Information for Principals and Teachers
Contents
About UNE Mentor
UNE Mentor is a program designed by the English discipline in the School of Arts at the University of New England (UNE). In this program, mentors employed by the School provide advice, constructive criticism, and support to Year 12 high school students working on the Major Work portion of their Extension 2 HSC English.
Through an online discussion forum using Blackboard CE6 online learning technology and a one-day on-campus workshop, students are encouraged to discuss and develop their projects, and solve problems, with the help of mentors, and support from their peers. The discussion in UNE-Mentor focuses on issues common to all HSC English Extension 2 writing projects.
Goals of the program
The program has developed out of the English discipline's recognition of the need to extend and strengthen its links with schools in the New England region.
Major goals of UNE Mentor are:
- To provide support for students in regional and isolated schools working in English literature.
- To enhance students' experience of English at HSC level.
- To assist students to achieve their full potential in the subject.
- To foster talent among students in schools in the New England region.
- To introduce Year 12 students to university level learning, and ease their passage into university life.
- To foster communication between students working on their Major Work, and assist them in setting up a support network.
Services provided
The program provides high school students with access to an online discussion forum (formerly called a bulletin board), on the University of New England's online education platform. It provides a secure forum where students can interact, with professional mentors who can offer them insight into strategies to improve and manage their writing and creative projects and also where they can meet each other, and support each other as they work on their Major Work.
It also provides an introduction to the expectations of university-level writing. Each year, the English discipline runs an on-campus workshop, where students meet the mentors and other students, and work in group situations on their projects. Through this, they learn how to work in a group, some of the basics of crafting a story or project, issues of audience, and voice. Some students have been so inspired by the workshops and the mentors that they have announced their own intentions to do a PhD in English!
What are the benefits?
UNE Mentor enhances high school students' experience of HSC English, by introducing them to writers who work at university level. It provides students working in the often solitary field of creative endeavour with a community of like minds, and a network of support from their peers, and from the mentors.
UNE Mentor eases the path of good students into university life. It informs students of the programs in university level degrees that we offer in the School of Arts. It enhances students' skills in electronic literacy.
Students who complete the UNE Mentor successfully are offered a place in a program of study in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of New England. See Costs and Conditions of the Program, below.
Every student participant in the initial offering of UNE Mentor, in 2001, achieved an HSC score in English in the top 10% of the state.
Who are the mentors?
The mentors are students undertaking advanced doctoral work in the fields of English Literature, Communication Studies, Theatre Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, History and Philosophy. They are also professional writers affiliated with the School.
All mentors have tertiary degrees. All have experience with creative writing in various forms (fiction, non-fiction, script-writing for film and theatre). All are trained in working in electronic media. The mentors are conscious of the HSC guidelines concerning the requirement that the work produced be certifiable as wholly the student's.
All mentors have undergone training in Child Protection at the School of Education at UNE.
Costs and Conditions
All infrastructure, technical, administrative and academic support costs will be the responsibility of UNE. The cost of the person-hour commitment will be split between the participating high schools and paid to the School of Arts on a student pro rata basis (i.e. proportionate to the number of students participating from each school.) The cost to the participating high schools will be $99 inclusive of GST for each participating student. Your school would be entitled to the input tax credit in respect of the GST paid. Any subsequent charge your school made to students would be GST-free (See Goods and Services Tax Ruling GSTR 2000/30, Section 46).
All participating students, as a group, must spend a day at the UNE Campus, during which School of Arts staff will hold workshops devoted to students' individual projects. Students will also be given a tour of the University when they attend the workshop day. It is the responsibility of principals of the participating high schools to ensure their students' attendance.
Workshops will be held in late April/early May; the exact dates to be announced soon.
The principals of the participating high schools will ensure that each student who engages actively with the mentoring process receives the information about tertiary study at UNE listed below. Principals will provide a written report to the Head of the School of Arts at the end of the year detailing how this obligation has been discharged and including a brief statistical summary of the results obtained in Extension 2 English by all students who engaged actively in the UNE mentoring scheme.
Information to be provided to students under this clause:
- Publicity material provided by the School of Arts at UNE including details of course offerings in English and related subject areas
- Information about the UNE Schools Recommendation Admission Scheme (SRAS) and about the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to be provided by the University.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences will extend an unconditional offer of admission to an award of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that is available under the SRAS to those students from participating high schools who complete the mentoring program, who apply under this Scheme, and are given a ranking of 3 or higher in written expression and overall aptitude for tertiary study and meet the normal UAC/QTAC application requirements. This offer of admission to an award of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is extended only to students who engage actively with the mentoring process, both in terms of Bulletin Board participation and attendance at the workshops.
Enquiry Form
If you think your students would like to be involved, and would benefit from the programme, click here - Enquiry Form - to submit your interest.
For more information, or if you have any questions that are not answered in this website, please contact Gill Willis on (02) 6773 2023 or email: gwillis2@une.edu.au