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1L Mentorship Program

The needs of Indigenous law students can vary from those of non-indigenous law students. As such, we will pair interested Indigenous first year law students with Indigenous upper year law students to receive mentorship.
In particular, we wish to ensure that incoming indigenous students know where to access the right resources so that they have the easiest time being successful in this challenging and very rewarding educational journey.

Interested students will fill out the survey that will be distributed by email and will indicate any specific preferences for their pairing.
The ILSG executives will then initiate pairing based on the indicated preferences. If no preferences are indicated, random pairing will be done.
After pairing is completed, survey responses will be deleted and no information will be kept by ILSG aside from names, emails, and the pairings.
After pairing is completed, the mentor will be tasked with contacting the mentee by email no later than September 1, 2023.

Each program participant is required to act respectfully
- Such as attending meetings that they pre-schedule with their mentor or mentee
Needs of each mentee will vary. However, some responsibilities that ILSG anticipates the mentor to be responsible for are:
- To introduce their 1L mentee to the Indigenous student community
- Befriend their 1L mentee
- Pointing their 1L mentee to the right resources as requested by the mentee
  - Such as health services available on campus, the appropriate faculty member(s) for questions
- Providing minimal academic support if the mentor wishes, otherwise pointing the 1L student to the appropriate resources
- Reaching out to ILSG for any concerns and assistance on behalf of their 1L mentee
Responsibility of the Mentee
- Befriend their upper year mentor
- Make the most of their mentor's time
  - Accessing the appropriate resource(s) that the mentee is aware, such as asking their tutorial leader for assistance with course material

ILSG expects the parties to meet as little or often as the pair wishes
- As a rough guideline, ILSG proposes meeting once or twice a month
- If the Mentee does not feel they are receiving adequate mentorship, please contact ILSG to work out a solution
ILSG encourages the upper year mentor to be available to answer specific questions on an as-needed basis, however ILSG understands time is limited and encourages the mentee to reach out to the Intermediate Specialist, Indigenous Programs (Tasha Simon) or ILSG, if they need assistance
Examples of potential activities the partners could engage in include:
- meeting for coffee or lunch between classes
- attending beading circle together
- studying together
- having a virtual movie/tv show watch party together, etc.

If there are any issues with the pairing that the pair cannot resolve alone, the mentor or mentee should contact the Indigenous Law Students Governance executive members at (ilsg@uottawa.ca) to discuss a solution