New Programs and Initiatives

The Ryerson Tri-Mentoring Program

Ryerson University is developing a new program that addresses and minimizes the unique challenges of many students in Ryerson’s multicultural community. The Tri-Mentoring Program will help non-anglophone, first generation or recent immigrant students during their transition into post-secondary education and as they prepare to career-related employment. The program endeavours to enhance the rates of retention and employability of a historically disadvantaged population by addressing the factors related to their attrition and securing employment.

Liz Devine, Manager of Skills Development at Student Services sees the program as having a series of evolving three-year cycles, featuring both support and developmental growth activities to strengthen these two most critical junctures in a student’s academic career.

Participating first year students will be matched with third year students who will assist them in a culturally-based transition into the Ryerson community. Mentor support will focus on enhancing retention through assistance with academic, social and cultural adaptation to university life. The students’ second year in the program provides them with leadership and career development training, through enrollment in a “Student Leadership Program”. Training modules will include Peer Helping, Diversity, Teamwork and Communication. In the students’ third year the cycle will begin again as participants are encouraged to become mentors to first year students. They will gain industry knowledge and employability skills, develop career-boosting attitudes, and undertake leadership roles. In their fourth year, students are matched with alumni working in their field of study. Alumni are expected to facilitate the students’ transition into the work force and to provide networking opportunities. Once they have graduated, Devine hopes that their involvement in the program will continue, and that they will eventually take on a role as an Alumni mentor themselves.

Ryerson has a diverse community with students representing 124 countries and speaking more than 15 different languages. The majority of students are first generation Canadians and/or newcomers to Canada. Linguistic or cultural traditions can often be barriers for some groups of students and limit their abilities to access the variety of opportunities available to them. Many students cite language difficulties, a lack of familial understanding of the challenges they face and a lack of awareness of the community and peer-support services available to them; these factors can contribute to decisions to discontinue their studies. Alumni and graduating students from these identified groups say that they often encounter related setbacks to finding employment. The Tri-Mentoring Program recognizes the multiple levels where support is needed and structures a framework in which to provide it.

In its first year, the Tri-Mentoring Program, co-ordinated through The Career Centre, will partner with Ryerson’s English Language Centre, the Centre for Student Development and Counselling, the Alumni Department, and International Services for Students to pilot the program to students who speak English as a second language. In subsequent years, it will reach out to all students entering Ryerson as non-anglophones, first generation Canadians, or recent immigrants to Canada.

As the program integrates itself into all units within Student Services (including Housing Services, Disability Services, Aboriginal Services, and Athletics), it will compliment the University’s current decentralized and often informal mentoring activities by enhancing their quality, capacity, and scale. At the same time, it will install a centralized mentoring program which can be accessed by the entire university community.

The Tri-Mentoring Program will be developed with assistance from Skills for Change, a pioneer of sector-specific employment preparation programs, and a leader in developing mentoring programs which assist foreign trained professionals.

The Counselling Foundation of Canada is funding the Ryerson Tri-Mentoring Program as part of a National Mentoring Initiative in partnership with a number of other post-secondary institutions and community agencies across Canada.

Liz Devine
Manager,
Skills Deveopment,
Student Services
Ryerson University

By Rod Paynter

New Residential-Intensive Life Skills Coach Training

RPC Consulting, in partnership with Life Skills Unlimited Development Institute Inc., is offering a one month Residential-Intensive Life Skills Coach Training at the Sorrento Retreat and Conference Centre on Shuswap Lake in south central BC. The program will run from March 14 to April 13, 2001. Over 240 hours of training includes full group, small group and individual work and assignments, peer coaching and a two day hands-on practicum experience.

In this specially crafted training, learning takes place on two parallel tracks. The “Student” track walks participants through the skills and lessons that they will eventually deliver to their own groups. The “Coach” track examines the skills, knowledge and preparation that make Student lessons work. Participants thus work with their own experience as their grounding for understanding the design and delivery of structured experiences for others.

Underlying the Student/Coach process is an exploration of mindfulness. Participants will begin to develop the non-anxious presence that truly makes space for learning and growth in themselves and in others.

This residential-intensive session offers an opportunity to gain certification as a Life Skills Coach in a 31 day period. Participants and training staff will live in residence at Sorrento Retreat and Conference Centre. The Sorrento Centre facility offers private, ensuite rooms, a varied menu, including celiac-intolerant and vegetarian options, acres of woodland trails and a private beach.

Rod Paynter is a Life Skills coach trainer and leadership consultant working out of Naramata, BC. He brings a wholistic perspective to his work and is a fervent student of spirit and inside out leadership. He offers practical tools for growing the inner leader.