The Scholarship and Opportunities Fair is intended to support historically excluded and marginalized students and feature opportunities designed to support students in learning about and eventually participating in high-impact practices.
The Center for Access and Success and the Center for Engaged Learned has collaborated with various campus organizations to host the first Scholarship and Opportunities Fair on Thursday, March 2 from 4 to 6 p.m. in McKinnon Hall.
The university-wide event is intended to support historically excluded and marginalized students (and the student population at large) in understanding the many resources and opportunities available at Elon.
Sabrina Thurman, assistant professor of psychology, was closely involved in the development of this event, working with many others across campus to align the event with Elon’s Boldly Elon strategic plan. One institution goal of the strategic plan is to introduce a “groundbreaking model in which all students learn to build meaningful mentoring constellations that include peers, staff, faculty and others beyond the university.”
“The creation of this event aligns with this institutional goal, as we view forming strong, supportive, identity-based connections across the institution as a first step in building a larger constellation of mentors,” Thurman said.
“Faculty and staff often have professional capital to advance undergraduate careers for marginalized students. Thus, this university-wide event attempts to do the leg work to bring together academic opportunities from across campus in one central venue to help students understand ways they could enrich their collegiate experience,” she added.
The fair also aims to connect students with resources to build a sense of community and belonging, to strengthen their toolkit for success and to provide connections to facilitate meaningful mentoring relationships.
Students who attend the fair will be able to interact with representatives of the Lumen Prize, Center for Leadership, Counseling Services, the Global Education Center, Learning Assistance, Undergraduate Research, Center for Financial Literacy, the Kernodle Center for Civic Life, the Gender and LGBTQIA Center, and many other campus organizations. The representatives from these organizations will be eager to discuss the activities they offer and their purpose with students.
Research suggests involvement in high-impact practices help build belonging in underserved and historically excluded populations, support students in building a constellation of faculty and staff mentors and promote retention and student success outcomes.
“A major goal involves helping students from all backgrounds, but especially marginalized backgrounds, begin thinking about how they can develop their own mentoring constellations,” Thurman said. “Our goal in creating this event is to help students curate these important mentoring constellations earlier in their academic careers.”
If you have any questions, reach out to firstgen@elon.edu.