First mentors, friendly faces

Ask an honors student about their on-campus activity, and you’ll probably hear a story of leadership — an experience as a committee chair, club president, team captain, or co-founder.

And while honors students extend their positive presence throughout campus, they also find opportunities to lead within the program as seminar assistants and honors ambassadors.

These opportunities evolved from a number of roles present in the program through the 2000s. Based on student feedback, these roles were consolidated in 2019 to the two currently available.

Student Experience Designer Dr. Mauricio Gómez Montoya oversees the program’s student assistants, a cohort of more than 60 students in their sophomore to senior years who help with the program’s first-year and transfer seminars (HNRS 190 and 195, respectively), as well as 400-level seminars on the American healthcare and legal systems.

Most assistants are placed in one of the 40-plus sections of HNRS 190. In these one-credit courses, assistants serve as initial peer mentors for the program’s newest students.

“These positions create community,” says Gómez Montoya. “Assistants help students make connections with the faculty and the students in the class, but also with the program at large.”

After interviews with each applicant, Gómez Montoya assigns selected students to the dozens of seminars available based on several factors, from major to manner.

“We have certainly built a team that has several personality traits, several styles of engagement, from the large-group entertainers to our one-on-one specialists,” says Montoya.

A consistent characteristic among the students who become assistants is the desire to “pay forward” their own formative experience in a first-year seminar.

“They want to replicate that experience they had with a person that connected them, supported them, made them feel welcome,” says Gómez Montoya.

In the role, assistants develop program knowledge and peer networks, along with professional strengths they can utilize beyond the assistantship.

“They see their own skill sets being developed and furthered, whether it is project management, public speaking, or just coordinating a team,” says Gómez Montoya.

In addition to overseeing the assistants at large, Gómez Montoya teaches an HNRS 190, “#StickToSports: Politics and Sport,” giving him first-hand classroom experience with assistants.

“I’ve been really pleased to work with them,” says Gómez Montoya. “They bring so much to the class.”

Bhavya Gupta, a senior studying microbiology, served as a seminar assistant for “Looted Artwork,” a first-year honors seminar taught by University Honors Program Director Sarah Crawford-Parker, who is an associate teaching professor of museum studies.

“Along with closely working with Dr. Crawford-Parker, I was also able to maintain a close relationship with the students in the class,” says Gupta. “Being a seminar assistant meant that I could be a leader to them the way that assistants were to me my freshman year.”

Now a former assistant, Gupta currently occupies the other leadership role in the program: honors ambassador. This team is led by Taylor Thomas, the program’s recruitment coordinator.

Along with a drive to lead, Thomas sees a common trait in Gupta and her fellow ambassadors. “They’re just really empathetic students,” says Thomas. “They genuinely care.”

Beginning in the mid ‘00s with a half-dozen students, the ambassador ranks now number more than 50. All lend a hand at recruitment events, where another of their shared gifts shines.

“A lot of them are very, very extroverted,” says Thomas. “They love to talk, which is great.”

Thomas highlights their involvement in Senior Scholar Days, a fall event in partnership with the KU Office of Admissions, where she sees the difference that conversations with ambassadors can make for prospective students.

“There are big smiles at every table,” Thomas says. “Our students — they’re as excited as the prospective students are. This might be the only KU student they speak to before they make a college decision, so I think the direct impact that our students have is really incredible.”

Those moments can resonate long after, says Thomas. Often, high-school seniors and their families who return to campus for an admitted-student reception or second visit bring memories of an ambassador interaction.

“I am almost always asked how that student is doing that they talked to in the fall,” says Thomas. “They remember that student’s name, they remember their major, and that was enough to bring them back, to make them really excited for KU. There’s just nothing quite like it.”

These enduring exchanges owe partial credit to the training that ambassadors and assistants undertake before the year begins. Past sessions have been led by Anne Kretsinger-Harries, a program alumna and faculty member in KU’s Department of Communications Studies.

“We really focus a lot on storytelling,” says Thomas. “I think it really adds life to what we’re talking about. It helps people really start to visualize what happens in this program.”

With their shared training and tangible presence, both ambassadors and assistants reinforce KU Honors’ mission and represent the applied leadership the program hopes to inspire.