Stellenbosch University
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SU helping students BeWell through mentoring programme
Author: Corporate Communication/Korporatiewe Kommunikasie [Rozanne Engel]
Published: 29/01/2020

For more than forty years, Stellenbosch University (SU) has been helping newcomer students adjust to university life, overcome personal barriers and providing general psychosocial support through its BeWell Mentoring programme.

In 2013, the University decided to take a developmental approach that still catered for adjustment and problem solving, but also focused on the optimisation of the potential of all students in the system, including the mentees and mentors.

Since then, SU has adopted more of a holistic and systemic approach that concentrates on developing the whole person instead of only addressing problem areas, which resulted in the University following the BeWell model, which looks at wellness in terms of the physical, emotional, intellectual, occupational, social and spiritual dimensions within students.

According to Joy Petersen, Tracking and Mentor Coordinator at the Centre for Student Communities, the programme has helped the centre to keep track of their mentor engagement and activity. In addition, the BeWell tracking system, designed by Dr Alten du Plessis, Deputy Director: Tracking and Development at the SU's Division for Business Intelligence, helps the mentors to track their conversations, relationships and progress. 

“We really want to help students transition well into university life. Coming to the University and going through the higher education system can be a daunting experience. Students can put themselves under so much pressure to try and be perfect at it. Apart from focusing on the academic side, they should give themselves time to understand how things work and also become accustomed to their new living space and learning environment, which can help with their transition into university life," says Petersen.

Since 2013, more than 2 700 mentors and head mentors have assisted more than 19 000 first-year students in the BeWell programme. Each year, SU utilises approximately 600 trained mentors and head mentors to guide and help between 4 000 and 5 000 newcomer students (called mentees) during their first six to nine months at the University.

The mentors are predominantly senior students who undergo intensive training to help 500 to 600 mentoring groups that stay in more than 40 residences and private wards on either the main campus in Stellenbosch or on the Tygerberg campus. A team of university staff members, including residence heads, cluster coordinators and staff members from Student Affairs, also supports the team of mentors and head mentors.

“Going forward we want our second years to also apply to be mentors, because their experience is the closest to the first years. The selection and recruitment of mentors happen in the residences and PSOs. We have a training calendar for leadership positions and that training calendar starts in September and ends in August of the next year. So it is an intensive training programme that we do and the residences and PSOs have their training programmes that is unique to their environments and equip mentors. We evaluate and assess our training constantly to ensure that it's relevant and related to the mentor experience," says Petersen.

Students can find out more about the mentor programme at the Centre for Student Communities in Bosman Street on the Stellenbosch campus. Alternatively, they can visit http://www.sun.ac.za/english/learning-teaching/student-affairs/csc for more information.