News Release

Native Voice, 2002:
There were eight Northern Arizona University students who served as e-mentors. E-mentoring was a program that introduced middle school students from San Juan School District to Native American students attending Northern Arizona University.

E-mentoring is an also educational program, with the goal of enabling Native American students in the San Juan School District to have access to information and resources that may not otherwise be made available to them. E-mentoring gave students the opportunity to provide college level role models and developed important learning relationships.

The San Juan students participate in the GEAR-UP or Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. Middle school students remain in the program through high school. The program offers them early college awareness activities, challenging academic curriculum, financial aid information, scholarships, academic advising, and career exploration activities, mentoring, and tutoring.

How We Work:
The key component of the E-mentoring program is the positive role modeling provided by matching students with carefully selected mentors. When an e-mentoring profile sheet is submitted to EEOP, the sheet is forwarded to the GEAR UP Coordinator at San Juan School District, UT. Hereafter, the profile sheet is reviewed and a mentee is assigned to the mentor. This process takes approximately two weeks.

After the mentor and mentee match, the GEAR UP Coordinator will email the mentor and mentee directly informing them of this match. Thereafter, the mentoring process can begin. The role of the EEOP E-mentoring coordinator is to train and orient the mentors to EEOP and the E-mentoring program. The E-mentoring coordinator will also maintain updates of the mentoring relationships, thus it is critical for the mentors to provide this information to the E-mentoring coordinator.