The transition from high school to university is often a challenging one that includes many adjustments. This transition can be especially challenging when an undergraduate or graduate student moves to another country and/or continent for their education. Studying in a…

Making College “Worth It” – Season 1, Episode 2 In a 2021 survey conducted by the Elon University Poll and the Center for Engaged Learning, 54.5% of recent college graduates indicated that they’d encountered meaningful relationships with faculty or staff…

Infants’ first attempts in learning to walk are characterized by enthusiastic, wholehearted, but unbalanced steps that frequently result in many falls. Learning this novel skill is influenced by the child’s developmental history, or prior experiences, such as being held in…

Polar bears and their mothers have a unique relationship throughout their development. Research has shown that a polar bear cub stays with its mother as it develops, but it is left alone to fend for itself after two years (“When…

I grew up on a mountainside in rural Appalachia and spent nearly every day of my childhood playing outside. Being from a low-income family and surrounded by the natural world, I entertained myself by exploring plants, animals, soil, water, and…

60-Second SoTL – Episode 24 This week’s episode features an open-access article from the Journal of Further and Higher Education and examines how relational supports and peer mentors can improve access to university for students from marginalized communities: McNally, Sinéad, Paul Downes, Laura…

Sense of belonging is a key predictor of student success for college students (Strayhorn 2008; 2012). This sense of belonging can be enhanced when students find peers that they can identify with and develop relationships with (Gravett and Winstone 2020;…

Mentoring relationships develop in relationship-rich environments (Vandermaas-Peeler and Moore 2022). In higher education contexts, they might evolve from other meaningful relationships like teaching, advising, supervising, and coaching, but they require time to become more reciprocal and mutually beneficial (Mullen and…

60-Second SoTL – Episode 7 This week’s episode features a recent article from the open-access International Journal for Students as Partners and explores how a group mentorship scheme with students, alumni, and staff supports student learning in a distance education experience:…

In part 1 of this blog series, we introduced mentoring as more than (just) having a cup of coffee, and in part 2, we shared snapshots from our own experiences with mentoring relationships. In this final post in the series,…