Buccaneer Involvement Guides
First-year students and peer mentor
We are currently looking for BIGs for the Fall 2022-Spring 2023 academic year. The application deadline has been extended to Friday, March 25th at 11:59pm.
The Buccaneer Involvement Guides (BIGs) program has been a successful peer mentorship program embedded inside of ETSU 1020 Foundations for Student Success first year experience course, and will be expanding to other First-Year Experience courses. Each BIG is placed in a single section of a First-Year Experience Course where they are mentors for the entire class. This program was implemented in Fall of 2016 with the primary purpose of providing first-year students with a peer mentor (or BIG) who will assist the students to get involved in campus activities and organizations, serve as a point of connection to campus resources, role model balance between academic achievement and extracurricular activity, and create a sense of community within the course section. Each year the program has succeeded in documenting a strong correlation between student interaction with their BIG and retention, academic achievement, and campus involvement.
Requirements to be a BIG:
- Must be an undergraduate student.
- Have at least a 2.5 G.P.A.
- Meet with each student twice a semester.
- Attend the required training August 12th-August 14th.
- Attend monthly meetings.
- Facilitate an out of class activity
- Teach designated lessons and Facilitate check-in or icebreaker activities during class.
Benefits of being a BIG include:
- Compensation
- Relationships with ETSU Faculty
- Gaining transferable skills such as conflict resolution, decision making, and time management.
- Making connections with first year students.
- Learning more about ETSU's campus and campus resources.
- It is fun!
For more information contact Katie Potter bigs@etsu.edu.