Alex Bolinger
Management

Alyssa Magleby
Electrical and Computer Engineering

Helen Benedyktova
Linguistics
Julie Jay
Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Justine Sheedy
Ballet
Kristjane Mordmeyer
Sociology
Lonny Danler
Film Studies

Mahmoud Hamad
Political Science

Peggy Collier
Special Education

Sarah Molokhia
Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Skip Williams
Excercise and Sports Science

Project Title:

Mentor:

The Human Exceptionality course (SP ED 3010) offered through the Special Education Department draws students from all over the campus and often is the course that encourages students to reach out to individuals with special needs.  Providing the opportunity for students to learning directly from an individual with a disability helps to breathe life into the information contained within the textbooks.  Making the connection between printed information about disabilities and relating directly to a human being impacted by a disability is a powerful method of educating students, especially in a class that has the potential of drawing students to consider going into the field of special education. 
           
Mentoring is an excellent way to provide college students with direct contact with individuals with special needs.  Although mentoring is one of the most popular forms of volunteering for college students, traditional mentoring programs require a time-intensive commitment that is difficult for college students to make given their busy schedules. E-mentoring offers a viable option.  The flexible communication environment of the computer transcends the typical format of traditional mentoring and creates the opportunity for meaningful interaction for even busy college students.
           
Research indicates that quality of a mentor/mentee relationship is stronger for those mentors who receive a comprehensive orientation and training than those who receive minimal training.  McClanahan (1998) reported a positive correlation between hours of formal training and desirable features of the mentoring relationship.  Training is especially important in a program in which the majority of contact between mentor and mentee is done online.
           
The focus of this TA Scholar project is to design orientation and training for prospective mentors.  Encouraging mentors to develop meaningful and caring relationships with an adolescent is a complex undertaking that requires adequate program planning and support.  Developing a comprehensive orientation and training program has the potential of going beyond fulfilling the specific needs of the Special Education’s mentoring program contained in the Human Exceptionality class by providing a model potentially useful for other departmental mentoring programs across campus.
           
Topics addressed in the training will include (a) purpose and goals of the program, (b) role of mentor and responsibilities, (c) setting boundaries, code of conduct, and netiquette, (d) effective communication strategies, (e) general guidelines talking about delicate issues and dealing with crisis or trauma, (f) issues of confidentiality, and (g) closure and termination procedures.
           
Mentors will be presented with a lecture series that previews the objectives and concepts behind the mentoring program and provides opportunities for small group and role-play activities.  Included in the training is an hour-long WebCT training class which will provide mentors opportunities to practice sending and responding to sample emails and to receive feedback on their email communication.  As a means of measuring training effectiveness, a post-test will be developed and given to the mentors at the conclusion of the program.

References
McClanahan, W. (1998). Relationships in a career mentoring program: Lessons learned    from the hospital youth mentoring program. Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures.