With over 2,000 undergraduate majors, the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS) has been exploring how to better support first year students, especially those from diverse backgrounds. The story starts with the creation of SPACE: Supporting Peer Academic Commitment and Excellence, a peer mentoring program founded in 2016 by faculty member Christina Metevier. The program accepted 20 mentor/mentee pairs, incorporating weekly group meetings and community building activities as well as one-on-one mentoring.
In Fall 2024 a new model for improving first year student success and retention was piloted by faculty members Lori Astheimer and Amanda Hamel. This model expanded SPACE by incorporating it into Psych 103: Navigating Psychology (a 300+ student class that introduces new majors to opportunities, career paths, and faculty in PBS). Twenty outstanding juniors and seniors served a dual role as Psych 103 Tas and SPACE mentors. This gave all Psych 103 students the option to join SPACE in a small group mentoring format. The Fall 2024 pilot accepted 84 mentees and by the semester’s end, 94% of mentees would recommend SPACE to other students. Students also reported that they preferred the small group mentoring format as a chance to connect with their peers.
For Fall 2025, a new $20,000 Provost’s Office Grant gave the program leaders the ability to expand SPACE, incorporating community building events, new small group mentoring activities, and better outreach initiatives. Further goals include encouraging students from underserved groups to join SPACE, using federal work-study funds to help recruit a more diverse group of mentors, and focusing on building experiential learning opportunities with mentor/mentee pairs of shared life experience.
The fall semester welcomed the largest SPACE cohort yet, with 112 mentees, and survey data showed very positive experiences overall and a greater sense of belonging in the major. With the new option to select work study versus academic credit in place, mentor recruitment improved dramatically, especially among first-generation college students. The program is continuing this spring with a new cohort of 95 mentees.
Since Psych 103 and this new SPACE format were introduced, retention rates among first year psychology majors have been steadily improving. Future directions for Navigating Psychology and SPACE include encouraging more students from underserved groups to join SPACE, expanding recruitment efforts led by past mentors, and exploring mentoring support for transfer students and upper-level psychology majors.