Mentorship

Why does this matter?

As mentioned above, many students seek out mentoring relationships with faculty that they feel share their identities, whether that be faculty of the same race, gender, sexual orientation, or other background. This strategy is oftentimes justified when students come from marginalized groups, as studies have shown that mentors with unexamined privileges can be ineffective and even harm students that are already marginalized in academia (Spencer, 2007; Duron et al, 2020; Brusma et al, 2016; Ensher and Murphy, 1997). This does not mean, however, that cross-identity mentoring should stop or be discouraged. As in all other aspects of teaching, good mentorship requires training. This includes social-political consciousness (racial consciousness) training (Freire, 2005; Vargas et al, 2021; Sanchez et al, 2021; Johnson, 2003) and discipline-specific mentorship strategies. Effective mentoring should also be thought of as requiring multiple members of the community, not only because it helps the mentee, but because it provides mentors the opportunity to learn from one another (Chapman, 2018; Johnson, 2003). For instance, we recommend that departments discuss the progress and mentorship of their graduate students each year, in order to both benefit the student and to help one another develop better mentoring strategies (Whitebeck, 2001; Finch & Fernandez, 2013).

How might I do this?

• Train. This includes organizing and attending workshops focused specifically on mentoring, including reading current scholarship on mentoring in order to develop better practices as a mentor. It is also important to improve your understanding of identity consciousness and systemic racism/sexism as a first step towards being able to provide the support your students need.
• Make sure you are aware of the different systems of support in your institution for your students (or specific communities of students; for example, international students) and how to activate these support mechanisms.
• Get to know your mentees as individuals. Know their background and what brought them here for their education. Understand the challenges they are facing, and therefore be able to offer more specific advice, and be able to marshal resources that your mentees might need.
• Form communities of mentors, within your department and with others. Talk about your mentees, and support one another’s mentorship work, providing advice when needed. Learn from one another.

Why does this matter?

Many students are unaware of how a university operates, and what resources are available for their needs. With its many unknowns, college campuses can be stressful spaces, especially for marginalized students, who are sometimes less likely to seek out resources and help (Lipson et al., 2022). Faculty can help students by sharing the unspoken norms of higher education—sometimes this is called the “hidden curriculum”—sharing campus resources and introducing students to professional connections they might not have already had. Such actions enable students to feel empowered to navigate stressors and rally the university and professional support that they need to achieve their goals, which can lead to greater persistence and success (Gable, 2021; Hurd et al., 2018; Le, Hsu, & Raposa, 2021; Raposa & Hurd, 2021/18; Stanton-Salazar, 2011).

How might I do this?

• Intentionally name the elements of the “hidden curriculum”: the norms of higher education and the resources available to students.
• Share your mentoring stories—who did you build relationships with and how did that support your growth in your career?
• Tell students about your particular areas of academic interest and scholarly passions.
• Be explicit with students (e.g. in the syllabus, at the start of class) that they can ask you for letters of recommendation.
• Share ideas of potential resources with your students; offer to connect them to others with similar interests.
• Share example language/scripts for how to approach potential mentors.

Why does this matter?

A felt sense of connectedness between students predicts more student participation, greater investment in the course, and even increased learning (Booker, 2006; MacLeod et al., 2019). When faculty encourage supportive connections between students, students become more confident learners (Fayram et al., 2018; Rendón Linares and Muñoz, 2011). And sharing the mentor role with students means more opportunities for everyone to find the guidance they need, as well as potential collaboration partners (Edgcomb et al., 2010). More advanced students (“near-peers”) are particularly well-suited to take on this role, helping newer students see a path to success, while themselves learning the material better by teaching it (Edgcomb et al., 2010; Wai-Ling Packard, 2015). Peer-to-peer and near-peer-to-peer connections can happen during class, via group conversations in office hours, or at other times. In fact, they can even happen successfully in an entirely online environment (Fayram et al., 2018).

How might I do this?

• Develop mentoring practices you can scale and offer all of your students. For example, instead of basing your outreach on who you naturally “click with,” find ways to recognize the contributions of three different students per week.
• Create in-class study groups or design for peer review/peer mentoring as a way to get students ready for final drafts or in fact as a final assessment on a project.
• Create tiered mentoring structures for your students by linking present students to past students (e.g., share written/recorded/live advice from past students).
• Offer small-group office hours both so students can see how other students interact with you and can also become resources for each other.
• Help students discover what they should be looking for in mentoring relationships by modeling mentorship and asking them about their needs.

Why does this matter?

Instead of viewing students as learning about a field, you can, even from the beginning, explicitly view them as participants in the field. Faculty members often recognize a student’s aptitude in a given field before the student is able to recognize it in themselves, and have the opportunity to bring that aptitude to the student’s awareness and involve them in work in the field. That kind of explicit recognition can help students see themselves as having a future in the field, and motivate them to pursue it, whereas a lack of recognition can serve as a barrier (Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Wai-Ling Packard, 2015). When students engage in research—especially when it's collaborative—or see themselves as professionals, they're more likely to persist in a given discipline (Belanger et al., 2020; Estrada, Mica, et al., 2018; Hagler and Rhodes, 2018; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine et al., 2019; Wong et al., 2019).

How might I do this?

• Recognize and validate your students’ contributions as scholarly work in your classroom.
• Find ways of showcasing student scholarship (student research conferences (even informal ones!)).
• Share publication and presentation opportunities.
• Support capstone projects where appropriate/feasible.
• Design assignments and office hours to look/feel/be more explicitly about mentoring students on their own learning projects.
• Engage students in a conference address/roundtable type back and forth, being explicit about the ways in which it mimics professional work.

Why does this matter?

Witnessing their own successes validates students’ sense of themselves as skilled learners who belong (Rendón Linares and Muñoz, 2011), and specific encouragement focused on student strengths bolsters motivation and investment in the field (Sidelinger & Booth-Butterfield., 2010;Wong et al., 2020), perhaps especially when students have marginalized identities (Yeager et al., 2014)—but both positive and negative feedback improve student confidence, motivation, and academic growth, as long as the feedback is constructive (Auguste et al, 2018; Wai-Ling Packard, 2015), in the sense that it “aims to promote improvement or development of the person receiving feedback” (Duffy, 2013). Sometimes this involves giving critical feedback to a student in a different identity group from one’s own, which can encourage student perceptions of instructor bias—but research shows that this problem can be prevented if the critical feedback is framed in such a way as to underscore the value of rigorous standards and emphasize the student’s ability to meet those standards (Cohen et al., 1999; Gallup, 2014; Wai-Ling Packard, 2015; Wong et al., 2020).

How might I do this?

• Even if not in the context of an assignment, explicitly name things that are going well in the class; make a supportive or positive comment if you have observed an outcome or behavior that is noteworthy. These comments can be directed one-on-one to individual students or, when appropriate, to the class as a whole.
• Engage in acts of “recognition” (Wai-LingPackard, 2015), telling students when their work/performance is the kind of thing professionals in the discipline do. This will help students see themselves as participating in a discipline instead of just meeting requirements for a course, which is particularly important for students who might be more likely to feel like outsiders.
• Especially when giving negative feedback, be explicit about your high standards and your confidence in students’ ability to achieve.
• Positive feedback can take the form of micro-affirmations—quick comments before and after class, a brief email between sessions, etc.

Why does this matter?

Professors and students have different levels of power in the institution and the discipline, and such power differentials in mentoring relationships can, unless treated with care and transparency, lead to violations of boundaries, biased behavior, and even abuse (Kow et al., 2020). The mentor’s boundaries matter, too, and faculty from overtapped groups (e.g., women, faculty of color) may need to guard their time especially carefully (Padilla, 1994). It’s important to recognize that no single mentor can provide mentorship in ALL areas that a student needs or requires. Help your mentees find and build multiple mentoring relationships with different members of our community that can each work to help them succeed (Chapman, 2018). This approach also means that successful mentorship of each member of our community is the collective responsibility of our entire community, and the burden is not on a single faculty member.

How might I do this?

• Be careful to avoid intentionally or unintentionally offending, harassing, or otherwise coercing students to behave in ways that they are not comfortable with; this is, and must be, a professional relationship of respect.
• Establish clear mutual expectations for the mentoring relationship.
• Mind your own boundaries. On the one hand, you want to be helpful to students; on the other, you need to have a sense of when you’re being asked to do too much, or when you’re offering or asked to give support you’re not in a good position to give.
• It’s also the case that students approach women and faculty of color for mentorship more than others (Berheide et al., 2022; El-Alayli et al., 2018); this work is not evenly distributed. This makes it particularly important to keep your boundaries (Padilla, 1994) and to seek help from colleagues in a multi-mentor framework. (E.g., one might give the student guidance on their academic career, another on job search and career, another on navigating the university as a person from a particular identity group.)
• Know your strengths and areas of expertise as a mentor. Encourage students to find other mentors/introduce them to others who can serve as mentors in areas that you are not able to support your students in. Teach them to develop multi-mentor networks.
• Your department may be able to help, and you can suggest the student reach out to affinity groups (e.g., Black House, La Casa Latina) and/or student affairs centers (e.g., the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access).