By Kayla Lutes, Features Editor
“College is like a vacuum,” Senior Cynthia Moberly said. “We’re all 18-23, which is great, but once you graduate, you don’t just interact with people your age.”
She pointed out the benefits of learning from someone older and the age range within the campus mentoring program (from late twenties to someone in their late sixties).
Moberly described the program as an opportunity to learn from someone in a different season of life. “You’re, I would hope, walking into a mentor program thinking ‘I’m going to learn something from this,’ and they’re probably thinking the same thing as a mentor,” she said. “You’re learning to build a meaningful relationship with someone who is not exactly the same as you, one way being how old they are.”
The campus mentor program launched Tuesday, Sept. 20 for this school year. Senior Anna Corbitt said, “I think in college it’s so easy to have several surface relationships. But this program has helped me really learn how to get to know someone effectively.”
Moberly participated in the program her sophomore year and can still cite lasting impacts of her decision to participate.
“I learned a lot about what it means to both be a disciple and what it means to disciple others,” Moberly said. “I learned how to do that well.”
Corbitt also first participated in the mentor program her sophomore year and continues to meet with her mentor every other week.
“I wanted to have guidance from somebody older and wiser that could help me make decisions or just talk to me about things that were happening spiritually or emotionally,” Corbitt said.
Both Corbitt and Moberly felt that their mentor pairings were great fits. Corbitt was paired with Dawn Rightmire, who works at the campus health services and goes to her church. Moberly and her mentor, Kelly Bixler, share many common interests.
“They matched us up really well,” Moberly said. “I’m an English Ed major, and I was paired with someone who was an English major and did freelance editing.”
Corbitt and Moberly both found that their mentors met them at crucial points in their journey, coming alongside them with wisdom that can only come from life experience. Corbitt found herself meeting with her mentor more regularly during her junior year, which she felt was her hardest year at Asbury.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“I wanted to have guidance from somebody older and wiser that could help me make decisions or just talk to me about things that were happening spiritually or emotionally,” [/perfectpullquote]
“She was a safe person to go to during hard points in my life. It was very beneficial to have her remind me of things that were hard to see during those seasons of my life,” Corbitt said.
For Moberly, her mentor walked with her at an early point in her faith journey. “That year (sophomore year) was a chapter of my life when I was coming into my faith more fully,” Moberly said. “She would answer a lot of questions I had. She would point me to places in scripture or things that had happened to her in life that were helpful because she had been a Christian for many years and had a lot of wisdom to give me.”
Life experience breeds wisdom, and for Moberly and Corbitt that was the draw of the program.
