Guiding Peers to Success

Peer Mentoring Program (GPS)

Frostburg State University’s Guiding Peers to Success (GPS) program is a part of Maryland’s ABCs for Student Success: Advising, Belonging, and Coaching grant.

The University System of Maryland Office (USMO) has partnered with 11 USM institutions to work to advance student success goals of Vision 2030, the USM’s strategic plan, promoting retention and graduation among historically underrepresented students in the USM. In September 2023, the P–20 office applied for funding through the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED’s) Postsecondary Student Success Grant (PSSG) program. In December 2023, the Department announced that our application, Maryland’s ABCs for Student Success: Advising, Belonging, and Coaching (P116M230035) won almost $4 million, the maximum amount for “early-phase” grants, with work slated to run from January 2024 through December 2027.

The purpose of the PSSG program is to equitably improve postsecondary student outcomes, including retention, transfer (including successful transfer of completed credits), credit accumulation, and completion, by leveraging data and implementing, scaling, and rigorously evaluating evidence-based activities to support data-driven decisions and actions by institutional leaders committed to inclusive student success. ED requires that the grant program focus on “underserved” students, that is, students living in poverty, students of color, disabled students, first-generation students, students enrolling for the first time over the age of 20, full-time working students, or Pell-eligible students, among others. The ABCs project further tailors its scope to students who are new to their university, that is, first-years, transfer students, and new graduate students (“first time at this college” or FTIC). The goals for the ABCs project are to increase program participants’ credit accumulation, retention rates, GPA, and sense of belonging at their university. To achieve these goals, the ABCs project the ABCs project will support the implementation of a new peer mentoring program at each participating USM university.

In 2024 Fall, our pilot semester, we recruited 66 mentees and hired 9 mentors. We plan to recruit additional mentees for Spring 2025 to supplement our Academic Pathways Program (APP), which serves second semester students on academic probation.

Program Outcome Goals

Retention: Increase the percentage of students retained year over year.
Credit Attainment: Increase the percentage of students attaining a specific percentage of credits attempted.
Student Engagement: Ensure students engage with peer mentors at least three times per year.
Student Success: Improve student success indicators such as GPA, course completion rates, and graduation rates.
Support Services Awareness: Increase student awareness and utilization of support services.
Connect to Advising: Create connections to the advising department.
Create Referral System: Foster warm handoff between students and support services on campus.
Community Building: Foster a sense of community and belonging among students.
Self-Advocacy and Resource Utilization: Enhance students' ability to self-advocate and utilize campus resources effectively.
Personal and Academic Goal Setting: Help students develop and achieve personal and academic goals.
Program Evaluation and Improvement: Conduct regular evaluations of the program to ensure continuous improvement.

Expectation for Mentees

Mentees are to be recruited the summer before each fall semester starts and at the beginning of the following spring semester as needed.
Mentees within this program meet with their peer mentor biweekly. They have to opportunity to meet more as needed.
Mentees must be first-year students.