UTM course helps students boost leadership skills while mentoring first-year peers
“The minute you enter a student leadership role, your world opens up,” says Said Sidani, and he should know. The UTM alumnus and former student leader has returned to his alma mater to lead a unique course that trains student mentors to help incoming students make a smooth transition to university life.
Sidani (BA 2014, MA 2017) discovered his own passion for student leadership during his undergraduate years at UTM where his experience as a student leader and residence don inspired him to pursue a career in teaching. He went on to earn a masters in curriculum studies and teacher development, and is currently a PhD candidate with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at U of T.
This fall, Sidani is teaching Why the First Year of University Matters: The Impact of Peer Mentoring (EDS377H5), an upper-year undergraduate course offered through UTM’s Department of Language Studies’ education studies minor program. The course combines student development pedagogy with a semester-long internship placement that helps first-year student find their place at UTM.
Student mentors enrolled in the course explore contemporary issues in higher education, with a focus on experiences, issues and challenges commonly encountered by students during their first year of university. Through in-class lectures and assignments, the course cover topics like how to facilitate tough conversations, create group programming, and how to meet the unique needs of students from diverse backgrounds.
“Students think about who they are working with and how they can best support them in a lesson they develop themselves,” Sidani says. “They’re designing a curriculum with activities and earning outcomes. They get to apply what they’ve learned and demonstrate their knowledge of the cohort they’re working with.”
Sidani’s students put those theories into practice during a semester-long internship placement as mentors with the LAUNCH Leadership program.
Run by UTM’s Centre for Student Engagement, the LAUNCH program serves about 500 incoming undergraduate students each year, helping to connect new students with academic peers, resources and supports available on campus. Upper-year student mentors, known as Launch Leaders, are matched with new students to deliver orientation programs and friendly check-ins throughout the fall semester.
“Launch provides that community support and understanding about how to navigate UTM,” says Jackie Goodman, who oversees CSE’s orientation programs. “It builds community and creates a new confidence in their identity as a student.”
Student mentors play a pivotal role in student transition. “High school students are moving into a very new environment,” Sidani says. “They’re going to experience a range of issues.”
The initiative helps to connect new students, but the mentors are learning, too. About half of the Launch leaders are also enrolled in the First Year Matters course. CSE offers training to all volunteer mentors, but student leaders who are also enrolled in Sidani’s First Year Matters course will bring an extra level of knowledge to the position.
“This course helps mentors make sense of their role, while infusing it with theory and research in the area of student engagement,” says Sidani. “This course gives students the chance to write about this work, reflect on it and earn a course credit.”
“The support that the student leader receives through this course will help them excel in their role, which will in turn help their own mentees,” he says.
First Year Matters offers a great foundation for future teachers, but Sidani notes that the course also opens the door to careers that students may not have considered before, including roles in higher education and student development. This fall, Sidani's students will hear from a virtual panel of student affairs professionals from institutions across Canada to learn more about their work in supporting student success.
“A student advisor or engagement coordinator might come from a variety of disciplines, but may end up wanting to work in this field because of their involvement in extracurricular life at university,” he says.
“There’s value in studying education—it crosses all disciplines,” he says. “You can take those skills into any workplace and apply them to understand how your team is functioning, or how you’re interacting with each other.”
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