APLU Joins with Six Public Universities to Advance Peer Mentorship & Student Success

Washington, DC – In an effort to improve peer mentoring to drive student success, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities today announced a new grant that will support six public universities in piloting, refining, and establishing peer mentorship models that address barriers to student success.

APLU is collaborating with Northern Illinois University, Stony Brook University, Temple University, The University Texas at San Antonio, Penn State University Altoona, and Prairie View A&M University to advance technology-enabled peer mentorship models and collectively identify effective mentoring practices to share with the full APLU membership.

“We’re thrilled to partner with six public universities to pilot new peer mentoring efforts, track impact, and refine programs,” said Karen Vignare, Vice President, Digital Transformation for Student Success. “Peer mentoring is a proven way to help students navigate the complexities and challenges of transitioning to, and progressing through, college. We’re excited to help institutions not only refine this work on their campuses and ultimately add to the evidence base for these efforts across the country.”

The three-year effort will help the institutions collaborate and share best practices as they implement their respective mentoring programs. Over the next six months, the institutions will focus on project design, team formation, and setup before they launch their mentorship programs, track impact, and use data to inform program refinement.

APLU will provide deep technical assistance to the institutions alongside Mentor Collective, a provider of a technology-enabled platform that gives institutions meaningful data to help them identify and address systemic barriers to student success. APLU has received support from ECMC Foundation to launch the Mentorship for Academic & Personalized Student Success (MAPSS) Initiative.

The Mentorship for Academic & Personalized Student Success (MAPSS) Initiative supports institutions as they participate in an APLU-led community of practice; build institutional capacity for sustainable mentorship programs; access Mentor Collective’s cutting-edge technology and support; integrate data-informed decision-making into overall student success strategies; and collaborate and share best practices with fellow APLU member campuses.