The Partners for Success Faculty Mentoring Students Program at CSULB is accepting applications for faculty mentors for the 2005-06 academic year. Faculty selected for the program will work with first-generation, undergraduate students outside of the classroom experience to provide a sense of direction with academic, career, and/or personal goals. Partners for Success was initiated in 1988 with the organizing principle of retention as its major goal.

Through the years, the Partners for Success program has developed additional goals. They are as follows:

• To develop and implement a proactive model to retain students.
• To help participants persist to graduation.
• To establish criteria by which faculty may recognize first generation undergraduate students.
• To identify students in the target populations.
• To match faculty members with first generation undergraduate students and provide assistance.
• To create an environment where faculty members work directly with students to provide a sense of direction regarding their career plans, personal adjustments to the university, family-related issues, and referrals to university resources.
• To develop a network of faculty and student-peer support systems.
• To increase faculty and student awareness of the university services.
• To lessen the gap between faculty and students as well as humanize the student-faculty relationship.  

The program pairs students with faculty members who serve in the capacity of mentors. In this program, mentors are experienced professors who act as advisors, helping students become comfortable and successful in the university environment. Faculty mentors will participate in program meetings, submit paperwork regarding their mentees, and will receive compensation. For additional information and applications, please contact Carol Menard-Fulthorp by e-mail or by calling 562/985-7562.

Pictured (l-r) are graduating senior Aiko Temura; Nilufer Medora, a faculty mentor from Family and Consumer Sciences; and Haydee Flores, a master's student in Social Work.