The University is implementing a new mentoring program this year that connects third-year students with alumni volunteers to guide students in choosing a career in their field of study. The program is targeted toward College students, though students in any school can participate.
The program, called Virginia Alumni Mentoring, began as a pilot last year, managed by the Alumni Association and the College Foundation. Only a small number of students and volunteer mentors participated in the tester program, but it was well received, said third-year Henry Reynolds, the College Foundation student representative.
“The alumni really like being actively engaged at U.Va. and hearing from the students,” Reynolds said. “From the student side, they really liked hearing a different idea of what exactly it is to be in various industries. [Alumni] can answer a lot of questions about their own experiences that you may not be able to get from a website or other means of career exploration.”
Similar projects at other schools served as a model for program, Program Coordinator Kathleen Herring said.
“The program has been heavily influenced by the Stanford Alumni Mentoring program,” Herring said. “[They] have been running their program for about 10 years and [we] got a lot of great ideas about how they got started and what methods they used.”
The Virginia Alumni Mentoring program asks students to create a profile describing their questions, and similarly asks alumni to generate an account of their career experiences. Students then attend an orientation session with University Career Services, and are able to search the alumni database to find a potential mentor.
“It’s not a system where we match students with a mentor,” Herring said. “There are a number of different criteria that are used to narrow down the search of the alumni, [and] the searches are anonymous.”
Once a student find a potential mentor, he or she submits a request to the alumnus or alumna, who can accept or deny the request after reviewing the student’s profile.
“It’s really a self-selection process as opposed to us using some algorithm to match them with somebody,” Herring said.
Several administrative offices are collaborating to make the first few years of the program possible, including the Office of the Dean of the College, College Council, and the Alumni Association among others.
“This is a really pretty rare cross-Grounds partnership,” Reynolds said.
If the program proves successful, University Career Services will adopt the program permanently.
“They have strongly indicated that they will shoulder all of the costs once it really gets going,” Reynolds said.
The program is a part of the University’s Total Advising initiative, and provides a perspective that may not be available from student or faculty mentors.
“Alumni really know the University well and are able to talk about their experiences in other CIOs while they were here and particular classes that have actually impacted their work experience later in life,” Reynolds said.
The program Reynolds said, helps to connect students to a individuals they may not otherwise have to opportunity to contact.
“We’re able to work with people all over the world,” Reynolds said. “A student who might be interested in East Asian Studies might be able to speak with an alumna or alumnus currently in the Southeast Asian region and speak directly to their experiences.”
This flexibility also allows students who are studying abroad to participate in the program.
The University has offered similar programs to students in the Engineering School or Darden in the past. This is the first program geared toward College students.
“Ours specifically is focused on creating a longer relationship, where you’re meeting with one person over the course of the school year at least once a month,” Herring said. “They can check in and say, ‘What have you accomplished since we last talked? What do you want to work on?’ and they can grow over the course of the year instead of working on one thing and then never seeing them again.”
Virginia Alumni Mentoring is still fairly small, with just more than 100 students and about 130 alumni signed up. Reynolds said the goal of the program is to reach 1,000 student and alumni matches by 2016.
“We’re trying to make sure that we have about two to three times the number of alumni as students so that way we can really provide a great match for the student in an area they’re interested in,” Reynolds said.
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