Mentorship and Menteeship Training, contributed by Pamela Abshire, University of Maryland

Idea: Mentoring is an important factor for success in research and in technical careers. We provide training for all mentors and mentees that participate in the BIEN REU program in order to allow students to take full advantage of mentoring opportunities during their summer REU experience and afterwards at their home institutions and ultimately in their careers.

to support students with technical aspects of their research
to assist students with career planning
to help students gain an appreciation for the value of mentoring, both in recognizing good role-models and in understanding their own responsibilities in a mentoring relationship
to impart confidence in students’ abilities

What Works Well: At the beginning of the summer, we hold a mentorship workshop which all graduate student mentors are required to attend and all faculty mentors are encouraged to attend. In the mentoring workshop, participants are given a through overview of what constitutes a good mentor and how to encourage their mentees to be responsible and proactive so they can get the most out of this valuable resource. We provide all participants with a mentoring guide. Participation of faculty mentors in the workshop is strong and stimulates interest and discussion.

What Doesn’t Work So Well: In two summers thus far, all REU participants have been provided with a mentoring guide at the beginning of the program, and we have relied on informal mentoring interactions with graduate student and faculty mentors to carry out the remainder of the program’s mentoring objectives, following the mentorship training. Sometimes the mentors do not explicitly discuss mentoring with the REU participants during the course of their research interactions, so we plan to discuss menteeship expectations during the program orientation with the entire group in the future.

How to Measure It: We assess mentoring using an initial survey of the REU participants on the first day of the program, an early survey of the REU participants at week 2-3, a midway survey at week 6, an interview of the REU participant by a faculty member (not their mentor) at week 9, and final surveys by the REU participant and their graduate student and faculty mentors.

Assessment data: All data indicate that the BIEN mentoring was very successful. In 2009, 92% (89% in 2008) of the students either agreed or strongly agreed their faculty mentoring was satisfactory (the remaining students neither agreed nor disagreed) while 100% in both years either agreed or strongly agreed their graduate student mentoring was so. After six weeks of mentoring, 69% of the 2009 students (compared to 88% in 2008) indicated their self-confidence had improved as a result of their mentoring experience. At the end of the program, 92% of the 2009 students (100% in 2008) indicated they had a better understanding of the characteristics of a good role-model.

Attribution: Originally contributed by Pamela Abshire, BIEN REU Program, University of Maryland