Community Mentors plan pancake breakfast

Foster Quad residents enjoyed pancakes Sunday at the Pre-Spring Break Beach Bod Pancake Breakfast sponsored by the Foster Community Mentors.

Community Mentors are first-year students living in Foster Quad who help plan programming for the residence hall as well as create bulletin boards. This year, Foster Quad is the only residence center with Community Mentors, but there used to be students in this position at McNutt.

“Foster is unique because we have this specific model,” said Wil Dalton, graduate student and Community Mentor supervisor. “Because we have so many first-year students, this model works best to give us a better idea of programming needs for the students.”

For instance, having first-year students in a programming role would not be functional in Union Street Center because that population is mostly upper classmen, Dalton said.

Placing freshmen in this role can also be a challenge because they are more inexperienced in programming, Dalton said.

“We had five days of training before school started,” Community Mentor Greg Watson said. “In the beginning it was a little intimidating planning large scale events. But what makes us different is that we were ready to come in and do that.”

The Community Mentors applied for the position during the summer and were selected based on their programming experience in high school. They receive a financial compensation for their work in the residence hall.

In their role in programming, Community Mentors learn skills ranging from marketing to communication.

“You definitely learn about advertising,” Watson said. “Putting events on in high school was different because they weren’t for as many people. Now we are planning events for 400 to 500 people. You learn how to deal with people.”

For the pancake breakfast, the Community Mentors divided up the tasks such as advertising, writing a bill for student government, reserving a location and shopping for food, Watson said.

Becoming a Community Mentor can also prompt these students to get more involved in other aspects of the IU community.

“I am now an Orientation Leader, and I normally wouldn’t have done that,” Watson said. “There are only five Community Mentors to plan for all of Foster. If I can handle that, I can handle anything.”

“I like getting involved in the community at Foster,” Community Mentor Monica Hernandez said. “You meet a lot of new people. There was an initial incentive because we got money for housing. But now it’s our job.”