Community Advocates

The Community Advocates Program was developed as part of a series of actions known as the LIFT (Listen, Invest, Facilitate, Teach) Initiative. Achieving LIFT’s aims will support ASU’s ongoing efforts to develop and advance a culture of belonging and excellence. Students serving as community advocates will be designing, recruiting for and facilitating a peer mentor group for first-year graduate students across different fields of study.

Learn more about the peer mentor groups hosted by the 2024-25 Community Advocates.

Research on mentorship in graduate education has provided evidence that peer mentorship can be supportive of a sense of wellbeing and community for graduate students and is therefore very impactful in the experience of first-year graduate students.

The Graduate School at the University of Washington provides the following takeaways from experienced graduate student mentors:

• A peer mentor draws from their authentic voice as an experienced graduate student to listen and connect with you on a human level.
• A peer mentor opens a space for the mentee to drive the mentoring relationship in terms of frequency of meetings, what to talk and not talk about, and any goal setting.
• A peer mentor does not try to be your best friend or counselor and encourages you to grow a mentoring and support team of faculty, colleagues, and when needed and appropriate, licensed mental health care professionals.
• A peer mentor is not a problem solver, yet will reflect back to you potential options and refer you to campus and community resources.
• A peer mentor has “gone through it too,” and you do not need to put on your best face when seeking peer support.
• A peer mentor acknowledges that while all grads and professional students go through imposter syndrome, it is experienced differently based on race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability.
• A peer mentor shares wisdom on cultivating healthy norms (validating small and big milestones) versus unhealthy norms (“the comparison game”) in graduate school.
• A peer mentor appreciates and learns from the knowledge and experiences of their mentees.

•   Increased connection and networking within the university
•   Gain leadership skills 
•   Develop mentoring skills for potential academic careers
•   Demonstrated communication and facilitation experience for your CV/resume

The Community Advocates program is a commitment of up to 3 hours per week for training, planning and leading peer groups over the following months:

• Trainings: July, August 2024 and March 2025
• Recruit & Launch:  September, October 2024 
• Hosting peer groups:  November 2024, December 2024, January 2025, February 2025, March 2025 and April 2025

• $2500 for the academic year

• Allow 2-3 hours to complete the application
• Complete the application form, with 600-700 words in short essay responses
• Within the application form, you will be asked to list the name, title and contact information for a faculty or staff member at ASU who could provide a reference for you