Strategic Areas
Academic Development
As a student-led organization at the University of New Mexico, academic success and competence is of utmost importance. PNMGC ultimately works for the successful recruitment and retention of underrepresented students at the University. The four strategic areas of PNMGC intersect to ensure that underrepresented students are succeeding at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Through academic workshops and colloquia, PNMGC provides opportunities for students to learn, share, and practice their academic skills or research.
Leadership Initiative
The PNMGC Leadership Initiative is borne of the idea that with thoughtful and innovative tools for success, students of all levels and backgrounds can become future campus, community, and political leaders. PNMGC believes that social and educational justice can only be achieved when leadership is representative of a diverse population. Through workshops and retreats, students can acquire and advance their leadership abilities and techniques.
Social Support and Networking
Social support and networking is one of the most important facets of PNMGC and is also one of the most organic processes of the organization. Social support is cultivated through every PNMGC workshop and activity, as well as being the centerpiece of specific semester events such as the Welcome Back/Bienvenida and Monthly Membership meetings that feature movies, games, music, and food. Through communities of support and learning, student success is emphasized and strengthened.
Mentorship
Peer Mentorship is the foundation on which PNMGC was established. In 2003, several graduate students created Peer Mentoring for Graduates of Color (PMGC), a student organization that provided UNM graduate students of color the opportunity to mentor one another—sharing their experiences and strategies for success in graduate school and beyond.
PNMGC envisions peer mentoring as a mutually beneficial relationship in which partners or cohorts, often comprised of peers in different stages of post-secondary education, who provide one another with support, guidance, and the necessary tools to navigate academia.
The PNMGC peer mentoring program works to build partnerships that meet students’ individual academic and cultural needs. Our matching process allows students to select specific criteria on which they are paired, such as one’s native language, cultural background, gender, or academic association.
Once in the program, participants have a number of opportunities to attend workshops, social mixers, or special activities with their mentor or cohort. PNMGC believes that mentorship can occur in informal and formal spaces, and through various forms of communication. We encourage our participants to interact with their partner or cohort through any communicative process that engages and benefits the parties involved.
