Bethel Ed­u­ca­tion Stu­dents Con­tinue Re­cently-De­vel­oped Men­tor­ing Pro­gram 

MISHAWAKA— Bethel Uni­ver­si­ty’s De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion is con­tin­u­ing the men­tor­ing pro­gram it be­gan last school year. The pro­gram matches up­per­class­men ed­u­ca­tion ma­jors with un­der­class­men ed­u­ca­tion ma­jors, giv­ing the ed­u­ca­tion stu­dents a built-in way to give and re­ceive men­tor­ing with the peo­ple most likely to un­der­stand the pro­gram and need ad­vice for mov­ing for­ward. Ac­cord­ing to Ed­u­ca­tion Club Of­fi­cer Sarah Koontz, the de­part­ment is plan­ning for this pro­gram to be avail­able through­out the whole school year and hopes it will gain more in­ter­est. 

Koontz said the pro­gram still has more men­tor­ing spots avail­able for this se­mes­ter, so the club is leav­ing the QR in­vi­ta­tions open for a lit­tle longer. 

“Oct. 31 we’re hav­ing a meet and greet for men­tors and mentees,” Koontz said. “So, what hap­pens is they fill out the google form from the QR, and it asks about their spe­cial in­ter­est so that we can pair up a men­tor and mentee that have sim­i­lar in­ter­ests. Then, on Oct. 31, they get to meet and learn in­for­ma­tion about each other.” 

Koontz said the pro­gram is a ben­e­fit to the de­part­ment be­cause it of­fers ben­e­fits for both the men­tors and the mentees. 

“From the men­tor per­spec­tive, it’s to just be able to serve other peo­ple in the ed­u­ca­tion ma­jor, to give ad­vice and knowl­edge that we have and things that we wish we would have known when we were un­der­class­men,” Koontz said. “Men­tor­ing is just to help them in the way that they need help and to build com­mu­nity within the Ed­u­ca­tion De­part­ment.” 

Dil­lion Watkins is an un­der­class­man ed­u­ca­tion ma­jor who also sees great value in this form of men­tor­ship and how it em­pha­sizes the com­mu­nity the Ed­u­ca­tion Club wants to cul­ti­vate. 

“When it comes to the Ed­u­ca­tion De­part­ment, I feel like, es­pe­cially the pro­fes­sors, they’re the best pro­fes­sors on cam­pus,” Watkins said. “From the up­per­class­men that I’ve talked to, they say it’s just a lov­ing com­mu­nity. Every­body sup­port­ing each other es­pe­cially with stu­dent teach­ing, can be a big stres­sor, it can be a big change . . . hav­ing that sup­port group kind of men­tors for these un­der­class­men is re­ally im­por­tant for them to feel not only com­fort­able but to pur­sue their ed­u­ca­tion and be a teacher, but also not to freak out think­ing about fu­ture things com­ing.”  

If you are in­ter­ested in sign­ing up for the pro­gram, scan one of the QR codes on the posters around cam­pus, or email sarah.koontz@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu for more in­for­ma­tion.