Bethany Hoff
Sessions
The PsycPEERs (Psychology students Promoting Equity, Empowerment, and Representation in Science) Fellowship supports students of color newly navigating the psychology major and minor. The program employs a nested mentorship model, fostering peer connections and networking, resources for academic success, and professional development strategies. Fellows gain access to monthly guest speakers—psychologists of color from various disciplines—who provide insights into graduate school, minority stressors, and academia’s hidden curriculum. PsycPEERs aims to empower underrepresented ethnic minority students by offering resources, networking opportunities, and discussions on equity in psychology. An evaluation of the program will assess past and present student experiences, informing future development and enhancement.
While BIPOC students experience poorer academic outcomes than their white peers (Banks et al., 2019; Hurtado & Alvarado, 2015; Ong et al., 2013), diverse peer interactions, mentorship, and belonging have been shown to support students of color (Hussain & Jones, 2021). The PsycPEERS fellowship was developed to support BIPOC students by providing new psychology students of color mentorship and academic support from older students, community with other psychology students of color, and professional development opportunities. This fellowship design emphasized students’ existing strengths, skills, knowledge and capacities. Originally, the fellowship was designed to include 12 new student fellows, 2 peer mentors, 1 tutor, and 3 faculty who coordinated the program. While the program has provided meaningful support for some BIPOC students, it has experienced low enrollment (2-4 fellows) and retention of fellows. The goal of this hackathon is to generate 3 new ideas for enrollment and retention among first-year BIPOC students.