Mentoring honors students
The Media School has two honors cohorts: Ernie Pyle Scholars for students in the journalism degree, and Media Scholars for students in the media, game design and cinematic arts degrees.
Each incoming cohort of honors students has a faculty mentor who teaches them two honors classes, travels with them domestically and internationally, and mentors them throughout their four-year IU career. Serving as a faculty mentor gives you the opportunity to work closely with an exclusive cohort of top-performing students, building a unique relationship with them and tracking their progress from incoming freshmen to graduating seniors.
Expectations
As a faculty mentor, you work closely with the honors director to help administer the program and supervise your cohort of students. Your specific schedule of responsibilities includes the following:
Freshman year
- Attend the freshman honors kick-off meeting and dinner during orientation week (typically the Wednesday or Thursday evening prior to the first day of classes).
- Teach your cohort their freshman honors seminar (H110 or H111) at the beginning of fall semester. This is a one-credit, eight-week course that meets for 75 minutes, typically on a Tuesday or Thursday evening. The course builds the relationships between the students and with their faculty mentor. The class curriculum is highly flexible and at your discretion — many faculty design the course around an introduction to college life and a review of various campus facilities and resources. There is not an overload payment to faculty for this brief course — instead, compensation is the six weeks in London program immediately after sophomore year, as highlighted below.
- Travel during spring break as field assistant with the cohort one year ahead of yours. Ernie Pyle students go to the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Media Scholar students go to New York City. Trip runs Monday-Friday of spring break week.
Sophomore year
- Maintain relationship with your cohort, checking in with them occasionally and helping make sure they are meeting honors requirements for graduation.
- Lead your cohort’s trip to Florida/New York over spring break. It is mandatory for your cohort of students to participate in this trip. You will be assisted by the faculty mentor of the cohort one year behind yours, just as you have assisted the trip during your previous year.
- Travel with your cohort to London for the six-week Summer in London program, which begins the weekend immediately after finals week. During your time in London, you will live in your own furnished apartment in the same building as the students. You receive both a salary and living expenses stipend, as well as roundtrip travel costs between U.S.-U.K. In London, you will provide or attend educational activities two days a week and help oversee students’ internships. You need to stay in London the entire six-week period, including weekends, so you are available to students and can respond quickly in case of emergency. However, after the program concludes, you are free to travel (i.e., you do not accompany students up & back between U.S.-U.K).
Junior year
- Maintain relationship with your cohort, checking in with them occasionally and helping make sure they are meeting honors requirements for graduation.
- Potentially help escort a one-night trip to Chicago with your cohort, typically in February.
Senior year
- Maintain relationship with your cohort, checking in with them occasionally and helping make sure they are meeting honors requirements for graduation.
- Teach honors capstone class for your cohort during spring semester of their senior year. This is a three-credit class that counts as part of your regular course load for the semester — it replaces another class you would usually teach in the spring and is not an overload. The curriculum is flexible and is typically either a research paper or other type of creative project. (Ernie Pyle students often need a research paper option in this course to meet research requirements in the journalism major.) Note that you might also have student(s) in your cohort who will need to do this class as a fall semester independent study under your supervision if they are not on campus in the spring semester or are graduating early.
