A semester after Project LEAD's launch, the Graduate Student Center's mentoring program is slowly but surely expanding.
Project LEAD -- Learn, Enable, Aspire, Develop -- began in September with the intention to create a connection between the graduate and undergraduate populations on campus, said Hilal Nakiboglu, last semester's mentoring fellow and a third-year doctoral student in the Higher Education Management program.
The intentions for both undergraduate and graduate students differ.
"The primary objective goal for an undergraduate mentee would be to gain firsthand experience from a graduate student," said new mentoring fellow Kimberly Sambol-Tosco. "For graduate students, I think the program allows them to share their experience, which is satisfying."
The pilot program has grown to include 35 mentor-mentee pairings. The pairings are hand-selected by the mentoring fellow, who reviews online applications to match up undergraduate and graduate students with similar interests.
"The emphasis from the beginning has been on quality mentoring relationships and bridging the gap across the University," Sambol-Tosco said. "The idea here is to have a comprehensive program that goes across all departments and academic programs, and to the extent of establishing high-quality relationships, the program has been enormously successful."
A major growth that the program is anticipating for next fall is the pairing with the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly to create a computer automated system that Sambol-Tosco hopes will "improve the efficiency and improve the quality of matches, and therefore we'll hopefully be able to reach a wider audience."
So far, participants in the mentoring program have enjoyed their experience.
"It's a good motivation to have someone who loves what they're doing guiding you along their path, helping you with your interests and keeping you interested in that particular field," College sophomore and Project LEAD mentee Sherri Cohen said.
Cohen was paired with mentor Katherine Andreola, a student in the Graduate School of Education, in December and has spoken with her mentor via e-mail.
"She's basically just answered my questions so far," Cohen said. "It's good, she's been very enthusiastic and helpful."
College sophomore Desiree Tunstall and first-year Engineering graduate student Delali Attiogbe have also benefited from the program
The pairing was made in December by Nakiboglu, and the two recently met for lunch for the first time.
"We talked for about an hour or so just about ourselves, our interests, both academic and personal," Tunstall said of their meeting.
"I hope to gain experience from an older individual, someone who has been through a lot of the same trials and tribulations of undergrad life and someone who can possibly offer advice," Tunstall said.
Attiogbe also spoke highly of their experience.
"It's a great program. It's giving us the opportunity to foster relationships with undergrads. It's not just mentoring them, but them giving us insight into another perspective of the University as well as the undergraduate experience."
One of Project LEAD's major goals is to create more awareness of the program's existence to undergraduates.
"The primary thing we see as being necessary is reaching out to the undergraduate community and expanding their knowledge of the program because it is such a great opportunity," Sambol-Tosco said.
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