Mentoring

1
Mentoring

• Aline Boos
• Washington University in St Louis
• Matthew Hottell
• Indiana University

2
Mentoring in Interdisciplinary Fields

• Problematic
• Passing the buck
• Scarcity of qualified mentors
• Hard to find
• May already be overloaded
• Working with outside mentors
• Knowing program requirements/procedure
• How to resolve problem situations

3
Finding an Effective Mentorship

• Dont expect a perfect fit
• Search for multiple mentors

4
Faculty Mentoring is essential to success in
graduate education and later career
5
Challenges to an effective faculty-student
mentoring relationship
to students - not the right fit - not
consistent quality to faculty/institution -
not trained - not rewarded
6
What students can do
Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards -
established by WashU GSS in 1999 - rewards
outstanding mentors - educates by example and by
formulating 6 mentoring criteria - empowers
students to affect change
Peer Mentoring Program - builds a strong
student community - educates via various
workshops - empowers students to help themselves
and others
Partner with administration and faculty to make
student initiatives effective - ,
experience and other resources - validates
student initiatives' goals - helps reach large
audience including Graduate Council, BOT
7
What type of support students need from the
institution
continued support of strong student leadership
and initiatives - student representation at
all levels - , experience and other
resources - advocacy in and beyond the
institution complement student initiatives
with top-down effect on faculty mentoring
status - mentoring training at graduate student
level or later stages - official rewards for
good mentoring - outstanding mentoring as a
mission of the institution