ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the prevalence of mentoring in college, and reviews some of the key developmental models bearing on the phase of life between adolescence and adulthood. It summarizes some of the salient mentor functions required of the effective college student mentor. Various models of undergraduate development reveal that students at the college stage are actively wrestling with several key developmental tasks. Several theoretical models of adolescent to young adult development are particularly relevant to undergraduate college students-and those who mentor them. Chickering offered one of the most influential models of young adult identity development. One of the more influential theories of psychosocial development with direct relevance to young adulthood is Erikson's stage theory of development. Daniel Levinson's model of adult development focused on the necessity of evolving an individual life structure that could sustain a person through each of the phases of adult development.
