Wesley Center students are starting a peer-mentoring group.
The Wesley Center is OCU’s on-campus ministry.
Five students will focus on specific parts of the OCU population, providing activities, events and support meetings. Elizabeth Horton-Ware, director of religious life, said the group was inspired by the students, to use the skills they’ve obtained through the Wesley Center to help others.
The students will work 10 hours a week and will be paid through a grant from New People New Places Grant of the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church.
“The students, specifically the ones from the school of religion, wanted to utilize their gifts and their sense of calling,” she said. “We’re trying to give them space, as well as a little bit of income. They can then reach out to the campus better than one person can. Not all of them are religion majors, but some of them are. It’s good for them to take the skills they’ve learned through ministry and apply them on campus, and to expand the outreach of the Wesley Center.”
The peer mentors are: Ricardo Martinez, religion junior; Ashley Freeman, dance sophomore, and Kendal Willis, Rebekah Small and Taylor Downey, religion sophomores. Since the Wesley Center only meets on Monday and Wednesday nights, the goal is to expand religious life to other times, places and groups on campus. Among these groups are athletes, Greek life, international students, dance students, and theater students.
Small said she wants to reach out to theater students and to provide support during stressful times, such as audition season.
“I have the idea for an audition spa near where auditions are happening,” she said. “We can provide snacks, run monologues with them and offer a prayer, if they are comfortable with that. It can make them feel more loved and appreciated during auditions.”
Small said she also wants to incorporate performance students into the Wesley Center. Her ideas include performing scriptures, as well as creating a Passion play during Easter.
“I have friends that go to colleges like OCU, and a lot of them are well known for doing big Easter Passion plays,” she said. “I’d love to get performance majors involved to bring the story of Easter to life. That’s a big goal I would want for my specific group.”
The group has not officially started because paperwork is being completed. Horton-Ware said the goal is for each of them to plan their own individual events and to plan an event together.
“We hope to expand it. It just depends on funding,” she said. “It’d be amazing to have more students connected this way, it’s just a matter of what our resources are. We’ll see how this goes, it could be a total flop. But I think it will be a fun way to learn and grow.”
Small said she will start small and aim to start group meetings.
“I want to meet once a week, or maybe every two weeks,” she said. “We can chat about our lives, as well as discuss how their faith is involved in their career and their life style. That would be the starting point, and then truly asking them what does your group need on campus, so we can
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