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Student Groups

MESA: Mentoring Enhances Student Achievement

MESA originated from a major project undertaken by English majors, who conducted research in the hopes of identifying academic and social problems experienced by first-year students. The results indicated a need for a resource network which would give students a personal connection to their peers and department.

Student mentors (majors of sophomore, junior or senior status) are recruited by letter and asked to fill out a mentor information sheet. During summer orientation programs, a MESA member attends the department schedule planning sessions and describes the mentoring program to new majors. The new majors fill out an information sheet and are later matched up with a mentor. Mentors are asked to contact their mentees within the first few weeks of school. A few weeks later, a departmental social is held to which faculty, new majors and their mentors are invited.

Mentors agree to:

• Attend an initial training session at which they receive a folder full of materials to assist them in the mentoring effort
• Meet their mentee at least twice a month, and
• Attend a MESA group activity.

Contact: Dr. Bonnie Epstein at 535-2426.

Sigma Tau Delta

Plymouth State University is proud to be home to the Alpha Kappa Pi chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. Sigma Tau Delta's central purpose is to confer distinction upon students of the English language and literature in undergraduate, graduate and professional studies. Sigma Tau Delta also recognizes the accomplishments of professional writers who have contributed to the fields of language and literature.

Membership in Sigma Tau Delta is open to English majors who have a grade average not lower than B in English, who rank at least in the highest 35 percent of their class in general scholarship, and who have completed at least three semesters of college work.

If you are interested in joining Sigma Tau Delta, contact Scott Coykendall, Assistant Professor of Professional Writing.

Plymouth Poets and Writers

Plymouth State University Poets and Writers is a student organization designed to cater to the literary community. The mission of the organization is to unify aspiring writers and to give them an outlet through which their creativity can flow. In addition to publishing Centripetal, the premier literary magazine in New Hampshire, biannually, Poets and Writers also holds open mics on a monthly basis during fall and spring semesters.