Home
Mentorship

Mentorship

What is Mentoring?

What does it mean to mentor someone? What are the characteristics of good mentoring? What are the stages of mentoring? What should one expect from a mentor? These and other questions are important for faculty member and student to ask before entering such a relationship with one another, as well as being clear of how these roles are defined.

A mentoring relationship implies that the parties involved must work together to co-create connections through sets of agreements that establish specific, measurable, attainable, realistic/relevant, and timely (SMART) goals. Such a relationship also helps the student reflect on their goals in ways that help them clarify how they intersect with their personal and professional aspirations.

(Lundsford, Laura Gail and Baker, Vick L. (2016). Great Mentoring in Graduate School: A Quick Start Guide for Proteges. Council of Graduate Schools.)

Mentoring in Graduate Education

Students may receive mentoring from staff and peers. Here we focus on the important role that faculty have in assisting graduate students develop research interests, skills, and agendas. Although we use the terms mentor and mentee, we recognize that some may use the terms mentor and protégé. In addition, mentoring and coaching are sometimes used synonymously, with the latter focused more on the internal awareness and development of the mentee/protégé. The information below offers an integration of both to help faculty better develop personal and professional relationships with students. It draws from guidance provided by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS).

Within the context of graduate education, mentoring is a relationship between faculty and graduate student in which the former is committed to providing guidance and access to information and resources that support the latter’s progress at various stages of their academic career. Because of the depth and length of the graduate journey, a student may be supported by multiple faculty members to address different areas of support. We encourage faculty and students to complete the interactive NCFDD mentoring map to better understand the benefits of having multiple mentors to address multiple needs.

(Council of Graduate Schools. (2003). On the Right Track: A Manual for Research Mentors. Council of Graduate Schools.)

Elements of a Successful Mentoring Relationship

As with many other relationships in your life, a successful mentoring relationship is one that requires the parties involved to be committed to the work that needs to be done. In this case, that would be helping you navigate and negotiate school for you to successfully graduate. The following elements, however, can be helpful in determining what you need in such a relationship.

A mentoring relationship is characterized by several traits, including but not limited to:

Although all of the characteristics are important, trust is paramount. Without it, the other characteristics cannot exist, nor can the stages of mentoring be activated.

What will each person give and recieve from the relationship?

What have you learned or are learning about yourself as a result of this relationship?

What type of relationship would you like to have and what expectations do you have of the relationship?

How do the mentor and mentee share responsibility and investment in developing and maintaining the relationship?

How do the mentor and mentee share knowledge to help the mentee forward in their personal and/or professional learning?

Have the mentor and mentee agreed upon clearly defined goals for the relationship, its purpose, and its goals?

How will the mentor and the mentee determine the mentee's development in the relationship?

How does the cultural, historical, social, and/or economic contexts of the mentor and mentee shape the relationship?

(adapted from The Mentor's Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships by Lois J. Zachary)

Stages of Developing a Mentoring Relationship

Developing a mentoring relationship takes trust and communication. Mentee and mentor must commit the time to learning to get to know each other in a respectful manner in a safe space. Below are some general guidelines that may help you to know what to expect as you begin to look for or work with a mentor.

Take time to contemplate your intention(s) for a mentoring relationship. What do you need and want at this point in your graduate career and life? A first-year student needs different guidance than a doctoral candidate. What type of characteristics are you looking for in a mentor or a mentee? A non-tenured faculty member has different guidance to offer than a tenured faculty or staff member. Do you want to work with someone within or outside your discipline? Who in your life would be a good mentor to you and why?

Once you have answered the questions about (and others) take the next step and contact potential mentors. Clearly communicate your reasons for wanting to establish a mentoring relationship with this person and ask if she or he would be interested and able to meet with you to discuss the matter more.

Once mentee and mentor decide to work together, a series of processes take place: introductions, establishing goals and accountability measures, setting and understanding boundaries, and determining accoutability strategies. During this stage both mentee and mentor are working to learn about each other, what will be needed to work together, and the best ways to do this. You are also working to develop trust between each other. Trust develops from being able to honestly articulate what is needed and being able to share this information without judgement or feeling as if one is being judged. Without this, the other stages of the mentoring relationship will not be successful.

The initiation stage may vary in length for each relationship. After you established the relationship parameters of the relationship, and the ways in which mentoring will occur, a much harder stage begins: that of cultivating, growing, and maintaining the relationship.

To do this, mentee and mentor must continuously commit to and work towards meeting the intentions and goals established during stage two. However, each must also be willing to acknowledge personal and professional growth. Intentions and goals, therefore, must be revisited regularly to ensure that mentee and mentor are aligned. This stage may deepen your relationship or highlight the fissures of the relationship. If you have maintained strong communication- all with the intent of assisting the mentee- moving forward will be supported through the intentions of meeting the needs of the mentee, recognizing growth, and committing to change that will lead to the mentee's success.

There will be a point in your relationship where it may be necessary to separate from each other. This may be for multiple reasons: change in interests; graduation; life changes; mentee and mentor have grown apart; or perhaps the relationship was not successful. Whatever the reason, how you transition from the relationship is as important as how you initiated it. Clear communication about why the separation is needed will assist the mentee and mentor in being able to acknowledge the growth or failure that has occured and define the reasons why separation at this time would benefit both. Separation could be as simple as it is time for the mentee to graduate or to begin his/her own professional career. Or, it could be as complicated as an unsuccessful mentoring relationship.

Eventually, the mentee will become a mentor or transition to her or his career. This is a delicate time that requires the mentor to acknowledge that the mentee may now be a colleague or collaborator. It is also a time when the mentee must acknowledge her or his success and become more confident about her or his research. This stage is very exciting: both former mentee and mentor can choose to continue the relationship or end it. If the former, relationship may still need to be negotiated to incorporate the mentee's new status as professional. If the latter, how does one negotiate the mentee's new status as a colleague who no longer needs this particular mentoring relationship?

In the end, mentoring is a relationship that develops similar to our other relationships but for a very specific purpose: guiding and training a mentee (in this case a student) to be successful in her/his chosen discipline or field. A strong mentoring relationship is one that prepares the mentee to research, publish, collaborate, and mentor others. Mentoring requires patience and understanding, honesty and commitment. Ursula Le Guinn, the incredible science fiction author wrote that "people change and forget to tell each other"- that is we don't communicate our needs and wants to each other. The mentoring relationship is one in which this must be done by both parties if success for the mentee is to occur.

Remember: Good mentoring changes lives. What's in your toolbox?

Research

"The Power of Mentoring"- Lori Hunt at TEDxCCS

"Modern Mentoring: The Good, The Bad, and The Better"- Karen Russell at TEDxOverlake

The science of mentoring

Metorship will change the world.

Mentorship

What is Mentoring?

Mentoring in Graduate Education

Elements of a Successful Mentoring Relationship

Trust

Reciprocity

Learning

Relationship

Partnership

Collaboration

Mutually Defined Goals

Development

Context

Stages of Developing a Mentoring Relationship

Stage One: Reflection

Stage Two: Initiation

Stage Three: Cultivation

Stage Four: Separation

Stage Five: Redefinition

Research

The Graduate Mentoring Center resources and social media channels