The Office of Immersion Resources has announced a new opportunity for Vanderbilt staff to serve as official experience mentors for Immersion Vanderbilt.
This new advising opportunity, approved by the Immersion Faculty Steering Committee, will build on the invaluable expertise and talents of university staff. Faculty and staff experience mentors will advise undergraduate Vanderbilt students as they pursue their goals through experiential learning. Mentors will have the opportunity to engage with their field of interest, participate in a large-scale university initiative, share expertise with students and meet other faculty and staff who are engaged in experiential learning.
Staff experience mentors are invited to oversee student learning in community and civic engagement, internships, innovation and design and study away. Faculty mentors will continue to advise undergraduate research and the final culminating pieces of Immersion Vanderbilt projects. Vanderbilt faculty, who currently mentor experiences for Immersion Vanderbilt, may continue to serve as experience mentors.
Faculty and staff may mentor students with whom they have existing working relationships or contact the OIR to be paired with a mentee.
“The first step in Immersion Vanderbilt for our students is to identify and then engage in an experience. For some students, the choice is to do research with faculty, but other students may choose to partner with a community development effort or study abroad,” says Assistant Provost for Immersion and Experiential Learning Amy Johnson. “In the latter, Vanderbilt’s world-class staff are already supporting undergraduates in this work. As students reflect on what they’ve learned, faculty mentors are there to help them plan and complete their culminating piece. Adding staff to the process helps both our students and faculty while providing a meaningful, direct engagement opportunity that some staff might not otherwise experience.”
To qualify to be an experience mentor, staff should be in good standing at the university and:
- Have a terminal degree in the field they will be mentoring, or
- Have worked for a minimum of five years in the field they will be mentoring, or
- Have a faculty appointment at Vanderbilt.
Faculty and staff will be invited to attend an upcoming workshop for those interested in learning more about Immersion Vanderbilt updates and student mentoring. Workshop details and registration will be forthcoming.