Student Employee of the Year 2021

SEOTY 2021 - Third Place

Third Place

Maelyn Ehrman

Lead Peer Tutor, Division of Academic Enhancement
Hometown: Tucker, Georgia
Senior, Art & Interior Design

“Maelyn currently serves as a Lead Peer Tutor in the tutoring program where she works with undergraduate Math students, participates in best practice trainings, and promotes the Division of Academic Enhancement across campus. In addition to performing her job at an exemplary level, Maelyn demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to her university and its students.” - Sarah Cramer, Division of Academic Enhancement

As Maelyn’s supervisor in the Peer Learning and Teaching Others (PLaTO) program, I have truly enjoyed getting to know her and watching her mature as a student leader. As a Lead Tutor, Maelyn not only tutors undergraduate math students but also mentors a group of fellow Peer Tutors. Maelyn takes it upon herself to provide exceptional support and mentorship to the Peer Tutors she is assigned to mentor, as well as to tutors that she is not assigned.

Lead Tutors are tasked with observing tutoring sessions of tutors they mentor twice a semester and then scheduling a debrief about the session with the tutor. While this is a heavy task, Maelyn extended an offer to help another Lead Tutor observe their tutors. Maelyn knew her fellow Lead Tutor had a lot on their plate and, without hesitation, offered to mentor and observe half of the other Lead Tutors mentees. Maelyn also invites new math tutors to join a GroupMe she created in order to answer any questions that new tutors might have. In this way, she helps new tutors grow in their tutoring skills and adjust to their new position.

When Maelyn sees a need or problem, she comes up with a solution. Recently, Maelyn noticed that some Peer Tutors were struggling to use a graphing calculator when tutoring MATH 1101. Because of this, Maelyn facilitated a training for all MATH 1101 tutors to brush up on calculator usage. Another example of Maelyn using critical thinking skills to come to a solution is when a student requested tutoring in a math course that we have not previously offered tutoring in. I reached out to Maelyn to ask if she had any fellow classmates that would be interested in tutoring in the course; however, since it was an uncommon course, we could not find anyone to hire. Even though Maelyn was not familiar with the requested course, she contacted the faculty member and learned the course material so that she could better support the needs of the students. This initiative also showed her professionalism and teamwork.

Maelyn has helped the tutoring program pave the path for students to receive online tutoring during the pandemic. Right before the pandemic, the tutoring program changed scheduling platforms. Not only was the scheduling platform new to our Peer Tutors and students, but online tutoring was fairly new as well. To help Peer Tutors and students adjust, Maelyn took it upon herself to create a video walking a student and Peer Tutor step-by-step through how to sign up for online tutoring in our new scheduling platform. This video is now posted to our website and is one of our greatest resources. Maelyn has even worked with our Coordinator of Communications to learn how to brand videos to help market online tutoring across campus. Through Maelyn’s commitment to student success and her strong efforts towards peer education, Maelyn demonstrates to me that she would be an excellent candidate for the Student Employee of the Year award.

Nominated by: Sarah Cramer, Coordinator of Peer Education, Division of Academic Enhancement

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