Link Crew will take the place of the Upperclassman Mentorship Program next year as a new initiative for incoming freshmen.
Spanish teacher Alina Pinney, one of two Link Crew coordinators along with fellow Spanish teacher Lauren Robbins, said Link Crew is an international peer-mentorship program designed to help incoming students.
Pinney said the credibility of the organization was a major reason behind the change from last year’s UMP.
“Because it is nationally and internationally recognized, colleges really like to see Link Crew on your application,” Pinney explained. “We didn’t want students to miss out on the opportunity of getting that recognition that they deserve,” she added.
Pinney said Link Crew events will involve an orientation, as well as check-in events throughout the year. She added the freshmen orientation will take place before school starts and involve activities with groups of students and two upperclassman leaders.
“Every single activity is a metaphor for something deeper that relates to high school,” Pinney explained. The activities are designed to be fun and help students navigate problems such as social dynamics, Pinney said.
She explained a major goal of the program is to create more interactions between freshmen and upperclassmen throughout the year.
Senior Evan Guttman, the co-founder and co-coordinator of UMP this past year, explained they would have liked to have had more activities throughout the year, but they were limited by a lack of time and a small leadership group.
“I think the goal of the program to have more long-term interaction between underclassmen and mentors can be achieved because there’s more people involved and more stable leadership,” Guttman added. Freshman Niles Jackson said the orientation was helpful, but he can not recall anything else from throughout the year.
“I think this [change] will benefit the freshmen, and I think it would have benefitted me in helping me stay connected to upperclassmen,” he added.
Pinney said she and Robbins are trying to emphasize the importance of the mentors in the execution of the orientation.
She explained a major goal is to invest in the training and recruiting of mentors and let them lead from there.
She said the recruitment process of hopeful mentors involved an application, three written responses and one short video responding to a prompt.
Once selected, mentors will have a few required dates to attend, including two days of intensive training in the summer, Pinney said. This could be a drawback of the program, as anybody who cannot attend all mandatory days will not be a mentor, she added.
Additionally, she said a possible negative is not everyone can be accepted, which could discourage upperclassmen from pursuing other leadership opportunities.
For the Link Crew coordinators, training involved a conference in Cincinnati, Pinney added.
Robbins said the training involved a simulated orientation, overview of activities and the chance to plan logistical aspects of the program, which will be implemented in the fall.
Pinney added they were provided with a binder of activities, templates of name tags and other resources. Robbins has high hopes for the benefits of this program throughout the school.
“By bridging the gap between ninth graders and upperclassmen, all students will feel more connected in our school,” she said.