![HOW CAN PEER MENTORING HELP THE NONCOMPLETION CRISIS? 25
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.
(Plato, 2000)
The U.S. higher education system is facing a crisis. Too many students
are dropping out of college before completing their degrees (Symonds,
Schwartz, & Ferguson, 2011, p. 2; Waldron, 2012).
What Is the Issue of Degree Noncompletion?
Even though the U.S. higher education system is ranked as the best in the
world (see www.universitas21.com), America ranks only 16th out of 26
developed countries in regard to the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with
college degrees (“Bachelor’s Degree Attainment,” 2012). According to the
National Center for Educational Statistics, about 58% of full-time, first-time
students who begin at a four-year college complete a bachelor’s degree in six
years, and about 26% of full-time, first-time students who begin at a two-
year college complete either a bachelor’s or associate’s degree in a three-year
period (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012b; Symonds
et al., 2011, pp. 4, 11).1
There is also a relationship between type of institu-
tion and students’ graduation rates. Among bachelor’s degree seekers, stu-
dents at private nonprofits demonstrated the highest graduation rate (65%),
followed by students at public institutions (56%) and those at private for-
profit schools (28%; NCES, 2012a).
What Are the Costs of College Students Not Completing Their
Degrees?
When students leave college without completing their degrees, the nega-
tive effects ripple outward and affect students, their former colleges, and the
communities. Figure 2.1 shows the widening circle of costs associated with
degree noncompletion.
National- and State-Level Costs of College Students Not Completing
Their Degrees
Students who do not complete their degrees dramatically affect government tax-based
revenues over their time in the workforce. Adults 25 to 34 years old with col-
lege degrees, working year-round, earn about two thirds more than high-school
graduates and about 40% more than someone who attended college but did not
complete a degree. This means that a college graduate’s lifetime earnings can be
as much as half a million dollars more than those of a high school graduate
9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 25
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Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring Programs A Practitioners Guide To Program Design Delivery Evaluation And Training Peter J Collier
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- 6. D E V E L O P I N G E F F E C T I V E S T U D E N T P E E R M E N T O R I N G P R O G R A M S 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb i 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb i 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM
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- 8. DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE STUDENT PEER MENTORING PROGRAMS A Practitioner’s Guide to Program Design, Delivery, Evaluation, and Training Peter J. Collier Foreword by Nora Domínguez STERLING, VIRGINIA 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb iii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb iii 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM
- 9. COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY STYLUS PUBLISHING, LLC Published by Stylus Publishing, LLC 22883 Quicksilver Drive Sterling, Virginia 20166-2102 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, recording, and information storage and retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Collier, Peter J. (Peter John), 1947- Developing effective student peer mentoring programs: a practitioner’s guide to program design, delivery, evaluation and training / Peter J. Collier. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-62036-075-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-62036-076-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-62036-077-4 (library networkable e-edition) ISBN 978-1-62036-078-1 (consumer e-edition) 1. Mentoring in education–United States. 2. College students– Services for–United States. I. Title. LB1731.4.C65 2015 371.102--dc23 2014044190 13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-075-0 (cloth) 13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-076-7 (paperback) 13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-077-4 (library networkable e-edition) 13-digit ISBN: 978-1-62036-078-1 (consumer e-edition) Printed in the United States of America All first editions printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard. Bulk Purchases Quantity discounts are available for use in workshops and for staff development. Call 1-800-232-0223 First Edition, 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb iv 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb iv 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM
- 10. To all program directors and mentors who are the frontline troops in promoting college student success; to my mentors: David Morgan, Amy Driscoll, Michael Toth, and Grant Farr; and most of all to my wife, Christina, without whose support I never would have realized my own educational dreams. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb v 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb v 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:36 PM
- 11. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb vi 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb vi 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 12. vii CONTENTS FOREWORD xvii Nora Domínguez ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxi INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE: WHAT IS PEER MENTORING, AND WHY DOES IT WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENT SUCCESS? 1. WHAT IS PEER MENTORING, AND HOW IS IT USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 7 What Is Mentoring? What Is Peer Mentoring? 8 Differences Between Informal and Formal College Student Mentoring Relationships 9 Differences Between Hierarchical and Peer Mentoring for College Students 9 What Do We Know About the Impacts of Peer Mentoring on College Students? 9 Peer Mentoring and the Career Function in Higher Education: Academic Success and Staying in School 10 Peer Mentoring and the Psychosocial Support Function in Higher Education 11 What Are the Advantages of Peer Mentoring? 13 Cost 14 Availability of Potential Mentors 14 Why Might Peer Mentoring Be Particularly Effective for Promoting Undergraduate Student Success? 15 Credibility and Hierarchical Mentoring 16 Credibility and Peer Mentoring 16 Credibility, Role Understanding, and Mentoring Undergraduate Students 17 Hierarchical Mentoring of Undergraduate Students 17 Peer Mentoring Undergraduate Students 18 How Can Peer Mentoring Programs Be Categorized? 19 Notes 23 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb vii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb vii 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 13. viii CONTENTS 2. HOW CAN PEER MENTORING HELP ADDRESS THE CRISIS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS NOT COMPLETING THEIR DEGREES? 24 What Is the Issue of Degree Noncompletion? 25 What Are the Costs of College Students Not Completing Their Degrees? 25 National- and State-Level Costs of College Students Not Completing Their Degrees 25 College-Level Costs of College Students Not Completing Their Degrees 27 Student-Level Costs of College Students Not Completing Their Degrees 28 What Are Some Relevant Models of College Student Persistence? 29 Models of Traditional College Student Persistence 29 Models of Nontraditional College Student Persistence 30 How and Where Peer Mentoring Might Affect College Student Persistence Models 35 Peer Mentoring and Astin’s Student Involvement Model: Increasing Mentees’ Engagement and Involvement in Their Own Learning 35 Peer Mentoring and Tinto’s Student Integration Model: Validating Mentees and Increasing Their Feelings of Belonging 36 Peer Mentoring and Guiffrida’s Student Connection Model: Helping Mentees Retain Home Cultural Values and Connections While Still Succeeding in College 37 Peer Mentoring and Collier and Morgan’s Two-Path Model: Importing Cultural Capital and Strategies for Student Success 37 What Are Some Important Higher Education Transitions That Affect College Student Persistence? 38 From High School to College 38 From a Two-Year Community College to a Four-Year College 39 Returning Students’ Transition From the Community to Higher Education 39 From Undergraduate to Graduate School 40 From One Educational System to Another 40 How Can Educational Transitions Be Integrated Into the Peer Mentoring Rubric? 41 Notes 42 3. WHAT ARE THE IMPORTANT ADJUSTMENT ISSUES COLLEGE STUDENTS MUST ADDRESS TO PERSIST AT COLLEGE AND COMPLETE THEIR DEGREES? 43 How Can We Understand College Student Development Issues? 44 Student Development Theory 44 Self-Authorship Theory 45 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb viii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb viii 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 14. CONTENTS ix What Are Some Important Issues Faced by All College Students? 48 Sense of Belonging 48 Preparation 48 Negotiating Bureaucracy 49 Time Management 49 Finding Campus Resources 49 Financial Issues and Managing Money 50 Personal Well-Being and Physical and Mental Health 50 Understanding the Culture of Higher Education 50 What Are Important Student Adjustment Issues Associated With Specific Higher Education Transitions? 51 From High School to College 51 From a Two-Year Community College to a Four-Year College 52 From Undergraduate to Graduate School 53 Returning Students’ Transition From the Community to Higher Education 54 From One Educational System to Another 55 What Are Some Important College Adjustment Issues for International Students, First-Generation Students, and Student Veterans? 55 International Students 55 First-Generation Students 58 Student Veterans 60 How Can You Identify the Adjustment Issues the Students in Your Program Face? 62 What Are the College Adjustment Issues These Students Are Facing? 62 Identifying Student Adjustment Issues 63 Tools for Identifying Student Issues 63 Note 67 4. HOW CAN PEER MENTORING HELP COLLEGE STUDENTS ADDRESS SPECIFIC ADJUSTMENT ISSUES AND HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT ON PERSISTENCE AND DEGREE COMPLETION? 68 What Can Peer Mentoring Accomplish? 69 Providing Emotional Support and Validating Mentees as Legitimate College Students 70 Helping Mentees Navigate Your College 70 Using Campus Resources to Address Adjustment Issues 71 Improving Mentee Decision Making 72 How Can You Match What Peer Mentoring Can Provide With Specific Student Issues? 78 What Can Peer Mentoring Realistically Contribute to Promoting International Students’ Success? 78 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb ix 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb ix 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 15. x CONTENTS What Can Peer Mentoring Realistically Contribute to Promoting First-Generation Students’ Success? 82 What Can Peer Mentoring Realistically Contribute to Promoting Student Veterans’ Success? 85 What Are Appropriate Uses of Peer Mentoring for Your Program? 87 Note 88 PART TWO: WHAT ARE THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF DEVELOPING A COLLEGE STUDENT PEER MENTORING PROGRAM? VIGNETTE 1: HIGH SCHOOL TO COLLEGE TRANSITION-FOCUSED PROGRAM 91 Retention Through an Academic Mentoring Program Vynessa Ortiz and Mary Virnoche, Humboldt State University 5. WHAT DESIGN ISSUES MUST YOU CONSIDER IN SETTING UP A PEER MENTORING PROGRAM? 99 Developing a Time Line 101 Developing a Budget and Securing Funding 102 Types of Programs 103 Getting Support From Administration 105 Establishing Program Location 106 Physical Space 106 Virtual Space 107 Hiring Program Staff 108 Coordinator 108 Program Size and Staffing: The Need for a Mentor Supervisor 108 Recruiting and Hiring Mentors 109 Program Size and Mentor Issues 109 Developing a Mentor Job Description 110 Recruiting Mentors 114 Program Size and Mentor Recruitment 115 Selecting Mentors 117 Mentor Compensation Issues 118 Developing Policies and Procedures 119 Policies Relating to the Larger Mentoring Program 120 Policies Relating to the Mentor-Mentee Pair 120 Policies Relating to Evaluation 121 Policies Relating to Internal Program Functioning 121 Setting Up a Program Database and Developing Forms 121 What Should Be Included in Your Database? 122 Development of Key Program Forms 122 Identifying and Recruiting Potential Mentees 123 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb x 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb x 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 16. CONTENTS xi Methods of Making Contact 123 Informational Meetings With Potential Mentees 125 Program Year Activities 127 Initial Mentor-Mentee Contact 127 Ongoing Program Supervision and Support 128 Celebrating Your Successful Program and Acknowledging Your Mentors 128 Size and Design Issues 130 Inclusiveness: Universal Versus Tailored 130 Duration: Short Term Versus Long Term 131 Approach to Addressing Students’ Needs: Targeted Versus Developmental 132 Nature of College Transition 133 Note 134 Chapter 5 Resources 135 VIGNETTE 2: FIRST-GENERATION STUDENT-FOCUSED PROGRAM 143 Students First Mentoring Program Peter J. Collier, Portland State University 6. HOW WILL YOU DELIVER MENTORING SUPPORT AND SERVICES? 152 Background: Different Modes of Delivering Peer Mentoring 153 Paired Face-to-Face Mentoring 153 Group Face-to-Face Mentoring 153 Paired E-Mentoring 153 Group E-Mentoring 154 Peer Mentoring Benefits Shared by E-Mentoring and Face-to-Face Programs 154 Strengths of Paired Face-to-Face Mentoring 156 Communication Advantages 156 Persuasiveness Advantage 157 Commitment Advantages 157 Limitations of Paired Face-to-Face-Based Mentoring 157 Physical Space Issues 157 Scheduling Issues 158 Obtaining Candid Evaluation Responses Issue 158 Mentee Support Materials Delivery Issues 158 Limitations of Paired Mentoring in General 159 Strengths of Group Face-to-Face Mentoring 159 Scalability 159 Cohort Effect 159 Learning Potential 159 Limitations of Group Face-to-Face Mentoring 160 Strengths of E-Mentoring 160 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xi 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xi 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 17. xii CONTENTS Able to Serve Mentees Located Beyond Immediate Campus 160 Virtual Networks Already in Place 160 Scalability 161 Time and Flexibility Benefits 161 Timeliness in Addressing Student Adjustment Issues 162 Facilitates Early Contact With Mentees 163 Communication-Related Advantages 163 Avoids Negatively Labeling Students 164 Program Administration Benefits 164 Limitations of E-Mentoring 165 Cost 165 Prerequisite Conditions and Skills 165 Increased Likelihood of Miscommunication 166 Unrealistic Expectations 167 Lower Commitment Levels 167 Addressing Potential E-Mentoring Limitations 168 Strengths of Group E-Mentoring 169 Mentees Learn From Each Other 169 Mentor Support From Peers 170 Less Resource Intensive 170 Limitations of Group E-Mentoring 170 Technology Skills Are Not Evenly Distributed Among Mentees 170 Hybrid Programs 171 Bringing the Strengths of E-Mentoring to a Face-to-Face Delivery-Based Program 172 Distributing Support Materials Electronically 172 Increasing Flexibility in Mentor-Mentee Interactions 173 Bringing the Strengths of Face-to-Face Delivery to an E-Mentoring Program 174 Improving Level of Mentor-Mentee Commitment 174 Using Technology to Replicate Advantages of Face-to-Face Interaction 177 Improving Evaluation by Taking the Best of Both Approaches 177 Delivery Issues Related to Program Size 178 Chapter 6 Resources 181 VIGNETTE 3: TRANSFER STUDENT-FOCUSED PROGRAM 190 Transfer Connections Program Phil Larsen, Lydia Middleton, and Adam Baker, University of Michigan 7. WHAT CONTENT MATERIALS WILL YOU SHARE WITH MENTEES? 197 Content Areas That Are Consistent Across Programs 199 Fundamental College Student Adjustment Issues 199 Negotiating the Campus Bureaucracy 199 Identifying and Appropriately Using Relevant Campus Resources 200 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xii 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 18. CONTENTS xiii Communicating Effectively 202 Cross-Cultural Sensitivity or Diversity Issues 204 The Value of Service 205 Content of Programs That Serve the Same Targeted Groups 207 Identifying Group-Relevant Campus Resources 207 Appropriately Using Group-Relevant Campus Resources 207 Program-Specific Content 208 Using Program Resources 208 Understanding Program Expectations 208 Participating in Evaluation 209 Content Packaging Strategies 210 Organizing Information About Campus Resources 210 Organizing Information About Adjustment Issues 211 Sequencing When Content Is Introduced 214 Chapter 7 Resources 216 VIGNETTE 4: STUDENT VETERAN–FOCUSED PROGRAM 218 VETS to VETS Program Elizabeth Erickson, Sacramento State University 8. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO TRAIN YOUR PEER MENTORS? 224 Getting Started 225 The Purpose of Mentor Training 226 Characteristics of a Good Mentor Training Program 227 The Information-Connection-Application Model of Mentor Training 227 Duration 228 Size-Associated Training Issues 229 Universal Areas of Training Content 230 What Is Mentoring? 230 Enacting the Mentor Role 231 Communication 237 Mentee Needs 239 Cross-Cultural Appreciation or Diversity 250 Value of Service 250 Enacting the Mentor Role Revisited: Interpersonal Skills 252 Subgroup-Specific Areas of Training Content 253 Adjustment Issues Particular to Specific Subgroups of Students 254 Understanding Your University’s Group-Relevant Policies 255 Locating Group-Relevant Campus Resources 255 Program-Specific Areas of Training Content 256 Mentor and Mentee Expectations 257 Program Policies and Procedures 257 How to Do the Job 259 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xiii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xiii 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 19. xiv CONTENTS Sequencing and Integrating Different Elements of Mentor Training 261 How Will Materials Be Presented? 261 Who Should Present Specific Training Elements? 261 How Will Training Materials Be Sequenced? 262 Notes 264 Chapter 8 Resources 265 VIGNETTE 5: UNDERGRADUATE TO GRADUATE SCHOOL TRANSITION-FOCUSED PROGRAM 275 The Project for New Mexico Graduates of Color and Integrity in Graduate Training William L. Gannon, Stephanie Sanchez, and Felipe Amaral, University of New Mexico 9. HOW WILL YOU EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF YOUR PEER MENTORING PROGRAM? 281 Summative Versus Formative Evaluation 282 Establishing Program Success 283 Three-Step Evaluation 283 You Need an Evaluation Plan 285 Setting the Stage 288 Evaluation Design 289 Institutional Data 292 What Types of Data Should You Use? 293 Data Collection 293 Instruments for Measuring Common Program Goals 293 Analysis and Presentation of Results 300 Examples of Linking Specific Program Goals, Indicators, and Appropriate Data Collection 301 Evaluating Mentor Training 303 Curriculum 303 Mentors’ Experiences 304 Integrating Evaluation Into Mentor Training Activities 306 Evaluation Plan Revisited 309 Notes 310 Chapter 9 Resources 311 VIGNETTE 6: INTERNATIONAL STUDENT–FOCUSED PROGRAM 312 The International Student Mentoring Program Paul Braun and Jill Townley, Portland State University 10. HOW WILL YOU CARE FOR AND MAINTAIN YOUR PEER MENTORING PROGRAM? 320 Review and Revision 321 Getting the Word Out 322 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xiv 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xiv 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 20. CONTENTS xv Ongoing Support and Institutionalizing Your Program 324 Putting All the Pieces Together 325 A Closing Thought 327 References 328 Index 349 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xv 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xv 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 21. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xvi 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xvi 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 22. xvii FOREWORD T he United States suffers from less-than-satisfactory graduation and retention rates nationally, averaging 59% (National Center for Edu- cational Statistics, 2014). Students frequently report feeling a lack of connectivity and social support from their educational institution. This lack of integration into college life often hinders students’ achievement and increases the likelihood of failure in completing their intended degree. This trend is indicative of institutional failure to properly implement programs and provide support systems that students need to develop a sense of pur- pose in higher education. To combat this issue, peer mentoring can be an excellent way to strive toward students’ college success, and Peter J. Collier’s book Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring Programs provides a strong argument for continued application of peer mentoring programs for under- graduate student success. During a time when the economic and social landscape is fraught with conflict and social tension, mentoring is recognized as a useful tool to engage students and increase the likelihood of student success and degree comple- tion (Beatrice & Shivley, 2007; Black & Voelker, 2008; Colvin & Ashman, 2010). Although valuable for all, peer mentoring is particularly vital for nontraditional students; throughout the book, Collier and his vignette con- tributors place additional focus on effectively reaching underserved minority students, first-generation college students, veteran students, transfer stru- dents, and international students. Peer mentoring is a cost-efficient option for universities to provide support for students, and can be adapted and used in many different contexts. As institutions of higher education suffer through persistent budget cuts and lack of resources, operating on sometimes nonex- istent budgets, both educators and administrators need to implement pro- grams that are effective and cogent. Peer mentoring is not only beneficial for retention and graduation rates but also rewarding for the peer mentors and their mentees. In comparison to hierarchical mentoring programs, the implementation of a peer-mentoring program is economical (Minor, 2007; Cerna, Platania, & Fong, 2012) and compensation for mentor services can be offered in a variety of ways that benefit tight university budgets and reward students for their contributions. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xvii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xvii 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 23. xviii FOREWORD Scholars have been immersed in the study of developmental relation- ships since the 1970s, and empirical research in the field supports its contin- ued attention across all fields, particularly in higher education. Scholars such as David Clutterbuck, Kathy Kram, Lois Zachary, Robert Garvey, and many others have paved the road for the use of mentoring as an integral component of professional and educational pursuits. This book makes ample mention of Kathy Kram’s (1983) foundational research and builds on and draws upon the idea that mentoring serves two primary functions: career development and psychosocial support (Kram, 1983). The concept of mentoring represents a multitude of meanings depending on the context. In this book, Collier reframes and expands on this ideology to fit a contemporary framework of peer mentoring for undergraduates in higher education. With the multitude of social and financial pressures placed on students entering higher education, students require encouragement and incentive to embark on their educational journey. A deep understanding of the bureau- cratic, political, social, and personal pressures that surround the crisis of low graduation and retention rates must be antecedent to the design and implementation of a peer-mentoring program. This volume does a great job of acknowledging this importance, dedicating the first half of the book to exploring these frames. The question, “Why should we use peer mentors?” garners a great deal of attention in this book. Without a solid understand- ing of the students’ needs and the constantly shifting educational landscape existing and new programs may not be successful. Institutions of higher edu- cation are in need an all inclusive evaluation of the benefits and best practices guiding the design, development, and implementation of a peer-mentoring program. Collier provides just that, and more. While peer-mentoring programs have gained popularity in higher edu- cation, uneven application of best practices and unclear program goals allow for a significant variation in the effectiveness of these programs. The quality and effectiveness of a peer-mentoring program is largely contingent on the commitment of the program coordinators and the extent to which the pro- gram is specifically designed to meet the unique contextual characteristics of the population to be served. This book provides a comprehensive look into the multiple facets, conceptual frameworks, and paradigms surrounding peer mentoring in higher education. This book covers the who, what, why, when, and how of peer mentoring in a way that is seamless, coherent, and straight- forward, so that both the novice and seasoned mentoring professional can draw valuable information from its content. This book offers not only a wealth of knowledge pertaining to suc- cessful peer mentoring in higher education but also the nuts and bolts that are required to establish a mentoring program. It delivers strategies for 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xviii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xviii 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 24. FOREWORD xix implementation, suggestions on how to navigate budgets and bureaucracy, and approaches on how to train and educate peer mentors. It also addresses how to evaluate and maintain existing programs. There are so many men- toring programs currently in place at colleges all over the nation, and it can be difficult to ascertain which of these programs are effective, and which models should be duplicated and in what contexts. The nature of scholarly debate over what mentoring is and is not has engendered a contemporary perspective, which emphasizes that there is no one-size-fits-all program in mentoring. Collier’s book makes use of palpable vignettes of different types of mentoring programs to reemphasize situations where peer mentoring has worked, and prepares its mentoring coordinators and leaders to overcome potential barriers to success. The use of these case studies also illustrates the diverse populations served by peer-mentoring programs and shows that an individual program design is reliant on many factors, such as funding and university size. This book is organized in a manner that is straightforward and easy to digest. The first four chapters of the book are dedicated to a critical evalua- tion and discussion of the overall landscape of peer mentoring in higher edu- cation. In Chapter 1, Collier explores the definitions of peer mentoring and its functions and how peer-mentoring programs are categorized and differenti- ated. Subsequently, Chapter 2 discusses how peer mentoring can address the degree completion crisis among college students as well as relevant models for both traditional and non-traditional students. Collier integrates his own model, the two-path model of student performance, which offers a promis- ing archetype for use on nontraditional student populations and stresses the cultural capital component in peer mentoring. In Chapter 3, Collier identi- fies the adjustment issues and barriers that may arise during students’ under- graduate degree. Chapter 4 follows with a more detailed discussion on how peer mentoring can provide relief from these adjustment issues and how stu- dents can persevere with confidence and a stronger sense of purpose. Chapters 5 through 9 are dedicated to the actual implementation and maintenance of the program, and cover important components such as pro- gram design and peer mentor recruitment strategies (Chapter 5); different possible modes of delivery and a discussion of each method’s strengths and limitations (Chapter 6); necessary content and materials (Chapter 7); how to properly train peer mentors (Chapter 8); and how to properly evaluate your program and its components (Chapter 9). Collier concludes this book with an overall assessment of peer mentoring in higher education. He brings a unique and valuable perspective to the table, and emphasizes the importance of tailoring each program to its audience while committing to highest stand- ards and the best of practices. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xix 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xix 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 25. xx FOREWORD As the president of the International Mentoring Association and direc- tor of the Mentoring Institute at the University of New Mexico, I have immersed myself in the study of developmental relationships and have seen their positive effects through my work. I consider this mentoring handbook a vital tool for any institution that is looking to establish a peer-mentoring program, and I recommend its use to those who have already implemented programs in their search to improve on their model and thus the program’s overall effectiveness. I believe that by explicitly defining and demonstrating all of the multifaceted aspects involved in creating a mentoring program, and by addressing the best strategies to approach this subject, Developing Effec- tive Student Peer Mentoring Programs is a must-read for anyone interested in implementing a peer mentoring program on their college campus. Nora Domínguez President, International Mentoring Association; Director, Mentoring Institute, University of New Mexico 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xx 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xx 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 26. xxi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to first acknowledge the contributions of the authors of the mentoring vignettes in this volume: Vynessa Ortiz and Mary Virnoche (Humboldt State University); Phil Larsen, Lydia Middleton, and Adam Baker (University of Michigan); Elizabeth Erickson (Sacramento State University); William L. Gannon, Stephanie Sanchez, and Felipe Amaral (University of New Mexico); and Paul Braun and Jill Townley (Portland State University). I am also grateful to all the program directors, staff, and faculty members who shared information on their mentoring programs: Pat Esplin (Brigham Young University), Pam Person and Greg Metz (University of Cincinnati), Adrienne Mojzik, Ryan Padgett, and Jennifer Keup (University of South Carolina), Nora Domínguez (University of New Mexico), Kate Tisch and Beth Monhollen (Alverno College), Gretchen Palmer (Utah Valley Univer- sity), Ronnie White (Mississippi State University), Lisa Ruebeck (Lehigh University), Michael Samano (Lane Community College), John Stewart (Lewis and Clark College), Kali Lettemaier-Laack (University of Michigan), Allison McWilliams (Wake Forest University), Brigette Coble (Metropolitan State University of Denver), Phylis Martinelli and Dana Herrera (St. Mary’s College), Lacey Hunter (Southern Oregon University), Miguel Santiago (Oregon State University), and Signe Bishop (Oregon Campus Compact). The Students First Mentoring Program, described in Vignette 2, was my first large-scale, hands-on experience designing and delivering mentor- ing support for first-generation students. I would like to thank my Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education program officers David Johnson and Krish Mathur; the Students First Mentoring Program staff: Bar- bara Holland, Collin Fellows, Cathy Gordon; the mentors: Regina Arellano, April Armstrong, Kristen Collins, Nicki Harwood, Robin Johnson, Heather Lindsay-Carpenter, Samantha Lopez, Julie Parker, Hannah Schmalz, Chris Solario, Joel Strong; and all the students who enthusiastically contributed to the success of the program. My mentoring research and program development efforts have been strongly supported by Portland State University. I have been particularly for- tunate to have been able to work closely with Tom Keller, Kay Logan, and my colleagues at the Center for Interdisciplinary Mentoring Research; and 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xxi 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xxi 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 27. xxii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the administrators, faculty members, and mentors of Portland State’s Uni- versity Studies program, specifically Sukhwant Jhai, Yves Labissiere, Dana Lundell, Carol Gabrelli, Annie Kneppler, Mirela Blekic, Rowanna Car- penter, and Jacob Sherman. I also want to acknowledge my colleagues at Portland State University who contributed many of the exercises included in this book and willingly shared their mentoring expertise: Mary Ann Bar- ham, Jolina Kwong Caputo, Carlos Crespo, Melanie Dixon, Toeutu Faal- eava, Dan Fortmiller, John Freeouf, William Garrick, Sara Lynn Haley, Lisa Hatfield, Joan Jagodnik, Tonya Jones, Kevin Keckses, Kathi Ketcheson, Paul Latiolais, James Looney, Ahn Ly, Linda Mantell, Lisa McMahon, Dalton Miller-Jones, Lianne Kehaulani O’Banion, Jose Padin, Steve Reder, Candyce Renolds, Aimme Shattuck, Amy Spring, Rita Stacy, Olivia Thomas, Lorna Tran, Janelle Voegele, and my students Christa Zinke, Cristina Restad, and James Foutch. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the support I received from Portland State’s JumpStart Program faculty and coparticipants in writ- ing this manuscript. I especially want to thank Dannelle Stevens for all her encouragement and help in transforming my ideas into this book. Peter J. Collier Portland, Oregon January 2015 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xxii 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb xxii 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 28. 1 INTRODUCTION P eer mentoring programs are a lot like espresso bars. Several of them can be found around every college campus, they seem to spring up over- night, and once college students start making use of their products, students wonder how they would ever get through school without them. Still, there is a paradox associated with college student peer mentoring programs that must be addressed. On the one hand, colleges and universities have increasingly turned to peer mentoring programs as part of their efforts to facilitate student success and retention. On the other hand, in many instances programs may lack clear, explicit explanations of how peer men- toring is supposed to bring about the range of positive effects its champions claim it can deliver. At a time of reduced resources and increasing demands for accountability, it has become all the more important for programs to adhere to the highest standards of rigor in terms of defining outcomes and evaluating program effectiveness. One of the main points of this book is that program evaluation cannot be separated from design, delivery, content selection, and mentor training choices and issues. This book also emphasizes the importance of considering the comparative strengths and weaknesses of different modalities in relation to program goals, and makes the case that recycling old formats may not deliver the desired results. This book emphasizes the importance of intentionality and quality in student mentor training. Tools are provided to help you design your pro- gram so there are explicit connections between delivered mentee services and training content. Furthermore, it includes extensive discussion of the value of rigorous evaluation of mentor training as a way to establish that positive program effects are because of peer mentoring and not prior conditions or extraneous situational elements. Program coordinators face some important but underdiscussed meas- urement issues when trying to establish their programs’ effectiveness. First, many times, evaluation is limited to outcomes desired by funders or admin- istrators (e.g., retention) in situations where it is difficult to isolate the effects of a mentoring program on those outcomes. Second, many programs do not collect data that could be used to establish their effectiveness because of a lack of understanding about which student adjustment issues can be realistically 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 1 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 1 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 29. 2 INTRODUCTION addressed by peer mentoring. It is hard to be clear on what evaluation ques- tions should be asked, the types of information that are necessary to address those questions, and how and when to collect that data without specifying how mentoring is supposed to affect the issue program administrators are trying to address. This guide provides the tools, based on theories of stu- dent development, college success, and persistence, to help readers design programs with greater intentionality that will demonstrate their programs’ effectiveness to all stakeholders. This book takes a unique approach to supporting peer mentoring. It is designed to be a resource for a wide range of college student peer mentoring programs. In addition to exploring issues associated with designing univer- sal access programs, this book explicitly focuses on helping develop targeted programs for three large groups of underserved students: first-generation, international, and veterans of the armed forces. It is intended to primarily serve as a resource for student affairs professionals and program coordinators who are developing a new college student peer mentoring program or are trying to refine an existing one. However, it could also serve as an invalu- able supplementary text in courses designed to train future peer mentors and leaders. This guidebook is divided into two sections. Part One (Chapters 1 through 4), “What Is Peer Mentoring, and Why Does It Work to Promote Student Success?” provides the conceptual foundation for your mentoring program. Chapter 1 starts by providing some background on peer mentoring and then introduces a rubric for categorizing college student peer mentoring programs. Chapter 2 explores the issue of why college degree noncompletion is so important, reviews models of traditional and nontraditional student persistence, and explains how peer mentoring could have an impact on each of those models. Chapter 3 reviews a range of college student adjustment issues, including those specifically experienced by first-generation, interna- tional, and veteran students, and provides several tools for identifying the issues of the students your program serves. Chapter 4 connects what peer mentoring can accomplish to student adjustment issues and provides a tool you can use to determine which of your students’ issues peer mentoring can realistically address. Part Two (Chapters 5 through 10), “What are Nuts and Bolts of Devel- oping a College Student Peer Mentoring Program,” shifts the focus to more practical issues. Chapter 5 walks you through materials on program design, such as developing a time line, budgeting, hiring program staff, recruiting mentors and mentees, and developing job descriptions and pro- gram policies and forms. Chapter 6 discusses the strengths and limitations of different modes of delivery, including face-to-face, e-mentoring, and hybrid 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 2 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 2 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 30. INTRODUCTION 3 approaches. Chapter 7 focuses on program content, distinguishing among universal, group-specific, and program-specific content areas. This chapter also explains the value of organizing and sequencing content materials to facilitate mentees’ information recall and higher–quality decision making. Chapter 8 starts by summarizing some important issues to consider when setting up mentor training, then introduces more than 20 mentor train- ing exercises you can use in your program. Chapter 9 explains why rigor- ous evaluation is important to demonstrating your program’s success. This chapter introduces several different evaluation designs, identifies different types of evaluation data and data collection tools, and shares examples of how to appropriately measure specific program goals. In addition, the sets of resources at the end of Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 include examples of key program documents, a mentor training curriculum, and evaluation materi- als. Developing a peer mentoring program that works also involves maintain- ing your program once you’ve gone through all the work of getting it started. Therefore, Chapter 10 explores potential challenges and issues that might arise once your program is in operation and provides some strategies other programs have used to address these issues. Two features of this book are particularly distinctive. First, this guide explicitly discusses multiple ways program-size decisions will affect the devel- opment and implementation of your peer mentoring program. Second, a series of case studies of successful programs of different sizes and that focus on different educational transitions (Vignettes 1–6) has been included to illustrate best practices in the key areas of design, delivery, evaluation, and training. It is my hope that this book will prove to be a valuable resource as you move forward in developing a new mentoring program or revising an existing one. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 3 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 3 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
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- 32. PART O NE WHAT IS PEER MENTORING, AND WHY DOES IT WORK TO PROMOTE STUDENT SUCCESS? 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 5 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 5 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
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- 34. 7 Chapter 1 • defines mentoring and introduces the dual-function model of mentoring; • explains the differences between hierarchical and peer mentoring; • reviews what is already known about how peer mentoring positively affects college students; • explores peer mentoring’s relative advantages in regard to facilitating college student success; and • introduces a rubric of peer mentoring programs based on inclusiveness, duration, and approach in addressing students’ needs. A mentor empowers a person to see a possible future, and believe it can be obtained. (Hitchcock, 2015) Within higher education, mentoring is increasingly associated with efforts to promote student success, which includes helping students stay in school and 1 W H AT I S P E E R M E N TO R I N G , A N D H OW I S I T U S E D I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N ? College students benefit from participating in a variety of different peer mentoring programs; programs can be categorized in terms of level of inclusiveness, duration, and approach in addressing students’ needs. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 7 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 7 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 35. 8 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? complete their degrees in a timely manner. The large number of national-, state-, and local-level formalized programs, as well as a wide range of other student success promotion efforts that include a mentoring component, attest to this approach’s popularity among college presidents and adminis- trators (Crisp & Cruz, 2009; Girves, Zepeda, & Gwathmey, 2005; Quinn, Muldoon, & Hollingworth, 2002). Peer mentoring programs are particularly popular. Sixty-five percent of the public four-year colleges and universities included in American College Testing’s (2010) “What Works in Student Retention” survey reported having peer mentoring programs with goals of promoting student success and retention. What Is Mentoring? What Is Peer Mentoring? Mentoring seems to mean one thing to businesspeople, another to develop- mental psychologists, and something else to academics. Although in higher education there is no universal agreement on a single definition of mentoring, this book uses a definition from the National Academy of Sciences: “Mentor- ing occurs when a senior person or mentor provides information, advice, and emotional support to a junior person or student over a period of time” (as cited in Lev, Kolassa, & Bakken, 2010, p. 169). Kram’s (1983) work on mentoring relationships in a business context serves as the basis for most discussions of mentoring functions. She proposes that mentoring relationships serve two primary functions: career develop- ment and psychosocial support. Through career functions, including sponsorship, coaching, protection, exposure-and-visibility, and challenging work assignments, a young man- ager is assisted in learning the ropes of organizational life and in preparing for advancement opportunities. Through psychosocial functions including role modeling, acceptance-and-confirmation, counseling, and friendship, a young manager is supported in developing a sense of competence, confi- dence, and effectiveness in the managerial role. (pp. 617–618) This dual-function model of mentoring is supported in the higher educa- tion literature (Crisp & Cruz, 2009, p. 528; Terrion & Leonard 2007, pp. 149–50). There is agreement that college students’ mentoring experiences include broad forms of support including professional/career development and psychological support that includes role modeling (Brown, Davis, & McClendon,1999;Campbell&Campbell,1997;Davidson&Foster-Johnson, 2001; Kram, 1985; Rendon, 1994). For college students, career development can be thought of as academic support and includes mentors promoting aca- demic success and facilitating mentees’ efforts to complete their degrees. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 8 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 8 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 36. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 9 Differences Between Informal and Formal College Student Mentoring Relationships Formal student mentoring in higher education refers to structured and intentional relationships where mentors and student mentees are matched by a third party, such as mentoring program staff (Eby, Rhodes, & Allen, 2007). Similarly, informal student mentoring refers to naturally occurring supportive relationships students have with older and more experienced indi- viduals such as advisers, professors, or other students (Rhodes, Grossman, & Resch, 2000). Many times informal mentors actually provide the impetus and encouragement that lead college students to get involved in formal men- toring programs. This book focuses on formalized peer mentoring relation- ships. Differences Between Hierarchical and Peer Mentoring for College Students Hierarchical mentoring for college students involves individuals from two different social positions, such as faculty–student, adviser–student, or counselor–student. This is similar to a mentoring relationship in a business context where a senior manager mentors a junior staff member. Although Kram’s (1983) original work in mentoring research focused on hierarchical mentoring, her later research identified how mentoring functions are slightly modified in peer relationships (Kram & Isabella, 1985). Peer mentoring describes a relationship where a more experienced student helps a less experienced student improve overall academic per- formance and provides advice, support, and knowledge to the mentee (Colvin & Ashman, 2010). Unlike hierarchical mentoring, peer mentoring matches mentors and mentees who are roughly equal in age and power for task and psychosocial support (Angelique, Kyle, & Taylor, 2002; Terrion & Leonard, 2007). Although a peer mentor may or may not be older than the mentee, there is a considerable difference in each one’s level of college experience. What Do We Know About the Impacts of Peer Mentoring on College Students? Researchers have established that participating in college student peer men- toring programs provides mentees and mentors with a range of positive out- comes. Participating in peer mentoring programs leads to positive outcomes for mentees in regard to each of the aspects of Kram’s dual function mentor- ing model (Terrion & Leonard, 2007, pp. 149–150). 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 9 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 9 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 37. 10 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? Peer Mentoring and the Career Function in Higher Education: Academic Success and Staying in School For college students, the career development function in Kram’s (1983) model takes the form of mentors providing help to students who are trying to complete their college degrees. In order to better understand how peer mentoring serves a career development function for college students, it helps to look at key indicators of college student career achievement such as aca- demic success and staying in school. It may be worth clarifying terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, although they do not mean the same thing. Persistence is an individual-level variable that refers to whether a stu- dent continues his or her education, regardless of institution, and retention is an institutional variable describing the rate at which students remain at the institution where they initially enrolled (Collier, Fellows, & Holland, 2008). Although it may seem obvious, researchers have established a relation- ship between academic performance and college persistence, particularly first-year persistence. It also turns out that the number of credits successfully completed during the freshman year is a particularly important variable in predicting degree completion. Research shows that the lower the number of credits completed during a college student’s freshman year, the less likely that student is to complete any type of certificate or degree program (Chen & Carroll, 2005; Miller & Spence, 2007). Peer mentoring increases mentees’ intentions to stay in school and graduate. College students who participate in peer mentoring programs report stronger intentions to stay in college and complete their degrees (Sanchez, Bauer, & Paronto, 2006; Thile & Matt, 1995). The theory of reasoned action from psy- chology argues that individuals’ stated intentions are the best predictors of their subsequent actions (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1970). Therefore peer mentoring pro- grams, by positively affecting mentees’ intentions to stay in school and gradu- ate, actually contribute to increasing these students’ chances of graduating. Peer mentoring promotes mentees’ academic success at college. Participating in peer mentoring programs is associated with improved student retention rates in numerous studies (Beatrice & Shively, 2007; Black & Voelker, 2008; Colvin & Ashman, 2010; Hall, 2006; Harper & Allegretti, 2009; Terrion, Philion, & Leonard, 2007; Thomas, 2000; Torres Campos et al., 2009). Peer mentoring also has an impact on the likelihood of students’ academic suc- cess by improving grade point average (GPA; Collier et al., 2008; Pagan & Edwards-Wilson, 2002; Roberts, Clifton, & Etcheverry, 2001; Rodger & Tremblay, 2003; Thile & Matt, 1995; Thomas, 2000) and the number of credits successfully completed (Campbell & Campbell, 1997; Collier et al., 2008; Rodger & Tremblay, 2003). For example, in their study of students on academic probation, Pagan and Edwards-Wilson found that students’ 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 10 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 10 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 38. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 11 retention rates and GPAs improved during the time they participated in a peer mentoring program (p. 214). Other studies found that mentees reported feeling that they acquired social capital, in the form of connections to other students and faculty, from their interactions with peer mentors and that these increased connections had a positive impact on GPA and retention rates (Roberts et al., 2001; Smith-Jentsch, Scielzo, Yarbrough, & Rosopa, 2008).1 Peer Mentoring and the Psychosocial Support Function in Higher Education Researchers agree that college student mentees highly value the support provided by peer mentoring relationships (Awayaa et al., 2003; Harper & Allegretti, 2009; Johnson-Bailey & Cervero, 2004; McDougall & Beattie, 1997; McLean, 2004; Mee-Lee & Bush, 2003; Ruthkosky & Castano, 2007; Sands, Parson, & Duane, 1991; Terrion & Leonard, 2007). For example, Ehrich, Hansford, and Tennent examined 159 research-based higher educa- tion articles and found that in 42.1% of studies, mentees reported that the support they received from the mentor was the most positive outcome from the relationship (as cited in Terrion & Leonard, 2007). Interestingly, per- ceived support from peer mentors can result in a range of different positive outcomes for mentees. Peer mentoring helps transitioning students adjust to the university. New students who participated in peer mentoring programs credited mentors with facilitating their university transitions (Beatrice & Shively, 2007; Hall, 2006; Ruthkosky & Castano, 2007). For example, Hoffman and Wallach (2005, p. 72) found that four-year college mentors were able to dispel many myths about the university held by community college mentees and eased these students’ fears of transitioning. Mentees also reported an increased sense of campus connection and increased satisfaction with their universities (Colvin & Ashman, 2010, p. 128; Sanchez, Bauer, & Paronto, 2006). Peer mentoring affirms mentees’ beliefs they can succeed as college students. Students making the transition from high school, community college, or another educational system to a university must learn a new role or a new version of the role of college student.2 Several studies found that students who participated in peer mentoring programs demonstrated increased levels of confidence in this new role (Smith-Jentsch et al., 2008, p. 194; Allen & Poteet, 1999). Peer mentors model the college student role, observe their mentees’ efforts, and then provide mentees with feedback that gives them legitimacy as “real” college students. Mentees increase their knowledge and use of available campus resources such as the library, computer labs, and health services by working with peer mentors (Beatrice & Shively, 2007; Hall, 2006; Ruthkosky & Castano, 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 11 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 11 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 39. 12 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? 2007). This is important for student persistence because a main part of suc- cessfully acting the college student role is knowing how to appropriately use campus resources. In addition, participating in a peer mentoring program improves men- tees’ levels of motivation and perceived self-efficacy (Hoffman & Wallach, 2005; Smith-Jentsch et al., 2008, Thile & Matt, 1995). Smith-Jentsch and colleagues note that when a mentor shares “his/her personal history includ- ing successes, failures, and lessons learned, these vicarious experiences should have a positive impact on mentees’ self-efficacy as well” (p. 197). Peer mentoring provides mentees with safe allies for sharing personal and col- lege concerns. New students making the transition to college face an unfamil- iar and complex environment. They must deal with a range of new issues and struggle to find other people in whom they can confide. Several studies found that mentees viewed peer mentors as allies with whom it was safe to disclose personal issues and information (Beebe, Beebe, Redmond, & Geerinck, 2004, p. 305; Garvey & Alfred, 2000). Mentees also reported that they viewed peer mentors as approachable sources of expert knowledge about college because of their academic achievements (McLean, 2004; Mee-Lee & Bush, 2003; Ragins & Cotton, 1999; Schmidt, Marks, & Derrico, 2004). Mentors had already suc- ceeded in the very same college context that mentees aspired to succeed in them- selves. Because of their acknowledged college expertise, mentors were able to initiate discussions with mentees on academic coping skills and other concerns including time management and getting help with class work (Steinberg, 2004). Peer mentoring is particularly effective at promoting college success for stu- dents of color and other underrepresented student groups. Many colleges and universities use peer mentoring to facilitate unrepresented student groups’ college transitions (Collier et al., 2008; Good, Haplin, & Haplin, 2002; Jack- son, Smith, & Hill, 2003; Santovec, 1992). Peer mentors serve as role models and provide encouragement and support for these students who must deal with the range of college adjustment issues all new students face while strug- gling to adjust to a context where their home culture is no longer dominant (Shotton, Oosahwe, & Cintrón, 2007; Thile & Matt, 1995). For example, Jackson and colleagues (2003, p. 97) described how peer mentors provided new-to-college Native American students with models for addressing some of the conflicts that arise as students struggle to develop bicultural identities. Participating in peer mentoring programs has been shown to be associ- ated with improved retention and academic performance for several groups of students of color including Latino/Latina (Thile & Matt, 1995), African American (Good, Haplin, & Haplin, 2000; Thile & Matt, 1995), Native American (Gloria & Robinson-Kurpius, 2001; Jackson, Smith, & Hill, 2003; Shotton, Oosahwe, & Cintron, 2007), and Asian American students (Kim, 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 12 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 12 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 40. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 13 Goto, Bai, Kim, &Wong, 2001). For example, Kim and colleagues found that Asian American students participated in a peer mentoring program because they believed doing so would facilitate their transitions to higher education. Although Asian American students are not typically thought of as a group that needs additional academic support in moving to the university, these students valued their mentors’ help with maintaining their ethnic identities and dealing with the model minority stereotype that places additional pres- sure on students to succeed academically (pp. 2419–2420). Peer-mentored first-generation students, those for whom neither parent completed a four- year U.S. college degree, also have been shown to demonstrate higher average GPAs, credits earned, and retention rates than nonmentored students (Col- lier et al., 2008, p. 8; Pagan & Edwards-Wilson, 2002, p. 214). Peer mentors benefit from supporting mentees. Although the major stated goal of all college student peer mentoring programs is to benefit mentees, peer mentors also benefited from their participation in these pro- grams. Mentors reported improved academic performance (e.g., Good, Haplin, & Haplin, 2002, p. 377), personal growth (e.g., Falchikov & Blythman, 2001), improved communication skills (e.g., Terrion, Philion, & Leonard, 2007), and increased understandings of themselves as students (e.g., Bunting, Dye, Pinnegar, & Robinson, 2007). For example, Good and colleagues (2002), describing mentors’ experiences in a minority peer mentoring engineering program, noted that mentors realized that they were acting as role models for the freshman stu- dents . . . (and were motivated) to incorporate learning strategies learned and emphasized through the program into their own work and study ses- sions . . . because they wanted to ensure that they were role modeling the most effective techniques for their mentees in and out of the workshop and lab settings.(p. 380) Mentors also acknowledged that in the process of helping mentees learn about available campus services and resources, their own levels of social capi- tal increased through the formation of relationships with faculty and uni- versity professionals who provided student support services (Terrion et al., 2007, p. 51). What Are the Advantages of Peer Mentoring? One underexplored issue in discussions of the impact of mentoring on under- graduate college student success concerns the relative effectiveness of hierar- chical and peer mentoring approaches. Both approaches have been shown 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 13 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 13 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 41. 14 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? to facilitate new students’ adjustment to campus (hierarchical: Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; peer: Ruthkosky & Castano, 2007); increase students’ satisfaction with their university (hierarchical: Cosgrove, 1986, p. 119; Tenenbaum, Crosby, & Gliner, 2001, p. 326; peer: Ferrari, 2004, p. 303); and have a positive impact on average GPA, credits earned, and retention (hierarchical: Campbell & Campbell, 2007, pp. 137, 143; peer: Rodger & Tremblay, 2003; Colvin & Ashman, 2010, p. 128). However, in regard to issues associated with setting up mentoring programs, there are times when using a peer mentoring approach seems to provide advantages. Cost Peer mentoring programs that support college students are viewed as relatively less expensive than hierarchical mentoring programs that use faculty or staff mentors for the same purpose (Campbell & Campbell, 2007; Cerna, Platania, & Fong, 2012; Minor, 2007). Minor says that “in times of stagnant or diminish- ing financial resources and increased benefit costs for full-time employees, peer mentors represent a cost-effective way to meet educational goals and address retention issues” (p. 65). A report from MDRC on the effectiveness of a peer mentoring program at two Achieving the Dream colleges in the Boston area noted that administrators at both colleges viewed the peer mentoring program as “a more cost-effective alternative to hiring full-time faculty to provide similar services” (Cerna, Platania, & Kong, 2012, p. ES4).3 Colleges and universities find additional cost savings by compensating mentors with resources at no great cost to the schools but that peer mentors highly value, such as stipends (e.g., $500 per semester at the East Carolina University College of Business, www .ecu.edu/cs-bus/success/peermentor.cfm), academic credit (e.g., University of Washington First-year Interest Group, http://fyp.washington.edu/become-a- student-leader/fig-leaders; St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s peer mentor pro- gram, www.smcm.edu/corecurriculum/FYS/PeerMentor.html), and textbook scholarships (e.g., University of Memphis’s First Scholars program, www.smcm .edu/corecurriculum/FYS/PeerMentor.html). Since mentor compensation is a major cost for peer mentoring programs, Minor suggests ways to develop cost-effective peer mentoring compensation strategies that include consulting with potential mentors about what they value as well as working with academic affairs to creatively use existing resources like course credits (p. 65). Availability of Potential Mentors Another relative advantage of employing a peer mentoring approach for supporting college students has to do with the availability of potential men- tors. On any college or university campus, many more experienced students 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 14 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 14 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 42. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 15 are available to serve as peer mentors than faculty and staff. Although faculty and staff are highly committed to helping students succeed at college, their multiple job demands can limit their availability to participate in formal peer mentoring programs. However just because large numbers of experienced students/potential mentors are present on college campuses does not guar- antee these students will choose to participate in peer mentoring programs. Motivation is an important consideration. Many peer mentors report they initially got involved in peer mentoring programs out of a desire to give back to other students and return the support they received when they were trying to make the adjustment to college.4 Issues of motivation underlie another potential advantage of employing a peer mentoring approach to supporting college students. Why Might Peer Mentoring Be Particularly Effective for Promoting Undergraduate Student Success? Although no research directly compares hierarchical and peer mentoring with the same populations of students, the question still remains: Which approach is more effective? A possible explanation might lie in exploring one positive effect of peer mentoring that is not shared with hierarchical mentor- ing: Students who are mentored by peers report increased confidence in per- forming the college student role (Allen & Poteet, 1999; Smith-Jentsch et al., 2008, p. 194). In the course of supporting mentees, peer mentors model the successful college student role. However when faculty and staff support student mentees, they are not modeling the successful college student role because they are not students. This difference, whether role modeling does or does not occur, may have an impact on mentees’ interpretation of mentors’ actions. How mentees interpret mentors’ motivation for their action has an effect on perceived mentor credibility. Although both forms of mentoring result in positive outcomes for students, peer mentoring may be relatively more effective in promoting undergraduate college student success because of issues associated with credibility. The social-psychological concept of credibility is a useful frame for understanding why peer mentoring is relatively more effective for support- ing college students. The person who sends a message is called the message source. Mentors are message sources. A message source’s credibility is a criti- cal element in the process of persuasion (Pornpitakan, 2004). Credibility is made up of two components, expertise and trustworthiness. Expertise refers to the source’s degree of knowledge of factual information associated with the issue in question; trustworthiness refers to the degree to which the source is 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 15 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 15 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 43. 16 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? perceived as being likely to accurately share this related factual information (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953). The source’s perceived self-interest influ- ences the relative importance of trustworthiness and expertise (McGinnies & Ward, 1980). Imagine you are receiving information from someone who is trying to convince you of the superiority of one type of computer versus another. On one hand, when the source is a computer salesperson who has a great deal to gain if you are persuaded, then even though the salesperson has expertise, it is much more important for you to find someone you consider trustworthy. If, on the other hand, the source is a friend who has nothing to gain from your compliance, then your friend’s relative level of computer expertise takes on a greater importance. Your friend might be trustworthy, but if your friend doesn’t know much about computers you are unlikely to be persuaded by his or her recommendation. Credibility and Hierarchical Mentoring Those in higher education agree that in a hierarchical mentoring relation- ship the faculty member or adviser mentor has greater college expertise than the student mentee (Campbell & Campbell, 2007; Lev, Kolassa, & Bakken, 2010; Packard, 2004; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). In regard to credibility, a less examined question is: To what degree do student mentees perceive their faculty or staff mentors as trustworthy? One factor that affects perceived trustworthiness is past history. Have the mentor and mentee successfully interacted before? The mentee’s perceptions of the mentor’s motivation in offering help are another major component of perceived mentor trustworthi- ness. Some mentees might discount a mentor’s expertise-based advice if they see the mentor as self-serving and someone who is just doing a job. Credibility and Peer Mentoring It is interesting that while the peer mentoring literature identifies mentor expertise and trustworthiness as necessary conditions for promoting student mentee success, the two concepts are rarely combined in discussing credibility. In regard to the importance of expertise, several researchers have noted that in order to be effective, a peer mentor must be academically successful and have the expertise in the field (Johnson, 2002; McLean, 2004; Mee-Lee & Bush, 2003; Ragins & Cotton, 1999; Schmidt et al., 2004; Terrion & Leonard, 2007). For example, McLean (2004) noted that student mentees sought advice from seniors who were mentors because seniors were perceived as able to offer more useful advice in regard to working through specific issues and finding campus resources. It is also agreed in the literature that trustworthiness 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 16 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 16 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 44. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 17 is crucial for establishing successful peer mentoring relationships (Bouquillon, Sosik, & Lee, 2005; Garvey & Alfred, 2000; Johnson-Bailey & Cervero, 2004; Pitney & Ehlers, 2004). Beebe (2004) pointed out that stable peer mentor- ing relationships are based on the degree to which mentees and mentors feel comfortable in sharing personal experiences and information. Credibility, Role Understanding, and Mentoring Undergraduate Students One way roles are learned is through role modeling, watching other more experienced students enact the college student role. The other way roles are learned is through interactions with others in complementary roles; for stu- dents this means interacting with faculty members or advisers. In these inter- actions, the student gets information from faculty members or advisers about how they think the student role should be played and then tries to live up to those expectations. Hierarchical Mentoring of Undergraduate Students Hierarchical mentoring of undergraduate students does not involve role modeling. A faculty mentor is not modeling the college student role when sharing ideas with an undergraduate student mentee on how the student should study for an exam to earn a good grade. Instead, what is happening is that the mentor is sharing knowledge of faculty members’ expectations of undergraduate students. The faculty mentor is not a student, yet the mentor is sharing an understanding of the standard that faculty use to judge the qual- ity of their interactions with undergraduate students. Clearly this is very use- ful information and serves as evidence of the mentor’s relatively higher level of expertise. Mentees who can turn this information about expectations con- cerning their behavior into effective interactions with other faculty members have a better chance of college success (Collier & Morgan, 2008). However, an issue associated with credibility may arise in hierarchical mentoring rela- tionships. When a mentee is not sure of the mentor’s motivation for sharing this information, that student might discount some of the potential benefits of the mentor’s shared expertise. In a hierarchical mentoring relationship, the undergraduate student mentee is being asked to accept the mentor’s advice because of the men- tor’s acknowledged higher level of expertise. The mentor is viewed as know- ing what’s best for the student, like a manager knows what’s best for a new employee, or a parent knows what’s best for a child. However, since the men- tor is obviously not a student it may be unclear to the mentee whether the mentor’s expertise-based advice is based on the mentor’s past experiences as a 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 17 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 17 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:37 PM
- 45. 18 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? student or based on how the world appears to work from the perspective of the mentor’s current role as a faculty member or student affairs professional. The mentor clearly has expertise, but when credibility is considered, the key question becomes, Is the mentor trustworthy? For a new-to-campus college student, it may not be clear why the mentor is taking the time to help; maybe helping is just part of the faculty or staff person’s job. The student may not be completely clear on what to expect from someone in a faculty member or staff mentor role, much less how a person who is accurately enacting the faculty or staff mentor role should act because of a lack of familiarity with that role. Peer Mentoring Undergraduate Students With peer mentoring, the situation is different. Although both hierarchical and peer mentoring seek to promote student mentee success at the university, there is a difference in role relationships. Compared to the complementary faculty member and undergraduate student roles of a hierarchical mentoring relationship, with peer mentoring only one role is involved. The mentor and mentee both share the undergraduate student role. In regard to trustworthiness and credibility, the mentee’s struggle to understand the mentor’s motivation is no longer an issue. The peer mentor is seen as trustworthy because the peer mentor is a college student, the same as the mentee. The mentor’s motivation for helping is assumed to be the same as the mentee imagines it would be when he or she helped another student; one student helps another because they are all in the same boat. Even if the mentee knows the mentor is being compensated for participating in the mentoring relationship, the near peer nature of the mentor-mentee relation- ship causes the mentor to be seen as more similar to the mentee than faculty members or staff.5 In a peer mentoring relationship, the goal is not moving from one role into another or understanding faculty expectations for under- graduates. Instead, the goal of peer mentoring is facilitating the development of college student role mastery by assisting the mentee in becoming more expert in a role the mentor already occupies. The peer mentor models the role of a successful college student to pro- mote the mentee’s development of role mastery. The peer mentor shares not only his or her knowledge of faculty members’ expectations for students but also time-tested personal strategies the mentor has used in successfully meeting those expectations. The peer mentor has a high level of expertise, based on previous success in enacting the mentee’s current role, because he or she is already an upper-division college student (Terrion & Leonard, 2007, pp. 153–154). The mentor’s expertise and relatively greater level of trustwor- thiness provide an unambiguous message to the mentee that following the 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 18 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 18 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 46. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 19 strategies suggested by the mentor will most likely lead to mentee success because these strategies clearly worked for this mentor as an undergraduate student. Therefore, because role modeling is present in peer mentoring relation- ships but not in hierarchical ones, and because of the importance of similar- ity on trustworthiness and credibility, peer mentoring may be relatively more effective in mentoring undergraduate students because of student mentees’ perceptions of peer mentors as being more credible. However, because there is no research that directly compares perceptions of credibility for hierarchical and peer mentors with the same populations of students, the argument that peer mentors may be viewed as more credible by mentees remains a hypothesis. In review, employing a peer mentoring approach to supporting college students’ transition and adjustment to the university has two clear advan- tages: cost and availability of potential mentors. In addition it has been suggested that peer mentoring may be particularly effective for mentoring undergraduate students because of issues associated with credibility. How Can Peer Mentoring Programs Be Categorized? Now that the strengths of peer mentoring and the positive college student out- comes associated with this approach are clarified, the Peer Mentoring Program Rubric (Table 1.1) is a good starting point for thinking about developing your own college student peer mentoring program. Although subsequent chapters of this book categorize peer mentoring programs in different ways (e.g., how peer mentoring is delivered, what is evaluated, how evaluation is conducted, and the nature and extensiveness of mentor training), it is helpful at this initial stage to situate your program-to-be in terms of three meta-level dimensions: inclusiveness, duration, and approach to addressing students’ needs. TABLE 1.1 Peer Mentoring Program Rubric Inclusiveness Duration Approach to Addressing Students’ Needs Universal: Open to all students Short term: One semester or less Targeted: Addresses student needs at one point in time Tailored: Designed for a specific audience Long Term: More than one semester Developmental: Responds to student needs as they evolve over time 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 19 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 19 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 47. 20 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? Inclusiveness: Which students are being served? Inclusiveness refers to the distinction between universal and tailored programs. A universal program is provided to all students, regardless of their year in school, GPA, family status, race or ethnicity, age, gender, or sexual orientation. First-year experience pro- grams that include a peer mentoring element are universal programs. For exam- ple, Portland State University (PSU) requires all freshmen, except those on a separate honors track, to complete a year-long sequence of general education courses in the University Studies’ Freshman Inquiry program (see www.pdx .edu/unst/freshman-inquiry). PSU senior undergraduate student mentors assist faculty members in course delivery and also run separate weekly discus- sion sessions in which freshmen mentees explore course readings and assign- ments in small-group settings. Mentors encourage freshman mentees to use these sessions to discuss some of the college adjustment issues they are expe- riencing and collaboratively work out possible approaches to resolve these issues. A tailored program is offered to only a subgroup of students; it is tai- lored to fit the needs of those students. Examples of tailored interventions include returning women students’ programs (for women who have taken a break from school and are now returning, www.pdx.edu/wrc/empower- ment-project), Student Support Services-TRIO programs (for underrep- resented students with academic issues, www.pdx.edu/dmss/TRIO-SSS), veterans’ programs (for current and postservice military personnel, www .veterans.msstate.edu/programs), and conditional admission programs (for students who may have academic preparation issues, www.gcsu.edu/success/ bsoverview.htm). For a tailored intervention to be successful, the interven- tion must focus on addressing crucial college student adjustment issues particular to the group you are trying to serve. A theoretical-conceptual foundation for the intervention is necessary to suggest which of several possible issues should be emphasized to best produce success for the group of students your program intends to serve. For example, if historical trend data suggest students from a particular group tend to be underprepared academically, an intervention that solely focuses on building social networks will not necessarily result in higher academic success and persistence. Duration: How long will your program provide mentoring services for stu- dents? A short-term peer mentoring program is defined here as one that lasts one semester or less, while a long-term program lasts more than a single semester. Short-term peer mentoring programs are only intended to provide mentee support for a relatively short period of time, such as the University of South Carolina’s 101 programs for freshmen (www.sc.edu/univ101). Long-term peer mentoring programs cover a greater period of time, ranging from year-long 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 20 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 20 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 48. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 21 programs (e.g., California State University, Fullerton’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program, http://lsamp.fullerton.edu) to compre- hensive programs that provide continuous support from initial enrollment though graduation (e.g., PSU’s Diversity Scholarship program, www.pdx .edu/dmss/diversity-scholars).6 Again, a theoretical foundation to support your choice regarding the duration of your intervention is necessary. One perspective on college stu- dent support interventions suggests that the key to promoting student success is providing continuous support from initial enrollment through gradua- tion (e.g., the Federal Student Success Services Program, www2.ed.gov/ programs/triostudsupp/index.html; Ford Family Foundation Scholarship program, www.tfff.org/?tabid=65). Another perspective is that interventions can be successful by focusing on key transitions or narrower periods of time during students’ academic careers (e.g., first-year experience programs such as University of South Carolina’s Freshmen 101 and the federal Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program, www2.ed.gov/programs/ triomcnair/index.html). The issue is not that one perspective is right and the other wrong. The important point is that in order to develop an effective college student peer mentoring program, you must be clear about why your program is designed to run as long as it does and how your choice of dura- tion interacts with your choices of level of inclusiveness and approach to meeting student needs. Approach to addressing students’ needs: What are the differences between a targeted and a developmental approach to dealing with students’ college adjust- ment issues? A targeted, or single point in time, college student peer men- toring program that emphasizes helping students at a particular stage of development, deals with one or more specific issues that are of immediate concern. For example, a targeted program might serve students who are on academic probation with a program goal of helping mentees get off proba- tion and return to regular student status. A developmental mentoring program is based on the premise that stu- dents’ needs change over time, even when dealing with the same issue. The concerns students have in their early efforts at addressing a particular college adjustment issue might not be the same when dealing with that same issue later in the same academic year. In a developmental mentoring program, the goal of the program is to improve students’ abilities to deal with a particular issue over time. Peer mentors begin mentoring relationships by working with student mentees where they are in terms of a specific college adjustment issue. Mentors subsequently provide more sophisticated approaches and strategies for mentees to use as they develop more nuanced understandings of that same adjustment issue. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 21 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 21 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 49. 22 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? Although student progress through higher education is based on a model of developmental learning, whether or not your peer mentoring program needs to incorporate a developmental perspective depends on your program goals. If you are designing a targeted peer mentoring program that is focused on time-bounded issues such as helping international students acclimate to a U.S. university environment or assisting aspiring graduate students to prepare to take the Graduate Records Examination, then a developmental approach may not be important for your program. However, this is not the case for many college student peer mentor- ing programs. Material that students may not completely understand or find valuable during the early stages of their educational careers may take on increased importance at later stages when it becomes clearer why this material is relevant. This issue of matching your program goals with what peer mentoring can realistically accomplish is discussed in greater depth in Chapter 4. This peer mentoring program rubric is used in several different ways throughout the rest of this book. First, it is used to situate the differ- ent case studies presented in Part Two. Second, this rubric is reexamined in greater depth in Chapter 5 in regard to developing your own college student peer mentoring program. By determining where your proposed program fits within this rubric, you will facilitate your subsequent deci- sions about design, delivery, content, evaluation, training, and evaluation of training. Subsequent chapters of this book explore the issue of identifying and understanding college student adjustment issues in greater depth. Chap- ters 2 and 3 detail several models of student persistence and development. Chapter 3 also explores some important college adjustment issues all stu- dents face, as well as issues specific to three groups of students targeted in this book: first-generation, international, and veterans. Chapter 4 reexam- ines the rubric in greater detail and provides some useful tools for identi- fying the important college adjustment issues your targeted students are likely to be dealing with. Chapter 1 provides the first layer of the foundation you’ll need to develop your own peer mentoring program by presenting the dual-function model of mentoring, reviewing what is already known about how peer mentoring pos- itively affects college students, and introducing the peer mentoring program rubric. The next chapter is a discussion of why the issue of promoting college stu- dent persistence is so important for students, colleges, and larger communities. It reviews models of college student persistence and explores how peer mentoring might promote student persistence in each model. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 22 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 22 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 50. HOW IS PEER MENTORING USED IN HIGHER EDUCATION? 23 Notes 1. “Social capital . . . exists in the relations among people” (Coleman, 1988, p. S100). Cole- man argues that individuals can access one another’s human capital (i.e., the embodiment of skill sets and knowledge bases) and other valuable resources (e.g., prestige, status, and money) through participation in social networks. “Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in com- mon: they all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure” (p. S98). 2. Roles are understood as positions in the structure of society and the sets of expected behav- iors associated with those positions (Becker, 1963; Mead, 1934). Roles are not as much tangible objects as much as they are shared generalized ideas that individuals use to direct goal-related actions such as succeeding in a particular college class (Callero, 1994). 3. MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization created in 1974 by the Ford Foundation and a group of federal agencies, is dedicated to learning what works to improve programs and policies that affect the poor. MDRC is best known for mounting large-scale demonstrations and evaluations of real-world policies and programs targeted to low-income people. For more information, see www.mdrc.org/about/about- mdrc-overview-0. 4. See John Jay College, “In Peer Mentors’ Own Words,” http://jjay.bfmdev9.com/sasp- peer-mentors; George Washington University School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, “Meet the Mentors,” www.seas.gwu.edu/meet-mentors; University of Louisiana at Lafayette, “Peer Mentors,” http://firstyear.louisiana.edu/content/get-involved/peer-mentor 5. Ina college context, a near peer refers to a student who differs from the mentee in terms of characteristics such as educational level or specific academic experiences but is very similar in terms of others such as age, major, knowledge of popular culture, or recreational interests (Edgcomb et al., 2010, p. 18). 6. The goal of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program is to increase the number of targeted students who graduate with degrees in the sciences, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). The targeted students have faced or face social, educational, or economic barriers to careers in STEM. PSU’s Diversity Scholarship Program supports outstanding students from diverse backgrounds, including racial and ethnic backgrounds that are traditionally underrepresented in higher education. The Diversity Enrichment Scholarship gives preferences to those who are Oregon residents, demonstrate financial need (federally defined), are first-generation college students, or are students completing their first bachelor’s degree. The scholarship is renewable. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 23 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 23 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 51. 24 Chapter 2 • explains the importance of the issue of college students’ degree noncompletion; • presents the costs of degree noncompletion to the nation, colleges, and students; • explores models of traditional and nontraditional student persistence; • examines how race and class differences have an impact on college student persistence; and • discusses how peer mentoring might affect each model of college student persistence. 2 H OW C A N P E E R M E N TO R I N G H E L P A D D R E S S T H E C R I S I S O F C O L L E G E S T U D E N T S N OT C O M P L E T I N G T H E I R D E G R E E S ? College students who leave college before finishing their degrees are a major cost to the nation, their colleges, and themselves. Peer mentoring can have a positive impact on the issue of college student persistence. 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 24 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 24 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 52. HOW CAN PEER MENTORING HELP THE NONCOMPLETION CRISIS? 25 The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life. (Plato, 2000) The U.S. higher education system is facing a crisis. Too many students are dropping out of college before completing their degrees (Symonds, Schwartz, & Ferguson, 2011, p. 2; Waldron, 2012). What Is the Issue of Degree Noncompletion? Even though the U.S. higher education system is ranked as the best in the world (see www.universitas21.com), America ranks only 16th out of 26 developed countries in regard to the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees (“Bachelor’s Degree Attainment,” 2012). According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, about 58% of full-time, first-time students who begin at a four-year college complete a bachelor’s degree in six years, and about 26% of full-time, first-time students who begin at a two- year college complete either a bachelor’s or associate’s degree in a three-year period (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012b; Symonds et al., 2011, pp. 4, 11).1 There is also a relationship between type of institu- tion and students’ graduation rates. Among bachelor’s degree seekers, stu- dents at private nonprofits demonstrated the highest graduation rate (65%), followed by students at public institutions (56%) and those at private for- profit schools (28%; NCES, 2012a). What Are the Costs of College Students Not Completing Their Degrees? When students leave college without completing their degrees, the nega- tive effects ripple outward and affect students, their former colleges, and the communities. Figure 2.1 shows the widening circle of costs associated with degree noncompletion. National- and State-Level Costs of College Students Not Completing Their Degrees Students who do not complete their degrees dramatically affect government tax-based revenues over their time in the workforce. Adults 25 to 34 years old with col- lege degrees, working year-round, earn about two thirds more than high-school graduates and about 40% more than someone who attended college but did not complete a degree. This means that a college graduate’s lifetime earnings can be as much as half a million dollars more than those of a high school graduate 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 25 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 25 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 53. 26 WHAT IS PEER MENTORING? (Schneider & Lu, 2011). Since the federal government and 41 state govern- ments rely on income taxes to fund government services, students who do not complete their degrees represent a major loss of tax revenue (Moreno, 2014). Students who do not complete their degrees are more likely to require government-funded public support services. They are also more likely to incur costs for federal, state, and local governments. Health care is one area where lower educational levels correlate with increased societal costs. Individuals with only a high school degree are more than two and one-half times more likely to report not having health insurance than those who complete a bachelor’s degree and slightly less than two-thirds times more likely than those with an associate degree (“Health Insurance Coverage,” 2009). A similar pattern can be found when looking at individuals who reported having only government health insurance. High school graduates were 77% more likely than those with a bachelor’s degree and 53% more likely than associate degree holders to only have government health insurance (“Health Insurance Coverage,” 2009). Educational level also has an impact on a related health issue—births to unwed mothers. High school degree holders’ nonmarital birth rates were more than three and one-half times greater than the rate for those who completed Costs for federal and state government Costs for colleges Costs for the individual Increased student debt Lost investments in recruitment and orientation Lost tax revenues; greater cost for services LOW DEGREE COMPLETION RATE Figure 2.1 The Widening Circle of Costs From Degree Noncompletion 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 26 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 26 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 54. HOW CAN PEER MENTORING HELP THE NONCOMPLETION CRISIS? 27 bachelor’s degrees and twice the rate of those with associate degrees (“Non- marital Births,” 2005). Students who do not complete their degrees are less likely to be civically engaged in their communities. Political and social scientists from Jefferson (1894) and de Tocqueville (1840) to Putnam (2000) and Krueger and Lin- dahl (2001) in the present day agree that an educated citizenry is essential for a country’s economic and civic success. There is a direct relationship between educational level and voting. Individuals with associate degrees are more likely to vote than high school graduates and those with less than a high school education, and those with bachelor’s degrees vote at higher rates than those in all other categories (“Voting for Presidential Candidates,” 2012). Volunteerism is a major benefit for society. Volunteers provide free ser- vices to others in a range of situations where local, state, and federal govern- ments would have to provide the same services if volunteers were not present and active. Bachelor’s degree holders are more than twice as likely as high school graduates and 50% more likely than a combination of those with “some college” and an associate degree to report volunteering in their com- munity (“Volunteer Rates by Educational Attainment,” 2009). Considering the range of national- and state-level costs associated with the issue of degree noncompletion, it is not surprising that in the United States initiatives aimed at increasing college degree attainment rates are being promoted at the federal and state levels.2 College-Level Costs of College Students Not Completing Their Degrees Students who do not complete their degrees cost colleges by reducing tuition-based funding streams. With the recent trends in state- and federal-level defund- ing of higher education, colleges and universities have had to incresingly rely on tuition dollars for an increasing portion of operating budgets (“How to Limit Opportunity,” 2011; “State Disinvestment in Higher Education,” 2013).3 For example, in the 1960s state funding made up 80% of the Univer- sity of Michigan’s general fund budget; in 2013–14 the state appropriation dropped to less than 17% of the same budget (“Understanding Tuition,” 2013).Therefore, students who leave college before completing their degrees represent a significant loss of tuition revenue for colleges and universities. Although the loss of any student because of degree noncompletion is fiscally important for colleges and universities, even greater financial con- cerns are associated with students from some specific subgroups who drop out. International students, who represent an increasing percentage of U.S. college student enrollments, make up one such subgroup. Because these stu- dents pay almost three times as much in tuition as native students, inter- national students who do not complete degrees represent a major loss of 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 27 9781620360767_Collier_Developing Effective Student Peer Mentoring.indb 27 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM 9/18/2015 8:14:38 PM
- 55. Other documents randomly have different content
- 59. The Project Gutenberg eBook of With Fire and Sword
- 60. This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: With Fire and Sword Author: S. H. M. Byers Release date: August 11, 2012 [eBook #40477] Most recently updated: October 23, 2024 Language: English Credits: Produced by Greg Bergquist, Cathy Maxam, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH FIRE AND SWORD ***
- 61. WITH FIRE AND SWORD
- 63. With Fire and Sword BY
- 64. MAJOR S. H. M. BYERS OF GENERAL SHERMAN'S STAFF Author of "Sherman's March to the Sea," "Iowa in War Times," "Twenty Years in Europe," and of other books NEW YORK THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1911 Copyright, 1911, by THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
- 65. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I 11 My enlistment in the Union Army—The "Bushwhackers" of Missouri—The Quantrells and the James Brothers—Cutting a man's head off—My first adventure in the war—Capturing a guerrilla. CHAPTER II 22 We leave Missouri and go South—The prisoners of Donelson—The taking of New Madrid—"Kindly bury this unfortunate officer"—Quaker guns at Shiloh—The killing of the colonel. CHAPTER III 29 Iuka, the fiercest battle of the war, 217 men out of 482 of my regiment are shot—The awful rebel charge at Corinth—Moonlight on the battlefield—Bushels of arms and legs—Tombstones for fireplaces— One of Grant's mistakes . CHAPTER IV 40 An unlucky campaign led by General Grant—Holly Springs burned up— The first foragers—Some modern Falstaffs—Counting dead men. CHAPTER V 49 The laughable campaign of the war—An army floating among the tree tops of the Yazoo Pass. CHAPTER VI 54 Grant's new plan at Vicksburg—Running the Vicksburg batteries—An hour and a half of horror—The batteries are passed—The most important event in the war. CHAPTER VII 63 Crossing the Mississippi on gunboats and steamers—Battle of Port Gibson—How General Grant looked to a private soldier—A boy from Mississippi—Fights at Raymond—Battle of Jackson in a thunderstorm—Digging his brothers' grave—Grant in battle—Saving a flag—How men feel in battle—An awful spectacle—The critical
- 66. moment of General Grant's life—A battlefield letter from him to Sherman. CHAPTER VIII 87 Assaults on the walls of Vicksburg—Logan in battle—An army mule—A promotion under the guns of Vicksburg—A storm of iron hail at Vicksburg—The Vicksburg clock—The town surrenders—The glad news—Reading my first order to the regiment—My regiment put on guard in the captured city—Eight days' furlough in four years of war. CHAPTER IX 102 Sherman's army floats across the Tennessee River at midnight— Washington at the Delaware nothing compared to this—We assault Missionary Ridge—An awful battle—My capture. CHAPTER X 111 In Libby Prison—Life there—"Belle Isle"—All prisons bad—The great escape—"Maryland, My Maryland." CHAPTER XI 119 Escaping from Macon—An adventure in Atlanta—In the disguise of a Confederate soldier—My wanderings inside the Confederate army and what I experienced there—I am captured as a spy—How I got out of it all. CHAPTER XII 137 Under fire of our own guns at Charleston—Trying to capture a railway train—The secret band—Betrayed—The desolation of Charleston. CHAPTER XIII 144 Living in a grave—An adventure in the woods of South Carolina—Life in the asylum yard at the capital of South Carolina—The song of "Sherman's March to the Sea"—How it came to be written—Final escape—The burning up of South Carolina's capitol. CHAPTER XIV 174 The army in the Carolinas—General Sherman sends for me—Gives me a place on his staff—Experiences at army headquarters—Sherman's life on the march—Music at headquarters—Logan's violin—The General's false friend—The army wades, swims, and fights through the Carolinas—I am sent as despatch bearer to General Grant—A strange ride down the Cape Fear River in the night—General Terry—
- 67. Learn that my song "The March to the Sea" is sung through the North, and has given the campaign its name—I bring the first news of Sherman's success to the North—An interview with General Grant. CHAPTER XV 198 Washington City in the last three days of the war—Look, the President! —The last man of the regiment.
- 68. PREFACE In war some persons seek adventures; others have them in spite of themselves. It happened that the writer of this book belonged to a regiment that seemed to be always in the midst of great experiences. It was, in fact, one of the few regiments that absolutely fought themselves out of existence. It was mustered in a thousand strong; it lost seven hundred and seventy-seven men by death, wounds, and disease. The fragment that was left over was transferred to a cavalry command. When the writer finally escaped from prison, after many months of confinement and many thrilling adventures both in prison and in the army of the enemy, he was mustered out as a "supernumerary officer." His command had ceased to exist. He was literally the last man of the regiment. Of the eighty of his regiment who had been taken to prison with him all but sixteen were dead. Of the nine captured from his own company all were dead but one. While with his command he had served as a private soldier, as sergeant, and as adjutant. On escaping from prison he was for a time on General Sherman's staff and was selected to run down the Cape Fear River and carry the great news of Sherman's successes to the people of the North. He kept a diary every day in the four years of war and adventure. The substance of the facts related here is from its pages; occasionally they are copied just as they are there set down. The book is not a history of great army movements, it is simply a true tale of the thrilling experiences of a subordinate soldier in the midst of great events. With Fire and Sword
- 70. CHAPTER I My enlistment in the Union Army—The "Bushwhackers" of Missouri—The Quantrells and the James Brothers—Cutting a man's head off—My first adventure in the war—Capturing a guerrilla. I am writing down these sketches of adventures of mine from a daily journal or diary kept by me throughout the four years of the Civil War. Its pages are crumpled and old and yellow, but I can read them still. Fate so arranged it that I was the very first one to enlist in my regiment, and it all came about through a confusion of names. A patriotic mass-meeting was held in the court-house of the village where I lived. Everybody was there, and everybody was excited, for the war tocsin was sounding all over the country. A new regiment had been ordered by the governor, and no town was so quick in responding to the call as the village of Newton. We would be the very first. Drums were beating at the mass-meeting, fifes screaming, people shouting. There was a little pause in the patriotic noise, and then someone called out, "Myers to the platform!" "Myers! Myers! Myers!" echoed a hundred other voices. Mr. Myers never stirred, as he was no public speaker. I sat beside him near the aisle. Again the voices shouted "Myers! Myers!" Myers turned to me, laughed, and said, "They are calling you, Byers," and fairly pushed me out into the aisle. A handful of the audience seeing Myers would not respond, did then call my own name, and both names were cried together. Some of the audience becoming confused called loudly for me. "Go on," said Myers, half-rising and pushing me toward the platform. I was young,—just twenty-two,—ambitious, had just been admitted to the bar, and now was all on fire with the newly awakened patriotism. I went up to the platform and stood by the big drum. The American flag, the flag that had been fired on by the South, was hanging above my head. In a few minutes I was full of the mental champagne that comes from a cheering multitude. I was burning
- 71. with excitement, with patriotism, enthusiasm, pride, and my enthusiasm lent power to the words I uttered. I don't know why nor how, but I was moving my audience. The war was not begun to put down slavery, but what in the beginning had been an incident I felt in the end would become a cause. The year before I had been for many months on a plantation in Mississippi, and there with my own eyes had seen the horrors of slavery. I had seen human beings flogged; men and women bleeding from an overseer's lash. Now in my excitement I pictured it all. I recalled everything. "And the war, they tell us," I cried, "is to perpetuate this curse!" In ten minutes after my stormy words one hundred youths and men, myself the first, had stepped up to the paper lying on the big drum and had put down our names for the war. We all mustered on the village green. Alas, not half of them were ever to see that village green again! No foreboding came to me, the enthusiastic youth about to be a soldier, of the "dangers by flood and field," the adventures, the thrilling scenes, the battles, the prisons, the escapes, that were awaiting me. Now we were all enthusiasm to be taken quickly to the front, to the "seat of war." We could bide no delay. Once our men were on the very point of mobbing and "egging" our great, good Governor Kirkwood, because for a moment he thought he would be compelled to place us in a later regiment. However, we were immediately started in wagons for the nearest railroad, fifty miles away. At the town of Burlington, on the 15th of July, 1861, we were mustered into the service as Company B of the Fifth Iowa Infantry. Our colonel, W. H. Worthington, was a military martinet from some soldier school in Kentucky. His sympathies were with his native South. Why he was leading a Northern regiment was a constant mystery to his men. The regiment spent scant time in Burlington, for in a little while we were whisked down the Mississippi River in a steamer to St. Louis, and soon joined the army of Frémont, organizing at Jefferson City to
- 72. march against General Price, who was flying toward Springfield with the booty he had gained in his capture of Mulligan and his men at Boonville. Now all began to look like war. Missouri was neither North nor South; she was simply hell, for her people were cutting one another's throats, and neighboring farmers killed each other and burned each other's homes. The loyal feared to shut their eyes in sleep; the disloyal did not know if a roof would be above their heads in the morning. Brothers of the same family were in opposing armies, and the State was overrun by Southern guerrillas and murderers. The Quantrells, the James Brothers, and other irregular and roaming bands of villains rode everywhere, waylaying, bushwhacking, and murdering. We followed General Price's army to the Ozark Mountains, marching day and night—the nights made hideous by the burning of homes on the track of both the armies, while unburied corpses lay at the roadside. We marched half the nights and all the days and just as we got close enough to fight, the Washington politicians caused Frémont to be removed from his command. Frémont had been ahead of his time. He had freed some slaves, and the dough-faced politicians were not yet ready for action of that character. The campaign had been to no purpose. Some of our regiment, indignant at the removal of their general, had to be guarded to prevent mutiny and disorder. Now we turned about and made the long march back to the Missouri River. Half that cold winter was spent near Syracuse, in guarding the Pacific Railway. We lived in wedge tents, and spite of the cold and snow and storm, our squads by turn tramped for miles up and down the railroad in the darkness every night. What terrible tales, too, we had in our little tents that winter, of the deeds of Quantrell's men. It did not seem possible that the South could set loose a lot of murderers to hang on the skirts of our army, to "bushwhack" an honorable foe, burn villages, destroy farms, and drive whole counties into conditions as frightful as war was in the Middle Ages. Only savage Indians fought that way. Yet Quantrell's band of murderers was said to be on the payroll of the Confederate States. Here and there, however, his guerrilla outlaws met with awful
- 73. punishment, and horrible incidents became the order of the day and night. I recall now how a prize was once offered by one of our commanders for the head of a certain man among those desperate murderers, a desperado with a band of men that knew no mercy. His troop of riders had ambuscaded almost scores of our soldiers, and innocent farmers who did not happen to like his ways were strung up to trees as unceremoniously as one would drown a kitten. The offered prize of a thousand dollars stimulated certain of our men in taking chances with this beast of the Confederacy, and a corporal of our cavalry learned of the desperado's occasional visits at night to his home, only a dozen miles away from where we were camped. Several nights he secretly watched from a thicket near the cabin for the bandit's return. Once in the darkness he heard a horse's hoofs, and then a man dismounted and entered at the door. The evening was chilly, and a bright fire in the open fireplace of the cabin shone out as the man entered. The corporal, who had disguised himself in an old gray overcoat, knocked for entrance, and pretended to be a sick Confederate going on a furlough to his home not far away. He was cautiously admitted and given a seat by the open fire. He had no arms, and to the bandit and his wife his story of sickness and a furlough seemed probable enough. The two men and the one woman sat in front of the fireplace talking for an hour. The corporal, with the guerrilla sitting within a few feet of him, thought of the prize, and of his comrades murdered by this man. But what could he do? Suddenly the thought came, "I must kill or be killed." Outside there was only darkness and silence; inside the cabin, the low voices of these three people and the flickering fire. The corporal glanced about him. There was no gun to be seen that he could seize. The guerrilla's big revolver hung at his belt. While sitting thus, a bit of burning wood rolled out onto the hearth. The guerrilla stooped over to put it in its place. Instantly the corporal saw his chance and, springing for the iron poker at the fireside, dealt the guerrilla a blow on the head that stretched him dead on the cabin
- 74. floor. In an instant his big jackknife was out of his pocket and in the presence of the screaming wife the brute severed the man's head from his body. Then he left the cabin, mounted his horse in the thicket, and in the darkness carried his ghostly trophy into camp. It is a horrible ride to think of, that dozen miles, with the bleeding head of a murdered man on the saddle bow. So the awful things went on all that winter in Missouri. As for myself, I was tramping about as a corporal, helping in a small way to keep the great railroad free from marauders and in possession of the Union army. I don't know how it happened, but one morning our colonel, who had always treated me with extreme gruffness, though he well knew I did my duties with patriotic zeal, sent for me to come to his tent. I was a little alarmed, not knowing what was about to happen to me. The colonel called me by name as I entered, saluting him cap in hand, and for once he actually smiled. "Corporal," he said dryly, as if suddenly regretting his smile, "I have noticed that you always did the duty assigned you with promptness. I need a quartermaster sergeant. You are the man." I was almost paralyzed with astonishment and pleasure. I stood stock still, without a word of gratitude. At last, recovering myself, I explained that I had enlisted expecting to fight, and not to fill some easy position with the trains. "If I could only be allowed to find a substitute," I ventured to say, "in case of a fight, so I might share the danger with my comrades, I would like the promotion." Again the colonel tried to smile. "You probably will change your mind; you will find excitement enough," he remarked, dismissing me. I was hardly installed in my new post when to my surprise I was ordered by the colonel to take a good horse and ride twelve miles across the lone prairies and carry a message to a command at the village of Tipton. Instantly my mind was excited with the hopes of an adventure. I don't know, even now, just why I was selected for the
- 75. venturesome undertaking. I knew there was scarcely a road and not a house in the whole distance. I knew, too, the whole country was full of murderous guerrillas. But nevertheless I was full of elation. This was the kind of a thing I had hoped for when I enlisted. Light flakes of snow were falling when, with exultant spirits, I started from the camp. The trip outward proved uneventful, for nothing happened to me on my way. As I was returning, however, at a point halfway across the prairie I was surprised to see a man in gray, probably a guerrilla, ride out of a long slough or hollow to my left and gallop into the road directly ahead of me. He was in complete gray uniform, wore a saber, and had revolvers at his saddle bow. The man glanced back at me, and I saw him reaching for his pistols. "Here comes my first fight in the war," I thought instantly, "out here alone on the prairie." Save my one half-loaded revolver, strapped to my waist, I was unarmed. The stranger, without firing, galloped faster. I, too, galloped faster, the distance between us remaining about the same. Each of us now had a pistol in his hand, but it looked as if each were afraid to commence the duel. If the stranger checked his horse to give him breath, I checked mine. If he galloped again, I, too, put spurs to my animal. Imagining that other guerrillas must be lurking quite near, I was not over-anxious to bring on the engagement, and I suppose the armed man felt much the same way, for he could not have thought that I was in such a place absolutely alone. So neither fired. We just looked at each other and galloped. Finally we approached a little wood, and in a twinkling he turned into a path and was out of sight. I did not care to follow him to his hiding-place just then, and quickly galloped to our camp a few miles off. Before midnight that night I, with a dozen of my regiment, surrounded the little wood and a cabin secreted in its center. Approaching, we looked into the windows, and, sure enough, there, roasting his feet in front of an open fire, sat my rider of the day. When three of us suddenly entered the house and demanded his surrender he sprang for a rifle that stood like a poker by the fireside, aimed it at me, and shouted "Never! Surrender yourself." A bayonet
- 76. that instant against his breast brought him to terms, however. There followed a little farewell scene between him and his wife, who poured bottles of wrath on the heads of the "bluecoats," and our captive— my captive—was hurried to the guardhouse at the camp. It had been a perfectly bloodless encounter, but next morning it turned out that I had by chance captured one of the most dangerous guerrillas in Missouri.
- 77. CHAPTER II We leave Missouri and go South—The prisoners of Donelson—The taking of New Madrid—"Kindly bury this unfortunate officer"—Quaker guns at Shiloh —The killing of the colonel. It was a trifling incident, this capture, compared with the dreadful things I have referred to as going on in Missouri that memorable first year of the Civil War. A great volume would not contain the record of them all. The first dead men I saw while in the army were eight Missouri farmers murdered by guerrillas and left lying in the hot sun and dust at the roadside. The sight moved me as no great battle ever did afterward. One half of the male population of Missouri was trying to kill the other half. They were not opponents from different far-off sections fighting, but near neighbors, and nothing seemed too awful or too cruel for them to do. How I pitied the women and children who lived in the State in those awful days! General Sherman's designation of war as "hell" found more confirmation in the dreadful raids, outrages, and murders by Quantrell's guerrillas in Missouri than in the bloodiest battles of the four years' conflict. Now for months my regiment, with others, had chased up and down, and all over that unhappy old State of Missouri, trying to capture and punish these bands of murderers. On the old steamboat War Eagle, too, we paddled for weeks along the "Muddy Missouri" River, landing every here and there to have a little brush with guerrillas who had fired on our boat from the banks or from secret recesses in the woods. It was rare that we could catch them or have a real fight. Their kind of war meant ambuscades and murder. At last an end came to this dreadful guerrilla-chasing business in Missouri so far as we were concerned, anyway. We were to stop
- 78. running after Price's ubiquitous army too. We were no longer to be the victims of ambuscades and night riding murderers. The glad news came to my regiment that we were to be transferred to the South, where the real war was. One morning we left the cold and snow, where we had lived and shivered in thin tents all the winter, left the thankless duty of patrolling railroads in the storm at midnight, and marched in the direction of St. Louis. A long, cold, miserable march it was too, hurrying in the daytime and freezing in our bivouacs in the snow and woods at night. Many a man we left to sicken and die at some farmhouse by the roadside. Our destination was New Madrid, where we were to be a part of Pope's army in the siege and capture of that town. As we were about to embark on boats at St. Louis we beheld in the snow and storm many steamers anchored out in the pitiless waters of the Mississippi River. These vessels were loaded with shivering thousands in gray and brown uniforms, the prisoners whom General Grant had captured at the battle of Fort Donelson. There were twelve or fifteen thousand of them. Seeing this host of prisoners made us feel that at last the Union army had a general, although we had scarcely heard of U. S. Grant before. This army of prisoners taken in battle was his introduction to the world. Shortly we were before New Madrid, and the siege conducted by General Pope commenced. The town was defended by strong forts and many cannon, but its speedy capture by us helped to open up the Mississippi River. It was a new experience to us, to have cannonballs come rolling right into our camp occasionally. Yet few men were injured by them. We were in more danger when a fool officer one day took our brigade of infantry down through a cornfield to assault a gunboat that lay in a creek close by. The Rebel commander had expected us, and had his grape shot and his hot water hose, and such things all ready for us. We went out of that cornfield faster than we went in. This was real war, the thing
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