Alumni Peer Mentoring Program

Overview

The Chicago State Alumni Association’s Alumni Peer Mentoring Program aims to foster meaningful connections between alumni to support professional growth, personal development, and career advancement. By leveraging the experience and insights of alumni, the program helps mentees navigate career paths, build professional networks, develop leadership skills, and strengthen the lifelong bond between alumni and their alma mater.

Open to all alumni from Chicago Teachers College and Chicago State University, alumni association membership is not currently required. This program is pairing alumni with alumni. There is not currently an opportunity to pair alumni with current students, but this is being considered for the future. Sign up for alumni emails and follow us on social media to be the first notified about such an addition in the future.

Mentoring Platform:

The mentoring program is managed digitally on a platform called Upnotch. Creating an account is necessary, and it has a mobile app. Upnotch gives the mentee the power to choose their own mentor, giving you control over your own mentoring experience. Creating an account is required for the program. Download the Upnotch mobile app for Apple or for Android today.

Responsibilities

The responsibility of both parties is to commit to one calendar year of an active mentoring relationship with goals determined for yourselves. The CSAA has recommendations of regular activity to get you started, however, you are not required to follow them.

If this pairing works well and you’d like to continue your mentoring relationship beyond the one year we recommend, we are delighted and encourage you to do so. You can continue to use the program for as long as you like, and for as many different pairing relationships as you need, simultaneously or in succession. We’re excited to bring this tool to our alumni.

WE ARE NOW RECRUITING MENTORS

If you have 10 years or more expeirence in your field, sign up today by clicking the button below. We are bulding our mentor pool first, and will open the program up to mentees by the Fall of 2025.

Mentees

Mentees can be professionals earlier in their career paths, however, a mentee can also be further along in their career path but still seeking a mentor for further career growth. For this reason, we are not limiting mentees to only young alumni.

Mentees agree to seek a suitable mentor from the program, make the initial outreach, and work together with your mentor on what kind of mentoring relationship you’d like to have for one year that will support your career goals.

We will begin recruiting for mentees in the Fall of 2025.

Mentors

Mentors should be professionals with 10 or more years experience in a given career field.

Mentors agree to take the lead on setting the timeline, meeting schedule, and benchmarks for your mentee based on mutual agreement.