tutoring, and assist students in looking and applying for scholarships. The Department of Student Success and Advising provides training for mentors and mentees, hosts relevant workshops, and collaborates with campus partners to assist students with their mentoring relationships.
This is the first year IMPACT has been implemented at HBU. Faculty and staff mentors, along with upperclassmen mentors, provide students with accountability and partner with students to build their positive self‐efficacy. IMPACT seeks to increase student success at HBU as measured by the persistence to graduation rates of first‐year students.
Interested in making an IMPACT? Contact Ms. Kimberly Ramos for more information at kramos@HC.edu or Dr. Vivian Medrano at vmedrano@hc.edu.