About Us

      The Students First Mentoring Project (SFMP) is a pilot program designed to improve first-generation student retention at Portland State University. Currently in the third year of delivering student support services, this project is sponsored by the US Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) program. New-to-campus students - freshmen and recent transfer students - enrolled in SFMP will participate in a year-long mentoring program.
      SFMP mentoring activities take a variety of forms from video peer mentoring to one-on-one interactions with program staff. A consistent theme across the range of mentoring activities is that first generation students new to PSU will make an easier adjustment to the university if they are provided with opportunities to utilize the expertise of already successful, first-generation PSU students. SFMP staff are PSU graduate students who have completed a training program to help them recognize and anticipate student needs and issues and refer them to appropriate resources. A long term goal is to provide a structured support network for students to use during their first year until they are proficient enough to develop their own personal set of strategies for navigating within the university.

Mission Statement

     Students First seeks to provide a structured support network for students to use during their first year until they are proficient enough to develop their own personal set of strategies for navigating within the university. Underlying Students First is the idea that the university is a more confusing, complex environment than our participants - whether they are new freshmen or recent community college transfer students -- are used to. Traditional college orientation programs emphasis "what" things are available on campus and "where" they are located. SFMP does provide needed "what" and "where" information, but, in addition, emphasizes "how to do" critical elements of the college student role. SFMP is designed to help new students make smarter choices by teaching them adjustment strategies that have already been proven to work for current PSU students.

First-generation Students are put First

      Students Frist approaches the issues of college performance and retention from the perspective of "what do first generation students need to know in order to succeed?" While first generation students deal with all the issues that traditional students face in adjusting to the university, they are also not familiar with what college support resources are available, how to use resources appropriately, or even why it is important to do so. One intentional feature of SFMP is that program elements demonstrating "how to do" specific parts of being a successful college student (e.g. videos), are set up to be both easily accessible as well as confidence inspiring for students. These "how to do" program elements act as "scaffolds" for students - further understanding of "why" such actions have a better likelihood of producing student success. And SFMP regularly reinforces these messages, through discussion groups and multiple forms of mentoring, so that the "why" message generalizes into other lines of actions.