Bonner Center for Civic and Community Engagement
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Bonner Peer Advisors (PA’s)Bonner Peer Advisors play an essential role in the Center’s efforts to mobilize first year students—to not only satisfy their CEL (community-engaged learning) graduation requirement—but to also deepen and sustain those experiences.
Once the residents of a particular floor are connected to a CEL Day—Peer Advisors often engage in a variety of organizing and development activities. They must work with the staff to ensure that their students have confirmed their participation, receive an educational packet relating to the issue area upon their arrival, complete pre and post service surveys—and that there is a solid community-engaged learning plan (activities etc…) mapped out for the day. They can also act as crew leaders on those days. Finally, starting in the Spring of 2008, Peer Advisors are expected to work collaboratively with Residential staff to create CEL Enrichment activities. This is any event or activity that promotes a deeper understanding of the relevant issue, fosters more dialogue and/or leads to more civic engagement or service. These may include movies, documentaries, community speakers/panels, faculty discussions, service projects and more. During the current year, there are 12 Peer Advisors living on different floors in the Travers, Wolfe & Cromwell residences. |
The first job of any Peer Advisor is to help first year students select their community issue. They work with other Bonner students to organize floor meetings during Welcome Week. At the end of these meetings, residents (usually in groups of 15) are linked to an issue (e.g. Homelessness) and a specific date—when they will all Learn, Serve and Reflect on their experiences together. 