Ready to Serve: Community-Based Leadership Learning through a Student-Athlete Mentorship Program

AbstractResearch shows that mentoring is a powerful tool to enhance community engagement and develop personal growth in student-athletes. In the Collegiate Achievement Mentoring Program [CAMP] at the [UNIVERSITY], intercollegiate student-athletes serve as leadership mentors to K-12 students. The “Mentees/Apprentices” demonstrated substantial improvements in GPA and attendance during their mentoring semester, while the intercollegiate student-athlete “Mentors/Coaches” showed improvements in GPA, public speaking confidence. This paper will share successes and challenges associated with program development and implementation along with strategies for replication at institutions globally.Keywords: Leadership Development, Mentoring, Community-based learning, Student-Athletes