22 aBout Campus / JulY–august 2011

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com)© 2011 by American College Personnel Association and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DOI: 10.1002/abc.20064

it’s a familiar siGht on many colleGe campuses, espe-cially at the beginning of a new term—the classic involvement fair. it may be called by different names on different campuses, but it is essentially the same wherever you see it. a collection of tables and displays are arrayed in a large open space where interested par-ties can walk up and learn the details of a myriad of different opportunities. i went to one of these when i was an undergraduate, and i have participated in the planning of more than a few during my time work-ing in student affairs. for those of us who are driven by a passion for helping students connect and engage with our institutions, there are few experiences that give us such an up close and personal view of student involvement. Before our very eyes, we watch new relationships form and new interests develop. maybe the reason we all do some version of an involvement fair is because it always seems to work. perhaps it is that it works so well that we so often fail to ask a very important question, “does it work for everyone?”

in a recent issue of About Campus, Joseph murray wrote, “i wonder if the predominant personality traits of those who enter the field have led us to favor forms of campus involvement that advance only a much nar-

rower definition of personal development than we have come to embrace in our rhetoric.” Clearly, pro-grams like an involvement fair are designed for extro-verts—people who aren’t hesitant to break the ice with someone they don’t know. perhaps it is as murray suggests; it is our own personality types that lead us to design programs of this sort. perhaps it is the lack of perceived viable alternatives. at stephen f. austin state university in Nacogdoches, texas, we have cre-ated a concept called peer involvement advising that may provide just such an alternative.

in addition to potentially limiting the types of stu-dents we reach, a growing number of student affairs scholar-practitioners are also concerned about whether we are able to deliver the student learning promised through involvement on campus. When students engage in the cocurriculum, a very small minority actually participate in programs that are advised by stu-dent affairs professionals. additionally, most stumble into this involvement in ways that are guided by forces other than a desire for enrichment and learning.

in Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter, george d. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John h. schuh, elizabeth J. Whitt, and associates write, “many colleges claim to provide high-quality learning envi-ronments for their students. . . . too often, however,

Peer Involvement Advisors Improve First-Year Student Engagement and Retention

Adam Peck describes the Peer Involvement Advising Program at Stephen F. Austin State University.

By Adam Peck

iN praCtiCe

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such experiences are products of serendipity or efforts on the part of students themselves. . . . moreover, for every student who has such an experience, there are others who do not connect in meaningful ways with their teachers and their peers, or take advantage of learning opportunities. as a result, many students leave school prematurely, or put so little effort into their learning that they fall short of benefiting from college to the extent they should” (pp. 9–10). put simply, the “curriculum” of the cocurriculum often lacks the kind of intentionality and coordination of our academic counterpart. again, this may be due to a perceived lack of viable alternatives.

the invo l v emen t Center and peer involve-ment advising program at stephen f. austin state university were developed to address these impor-tant and persistent prob-lems in higher education. early indications are that the program is quite effec-tive in doing so. in its sec-ond full year of existence, the involvement Center is exceeding expectations and may provide a unique model for deeply engaging both outgoing and introverted students and providing them with a means to prime future learning through their experiences.

the iNvolvemeNt CeNter

We liken the involvement center to an involvement fair everyday, where students are exposed to a

wide variety of opportunities to lead and learn beyond the classroom. While the center is open to anyone, it predominantly serves new students. the center is an important part of our comprehensive first-year experi-ence. students are drawn into the space by sandwich boards advertising daily events, signups for a wide vari-ety of programs, and the promise of something called

“involvement advising.” it is this last piece that has proven most effective in cultivating the engagement of our students.

the concept of peer advising is nothing new. and yet, the concept of peer involvement advising appears to be a novel approach. in a fairly compre-hensive search of literature and websites, i’ve found nothing exactly like our program. in their book Stu-dents Helping Students, fred B. Newton and steven C. ender provide a number of examples of how colleges and universities use peer educators. from peer aca-

demic advisors to resident assistants and peer-to-peer health programs, the list seems to be exhaustive. the lack of any discussion of involvement advising both here and elsewhere seems to bolster the claim that our program may be quite unique.

W e m o d e l e d o u r process on the peer aca-demic advising concept. peer involvement advi-sors are trained to be a resource on any number of programs, not just those within student affairs. a typical involvement advis-

ing session begins with a discussion guide we call “the menu.” it is actually set up like a menu you would see in a restaurant, with opportunities divided into appetiz-ers, main course, and desserts. the appetizers are one-time opportunities like a weekend service program or a camping trip sponsored by the outdoor pursuits program. a main course is involvement that contin-ues throughout the year and perhaps even throughout the students’ time at the university, such as a yearlong leadership program, student organization, or fraternity/sorority. the desserts section allows students to take the advice of stephen Covey and “Begin with the end in mind.” programs like the service honors and lead-ership and service awards are listed to let students see from the onset the outcomes they may achieve.

peer advisors begin their discussion with each advisee by asking, “What are you looking to get out of your involvement on campus.” typical goals may include meeting people or finding ways to spend their free time. the usual follow-up question is “What do you hope to learn?” this question often throws new students for a loop. many have honestly not thought about their involvement outside of the classroom as

Adam Peck is dean of student affairs at stephen f. austin state university. he earned a doctor of philosophy degree in higher education administration at the university of texas at austin.

We love feeback. send letters to executive editor Jean m. henscheid (aboutcampus@uidaho.edu), and please copy her on notes to authors.

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being a learning opportunity. i think this is one of the most unique potentials of the involvement advising concept, that we are able to let students know at the beginning of their involvement experience that they can expect to learn something from it, and share our learning outcomes to give them an idea of what they will learn.

advisors walk each student through the full menu of opportunities and provide input on the variety of programs in which the advisee expresses interest. once they identify a few possibilities, together they discuss how to balance involvement with their overall responsibilities as a student. there is space in the “menu” to write in the student’s class and work schedule so the student can see how much time he or she devotes to cocurricular experiences.

as you might guess, while the structure we provide helps us deliver consistent advising, there is no such thing as a “typical” involvement advising ses-sion. involvement advisors have connected students to programs as varied as inter-collegiate athletics and academic assistance programs and even connected a student displaying some con-cerning behavior with our counseling services.

impACt oN the Advisee

in the first year, the program conducted more than 100 peer involvement advising sessions. among first-

year students who participated, the retention rate for fall to spring was 95 percent. When compared to the university’s overall fall-to-spring retention rate of 89 percent for first-year students, this was a tremendous success. Nearly 86 percent of all students who had a peer involvement advising session were able to connect with a student organization, and about 72 percent were still involved a semester later.

at stephen f. austin state university, first-generation status has been an important variable in first-year attrition. according to the university’s one Year retention report, there is a strong con-nection between family degree attainment and a student’s likelihood of staying enrolled. retention rates for first-year, first-generation students were 5.7

points lower than rates for students who were not first-generation.

the involvement Center provides an easy, low-risk resource for helping first-generation college stu-dents to connect with university resources of which they might not otherwise be aware. it also offers this information peer-to-peer. students express more com-fort with posing these questions to their fellow students than to a professional staff member. Newton and ender suggest, “at times, students may feel reluctant and even embarrassed to admit they need help. therefore,

peer educators can play a significant role in provid-ing objective and reassur-ing information about the resources available” (p. 249).

among students who participated in the peer advising process, 91 per-cent said that it made them feel more connected to the university. eighty-two percent said that it made them more likely to seek leadership roles in the future, and 92 percent said that it made them more aware of what they were learning from their cocur-

ricular experiences. additionally, 87.5 percent said that the program helped them keep their schoolwork, social life, and cocurricular experiences in balance. these are difficult outcomes to achieve for some very tricky problems in student affairs.

BuildiNg oN our suCCess

in our second year, we created a partnership with the first Year seminar program that strongly encouraged

instructors to require a peer involvement advising ses-sion for students in their courses. as a result, we nearly tripled the number of tracked involvement advising sessions. When it came time to check the retention rate of students in the program, our expectation was that it would go down. We expected that having students who engaged in advising who did not “self-select” and who may not have even wanted to participate would lower the impact of the program. We also expected that as the number of participants grew, we might lose some of the personal touch that made the program spe-cial. We were once again surprised and excited when we learned that despite the growth in the number of

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participants, the fall-to-spring retention numbers of this year’s group grew to 97.1 percent. We credit this to the strong continuity of advising from year one to year two and the positive connection between new students and their involved peers.

in comparison to other first-year programs, not surprisingly, students who had gone through involve-ment advising were more likely than students in any other program to indicate that they were informed about opportunities to get involved on campus. they were also significantly more inclined to return and more committed to graduation than participants in other first-year programs. there were some ancillary effects we couldn’t fully explain but that were none-theless interesting. they were more likely than their peers to be able to name two academic resources to help them succeed even though these resources were not generally discussed in involvement advising sessions. they were also significantly more likely to have seen their academic advisor.

in the future, we hope to expand the number of advisees we can see while keeping the personal con-nection that we believe has driven our success. We plan to do this by building upon the connection to the freshman seminar program. With retention of first-year students among the highest priorities of the freshman seminar, and with the involvement Center providing such compelling results, we are hopeful that more of the program’s faculty will take advantage.

impACt oN the Advisor

as With other peer advisinG proGrams, there are benefits for the advisors as well. first, many of our peer advi-

sors are paid minimum wage. each advisor is sched-uled for ten hours per week. this was accomplished by sweeping underutilized student-worker positions from a number of areas. additionally, officers for a student organization called traditions Council volunteered to work ten office hours per week in the involvement Center. each student undergoes training prior to serv-ing as a peer involvement advisor.

But there are learning benefits as well. in a sur-vey of all ten of our advisors, the students unanimously concluded that they were more likely to seek leader-ship experiences as a result of serving as an involvement advisor. they also expressed increased appreciation for

diversity, improved listening skills, and a greater sense of connection between their learning and personal development and their participation in cocurricular experiences.

since many involvement advisors are student lead-ers on campus, this has helped this idea spread to our student organizations. i have been excited to see more and more of our student groups thinking in terms of learning outcomes and coaching each other to make sure their programs are intentional learning experi-ences. though there was no way to plan for the syn-ergism that would occur, the impact of peer-to-peer learning is by no means confined within the walls of the involvement Center.

CoNClusioN

When i have had the occasion to speak with colleagues and friends about this concept, there is often a

moment where we wonder at the relative simplicity of this concept and why we didn’t devise something like this on our campuses decades ago. for me, i know that the financial limitations of the current economic situa-tion definitely made me think in ways i hadn’t before about how to get the most out of our students.

perhaps this is just an idea whose time has come. as we as a profession engage in ongoing dis-cussion about how to make involvement on campus meaningful and designed to meet the needs of all of our students, it is my hope that others will find the involvement Center/peer involvement advising model useful. it may not be as flashy or visually stun-ning as the pageantry of an involvement fair, but the potential of this concept to reach students who might not otherwise engage is exciting in its own right.

Notes

Covey, s. r (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New York: fireside Books.

Kuh, g. d., Kinzie, J., schuh, J. h., Whitt, e. J., & associates. (2005). Student success in college: Creating con-ditions that matter. san francisco, Ca: Jossey-Bass and american association for higher education.

murray, J. l. (2010). When involvement becomes busyness. About Campus, 15(5), 9–16.

Newton, f. B., & ender, s. C. (2005). Students helping students: A guide for peer educators on college campuses. san francisco, Ca: Jossey-Bass.