January 28, 2025
Charting Practices and Critical Mentorship Strategies for Rural Community College Students
Mentoring is a powerful tool for enhancing student persistence and success, especially for students who face greater entrenched systematic injustice in higher education. This is particularly important for rural students, who combined with the challenges faced by community college students, represent a group often underserved by traditional mentorship programs. In our second data note of the Mapping Effective Mentorship for Rural Community College Students project, we highlight mentorship programs and practices at rural-serving community colleges (RSCCs) that can support student success and address the systemic inequities they face in achieving their goals. We invite you to reflect on these findings and how your institution can apply these insights to create more impactful mentorship experiences for your students. Read Data Note 2 and join the conversation on how we can strengthen mentorship for rural community college students.
Why this Data Note Matters
Rural-community colleges are a key points of entry to paths toward greater economic security and choice for minoritized populations, yet high-impact mentoring programs informed by and specific to this unique role and their distinct rural contexts are sparse. This data note provides actionable strategies and considerations for practitioners to strengthen mentorship programs for rural community college students at their colleges.
Key Insights
- Building Empowering and Inclusive Mentorship Spaces: Learn how mentorship programs at RSCCs strive to create a safe and inclusive environment that can foster student reflection, agency, and advocacy to challenge the power structures they encounter in higher education and beyond.
- Cultural Identity and Community Engagement in Mentorship: Explore how mentorship programs are embracing students’ cultural identities. These protective practices can amplify students’ community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), which can buffer students from the exclusive power structures encountered in higher education and enhance persistence and overall goal attainment.
Additionally, we invite you to share our survey below with students who receive mentorship to help us further understand how we can enhance mentorship strategies and better support rural students. Please click here to learn more about our student survey.