Welcome Class of 2021!

Welcome to the Sophomore Mentoring Home page. 

Here you can see the lesson for this upcoming week:

2/9 - ConsciouS Leadership // personal responsibility

If you know that you will be absent, fill out this form and let us know ahead of time. 

Bite-Sized Agenda for 2/9/2019 :

  • 12:30pm - 12:45pm Trio Catch Up Time

  • 12:45pm - 1:45pm Activity - Conscious Leadership - Personal Responsibility

  • 1:45pm - 2:00pm Journaling (in your physical journal or your Session Log)

  • 2:00pm - 2:30pm Summer Programs Working Time


  • Mentor groups will analyze the concept of personal responsibility by engaging in an activity to help identify roles we assume when dealing with adversity and setbacks in life.

  • Mentor groups will create new paths to consider when dealing with personal setbacks.

  • Mentees with work on summer programs applications and ask questions to the summer programs team members.

    Lesson: Conscious Leadership: Personal Responsibility

    1. From the book 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

      1. The link will take you to the chapter from this book if you wanted the source

    2. Intro: (2 minutes)

      1. “I commit to taking full responsibility for the circumstances of my life and for my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. I commit to supporting others to take full responsibility for their lives.”

      2. This week we will talk about roles we take on when things don’t go the way we want them to. What should we do when we our plans breakdown? Our instinct is to place blame somewhere- on others, on ourselves, etc. Does this help? Or does it lead to guilt and shame, having negative outcomes. What if we looked at things from the perspective of a growth mindset?

      3. We will try an activity today to help us break unhealthy patterns of this negative behavior.

    3. Explain: (5 minutes)

      1. Everytime something doesn’t go the way we think it should, we can become stuck in fear and we take on one of 3 roles: the victim, the villain, or the hero.

        1. Victims see themselves as ‘at the effect of.’ ‘It’ is being done ‘to them’ by someone or something out of their control.”

        2. Villains find fault and place blame.”

        3. Heroes hate conflict, pain, and tension and seek to temporarily relieve their discomfort without really dealing with the issue.”

          1. Jarus: I think there are a lot of flavors of hero that Lisa, Tiffany and I discussed. I’m going to share a few specific examples in my group:

            1. Short-term resolution vs. long-term resolution of issue. You end up solving the immediate problem but enabling the same behaviors that resulted in it. (A coworker doesn’t do their task, so you cover for them, only to have them do it again in the future)

            2. Conflict avoidance. You don’t solve the underlying problem at all and instead try to get all actors to feel better about themselves.

            3. Burn-out (related to short vs. long term). From taking on too much responsibility too frequently, the hero gets burned out.

      2. It might be helpful to come up with a fake scenario to help them see these roles within a scenario

    4. The activity: (20 minutes)

      1. Hand out three pieces of paper to each mentor group. On one piece of paper, write “Victim” on the next “Villain” and the last “Hero”

      2. Find a place in the room where you can place all three on the ground in a triangle about 2 feet apart from each other.

      3. Think of a time when things didn’t go the way you wanted them to in your life recently. (Pod leaders can demonstrate this first)

        1. Talk about the issue out loud. What happened? How did it make you feel? Try to explain the whole thing in as much detail as possible.

        2. Each time you hear yourself playing one of the roles of Victim, Villain, Hero, step onto the corresponding sheet of paper.

        3. Notice how many times you move around the triangle.

      4. Invite the mentor groups to try it out. Have every person go and maybe even go a few times.

    5. Back into the large pod group 30 minutes

      1. Ask some questions to the mentor groups to talk amongst themselves: (5 -10 minutes)

        1. What was that activity like for you?

        2. Did you find yourself moving around the triangle a lot, or staying in one role for the most part?

          1. If you stayed in one role, which role was it?

          2. Do you find yourself playing that role when things don’t go the way you plan or expect?

          3. Does playing this role help you? Or lead to more negativity?

        3. Are there better ways of handling these situations instead of falling into the trap of these three roles?

      2. Bring them back to the large group and ask if anyone wants to share what their mentor group talked about (5 minutes)

        1. Transition to the last question- what are better ways of dealing with situations like these instead of resorting to playing out these three roles?

          1. Brainstorm ideas

        2. Maybe instead of playing these roles, we can ask ourselves these questions: (these questions are taken from the book, pg. 57)

          1. Am I willing to take full responsibility for this situation?

          2. What do I really want?

          3. If there were no obstacles, what would I be doing with my creative energy?

          4. Am I willing to learn whatever it is I most need to learn about this situation?

          5. Am I willing to see all others involved as my allies?

          6. Am I willing to see myself as empowered in this situation?

          7. How can I play with this situation?

          8. Where and when do I feel most alive?

          9. What am I distracting myself from doing or knowing?

        3. Post these question on the board and then invite the mentor groups to try out these questions with the same scenarios from before (10 minutes)

      3. Bring them back into the large group and ask them to consider the following question: (5 minutes)

        1. What changes when you ask these questions instead of taking on one of the three roles?

    6. Journaling on the activity

      1. What did you learn about yourself from this activity?

      2. What new insights do you have?

      3. What will you do differently now moving forward?

  • Summer Programs work (30 minutes) ? Or if there is anything from the last lesson that didn’t get completed? Up to pod leaders for how they want to spend this time.  

Here is the syllabus for the Sophomore Mentoring Program

For Pod Leaders only: Attendance Forms:

Atrium Mentor

Atrium Mentee

Bay Mentor

Bay Mentee

Garden Mentor

Garden Mentee

Infinity Mentor

Infinity Mentee