Tag: peer leader

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Office of General Education Peer Academic Leaders Student Academic Engagement & Success

The Office of General Education is recruiting Peer Academic Leaders for the 2025-2026 academic year

The Office of General Education has begun recruiting Peer Academic Leaders (PALs) for the 2025-2026 academic year. The PALs are a diverse group of undergraduate students with a goal to help students better understand the Common Curriculum, utilize academic resources, connect with their community, and navigate academic challenges.

This is a paid student worker role, averaging 5-9 weekly work hours. Students can also earn their Community Engagement and Oral Communications Proficiency & Experience. Students hired for the position will also receive an $800 housing credit for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Students can apply for the PALs role through the Peer Leader Recruitment Qualtrics form. Staff and faculty can also nominate a student they think would be a good fit for the role.

Once a student applies, they will be contacted to schedule their first-round interview. From there, students will be invited for a final interview with the PALs supervisor, Melina Padron.

The deadline to nominate a Peer Leader will be February 10th. The Peer Leader application will close February 12th. Please contact Melina Padron, the PALs supervisor, at melinap@smu.edu with any questions or concerns.

Categories
Office of General Education Peer Academic Leaders Student Academic Engagement & Success

The Office of General Education celebrates their PAL of the Month

The Peer Academic Leaders (PALs) are off to a running start this fall. PALs completed their Peer Leader training on August 14th, and all also passed their Certified Peer Educator (CPE) exam.

The Office of General Education is proud of the PALs and is excited to see how they utilize the tools they learned during training. While all eleven PALs have shown great initiative and engagement in August, one PAL stands out a hair above the rest.

Meet Syed Sajjad. Syed is an SMU sophomore who currently studies Finance and Energy. Syed was consistently engaged in his CPE training and regularly contributed to all discussions, no matter how big or small the topic. Syed was also one of the first PALs to complete all assigned programming for August. Students might have seen him at the Cockrell McIntosh kick-off on 8/27, where he took the initiative to order pizza for the residents and shared information about the PALs’ services.

Syed is an excellent representation of a student who always puts forth 100% effort, and we are excited to watch him continue to shine this year.

To all undergraduate students, check out upcoming PALs programs and events on the Office of General Education SMU360 page or the SMU Connected Wednesday newsletter. Students can also schedule appointments with PALs during office hours via Booking.SMU.