KAMP Builds Student Involvement in Academic Community at King’s University College, London.

Psychology students at King’s University College at Western in London, Ontario used an academic project to solve a student life problem. Out of their work was born a student-run initiative which pairs senior and junior students to make transition to university campus life easier.

The program is called KAMP, King’s Academic Mentoring Program, and was the brainchild of 4th year students Chad Buckland, Pavlina Faltynek and Canaan Legault. The idea is to help incoming students connect with an experienced senior student so that information on everything from accessing the library, to finding the best way to stay on top of coursework can be shared. “We really want to help our new King’s students feel at home here as quickly as possible,” explains Buckland. “If that means helping them understand where to get help with an essay or how to manage their time in-between classes, our KAMP mentors want new students to have a strong chance at success. King’s is known as being a great community, so this program helps us welcome new members of the community on a peer to peer basis.”

The student mentors organize monthly broad topic meetings while simultaneously holding one-on-one meetings with their mentees to help foster student’s academic interests and design specific trajectories to help students achieve those goals. The team came together in Professor Marcie Penner-Wilger’s Psychology 4694 class (Collaborative Research in Applications of Psychological Science) where they were challenged to develop research-based solutions to real-world problems, in this case at King’s.

“We really set out to encourage student involvement in the King’s academic community,” says Faltynek. “It is a vital part of being at university and, with peer to peer mentorship, some positive personal relationships can be formed.”

Full details can be found at www.kings.uwo.ca/current-students/academic-support/kings-academic-mentoring-program/