A mentorship program born inside a classroom at NAU aims to ease the often-daunting transition from high school to college by connecting students across both levels in structured, meaningful relationships.
The program, Contigo: Peer Mentoring for Resilience and Access, is designed to address academic and social uncertainties among underrepresented students. The initiative pairs NAU students with high school juniors and seniors to provide them with practical guidance and grounded firsthand experience.
The idea for the project took root in Community University Public Inquiry (CUPI), a community-based undergraduate research class in the Sustainable Communities program, which partners students with local organizations to conduct applied research relevant for the community. Now, thanks to a grant from the Helios Foundation offered through AZ HSI GATE, Samantha Marin Olmos, a biomedical science and sociology junior and Natalia Canaan, a chemistry and psychology sophomore, will see their class project come to life on a larger scale with the guidance of anthropology associate teaching professor Leah Mundell.
“The class was divided into pods,” said Marin Olmos, explaining that her research pod partnered with Northern Arizona Interfaith Council. “Natalia and I joined the Immigrant Youth Equity pod and had the opportunity to speak with high school students in Flagstaff and saw the need to help underserved students with the transition from high school to college.”
Marin Olmos and Canaan spoke to students at resource fairs and at their high schools during FAFSA night. They also invited high schoolers to participate in a class discussion to share their experiences.
Their conversation hit close to home, since both Marin Olmos and Canaan are first-generation students of immigrant families and remember facing the same struggles when transitioning to NAU.
“College is a unique experience for everyone, but it was a little different for us having those obstacles,” Canaan said. “We are proud of our background and want to give back to the community. We want to let them know that we are here and that we support them because we all deserve to thrive.”
The team is working on recruiting mentors from NAU by reaching out to different classes and clubs. Prospective mentors should submit an application by March 23 to participate. The recruitment of mentees will be a collaboration with Flagstaff high school counselors to help them identify candidates who can benefit from the program.
“I think it’s unusual for students to spearhead a new program,” Mundell said. “When they started meeting with staff who run mentoring programs on campus and proposed this, the students heard repeatedly that their idea did not exist in the way they were proposing it and that it was really needed. They worked to get the grant and are establishing the program. Having something student-initiated is incredible and integrating it into a class has been a wonderful opportunity for other students to get inspired by this project.”
For Marin Olmos, a program such as this would have helped on her journey to NAU. She said she felt alone in the process and questioned whether it was worth doing. Although her parents supported her decision to go to NAU, they could not help her since they did not understand the process. For Canaan, the struggle was more acute when she started college, since she sometimes felt like she did not belong.
“I think for me the hardest thing was not only figuring out how to get here but also dealing with imposter syndrome once I was at NAU,” she said. “It was hard to believe I belonged. Now, I feel like the experience has been empowering. That is why Samantha and I are so motivated to spread that empowerment because we went through the same struggle, feeling like we did not know if we could do it. We know this program will be of great support to students.”
For more information about the program or to apply to be a mentor, send an email to contigo@nau.edu.
Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu