Coming from a small high school community to a university community of about 40,000 students is a daunting prospect for many UW freshmen. The transition can often be even more challenging for commuter or transfer students, who lack a living-situation-based community to help them create a social circle.

A mentoring program called Husky Mentors will be making its debut during the 2009-2010 school year to be a resource to help alleviate some of this stress. It is the brainchild of ASUW Vice President-elect Madeleine McKenna and Dawg Daze volunteer coordinator Tim Harris, both of whom have worked overtime with university officials since winter quarter to make the program a reality.

McKenna and Harris both arrived at the UW as part of the honors college, which currently has a similar mentoring program, as does the Office of Minority Affairs (OMA).

However, McKenna said she realized that most incoming students don’t have the opportunity to participate in a mentorship program, something she feels is invaluable to the transition process during the first quarter on campus. She was inspired when she became a mentor in the honors program and was pleasantly surprised at how much she was able to help her mentee.

“I was amazed at how helpful I could be,” McKenna said. “I felt I was able to answer a lot of questions and really help them out, and make them feel that the university wasn’t such a large and unfriendly place after all.”

McKenna said she feels it’s extremely important for incoming students to establish a social community and find their way during the first quarter at the university so that they don’t fall through the cracks. She was thinking especially of transfer students and commuters.

“A lot of communities form around living situations,” she said. “Commuters and transfer students have a harder time finding a place where they fit in, and it’s so crucial that they do if they want to get the most out of their time at the UW. Otherwise, many feel isolated, and this can increase their likelihood of dropping out or doing poorly academically.”

McKenna and Harris were both involved with the ASUW’s leadership development program, UW Leaders, and saw firsthand how effective their mentorship programming was. They began by talking to various campus entities, such as the Honors College Program, OMA and First Year Programs, which organizes Dawg Daze and the Freshman Interest Group (FIG) program.

“Being involved with Dawg Daze meant that I could help sell the program to my colleagues, and now we’re planning on having Husky Mentor-sponsored programming at next fall’s events,” Harris said.

Husky Mentors became an official registered student organization in winter quarter. Since then, McKenna and Harris have worked hard to recruit prospective mentors. Currently, they have about 500, for an incoming class of about 5,200 freshmen.

“Obviously this year is the pilot year, and we’re sort of trying to figure things out and see how it all goes,” Harris said. “We’re going to do some sort of evaluation to see what people liked and didn’t like. Hopefully over the next few times we’ll grow substantially; I’d like to see every incoming student having the opportunity to be paired with a mentor within a few years, and I’m confident we can pull it off.”

The role of a mentor will be to answer any questions the incoming student may have, as well as help them get involved with at least one student organization of interest to them. It could be ASUW, Greek life or getting involved with a registered student organization. Mentors will be available to guide their mentee academically and be there whenever questions come up or if the mentee is feeling lost.

All registered participants will complete an online Catalyst survey sharing their academic and personal interests. Mentors will be assigned to mentees based on areas of interest and prospective majors. Mentors will be required to reach out to their mentee once assigned, as well as contact them at least once after the quarter begins.

“We wanted to keep the commitment level quite minimal so we could get as many people involved as possible,” McKenna said. “We also didn’t want to force any kind of relationship, but to let it grow on its own.”

Freshman Dylan Yu, an orientation leader for incoming freshmen, was eager to get involved and is planning to introduce the program to his orientation groups and encourage them to opt in. When students attend orientation, they’ll have the option to sign up for the program. Yu said he hopes as many students as possible choose to participate and added that he wished a similar program had existed while he was a freshman.

“This program is such a great idea, I was shocked that it had not been implemented sooner,” Yu said. “So many students fall through the cracks. A universal mentorship program that can help every single incoming student have an easy and welcoming transition to the UW is essential.”

Yu said he hopes participating mentors not only serve as a guide to their mentees, but also as a friend.

“Husky Mentors seeks to give each new student a friend on campus — a resource — and that hopefully will make the transition from high school or community college to the UW as worry-free and easy as possible,” Yu said. “I hope that the incoming class can be brought together by this program, given a piece of common ground. Really, I just want to give each incoming student the best first-quarter experience possible here.”

Reach reporter Katie Paff at features@dailyuw.com.