by: Sydney McDonald
The Honors College is proud to introduce Sierra Focazio as the director of the peer mentor program for the 2024-2025 academic year, her third year in the Honors College at App State. She is majoring in physics with a concentration in astronomy in addition to minoring in English. Having been a part of the Honors College peer mentor program as a mentee since her first semester, Fall 2022. Focazio went on to serve as vice president of mentor affairs in the Fall semester 2023 before taking on her current position in the Spring semester 2024. She will continue to serve as director for the entirety of the 2024-25 academic year. Focazio is pursuing an accelerated master's degree at App State and plans to complete the bachelor’s of science degree and University Honors by May 2026.
Some of Focazio’s responsibilities as director include encouraging engagement amongst Honors College students across all academic years, matching mentees to peer mentors, and overseeing the programming of events for all members of the program. Additionally, Focazio is charged with directing the peer mentor student leadership team, which includes the vice president of mentees, vice president of mentors, social media manager, and secretary. Focazio leads the team by identifying opportunities to support the Honors community’s needs through the peer mentor program, developing structures to offer that support, and delegating responsibilities for maintaining those structures.
Focazio’s biggest goal is to facilitate meaningful engagement amongst peer mentees and mentors. She hopes to “encourage mentors and mentees to engage with one another, as well as placing pairs together that have the same major, minor, or department.” Focazio additionally hopes to plan at least one social event per semester for all members to attend in order to bolster interaction between both mentees and mentors, and to encourage interaction across Honors College students. By working with other Honors College student leaders such as the Appalachian Honors Association (AHA!), Focazio is actively working to build a joint social media page and host collaborative events.
In the Spring 2024 semester Focazio worked intensively with her leadership team on planning for the upcoming academic year. Simultaneously, she has been working to amplify recruitment efforts of both future Honors peer mentors. She shared her mission statement for the organization:
I want to create an open environment where mentees can rely on their mentors within their program as well as in the Honors College and create lasting friendships with one another.
By working closely with her leadership officers on organizational efforts, Focazio has continued to build upon the solid foundation of the Honors College peer mentor program. She hopes to be able to continue the long-standing legacy of the peer mentor program into the coming years.
Additionally, Focazio hopes to continue her own development as a student leader on campus. She shared that,
Being a part of the Honors College encourages students to get involved with their community and to be a leader, which I feel like has helped encourage me to take up so many leadership positions during my time at App.
The Honors College is excited to have Focazio in this leadership position and looks forward to the growth of the peer mentors program. We can’t wait to see how her work towards continued engagement and community-building unfolds over the coming year.
