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Director's Corner

Dear Graduate Mentoring Community

The role of the Graduate Mentoring Center (GMC) remains as vital now as ever. Attempts by places like IU to achieve the benefits of diverse, equitable, and inclusive institutions are receiving pushback from multiple directions. As such, it more important than ever that we redouble our efforts to ensure that persons with diverse characteristics and backgrounds pursue graduate study, succeed in their programs, and move into successful careers building those institutions. Thanks to the sincere commitment of current and past administrations, the Graduate Mentoring Center is uniquely positioned to help achieve these goals on the Bloomington Campus.

Over the past two years, we have attempted to take a comprehensive approach to improving graduate student mentoring at IUB. To us, “comprehensive” means providing direct support and programming to students. It also means providing opportunities for faculty to improve as mentors, through cohort based and self-paced mentoring curricula informed by the best research. Finally, it means being a source of information and expertise for departments and schools around campus that want to grow their own mentoring programs and cultures.

I want to say thank you to the IUB community for the tremendous support in pursuing these goals and I look forward to working with all of you to figure out how the GMC can best enhance graduate student mentoring on our campus.

Sean Nicholson-Crotty

Director, The Graduate Mentoring Center

I am thrilled and honored to be assuming the Directorship of the Graduate Mentoring Center (GMC) at this important time. Society is increasingly recognizing and striving to achieve the benefits of diverse, equitable, and inclusive institutions. It is more important than ever, therefore, that persons with diverse characteristics and backgrounds pursue graduate study, succeed in their programs, and move into successful careers building those institutions.

Thanks to the sincere commitment of current and past administrations, the Graduate Mentoring Center is uniquely positioned to help achieve these goals on the Bloomington Campus. The research is clear that thoughtful mentoring is vital for the success of students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in higher education. It is my hope that the GMC can provide direct support to these students, as well as be a source of information and expertise for departments and schools around campus that want to grow their own mentoring programs and cultures.

Our first step will be to conduct a strategic assessment to find out what students and other stakeholders need from the Center and determine its current capacity to achieve its mission. As a part of that assessment, I will look forward to talking with many of you in the coming months about the specific ways in which the GMC can best enhance doctoral mentoring at IU-Bloomington.

Sean Nicholson-Crotty, Ph.D.

Director, The Graduate Mentoring Center

Paul H. O’Neill Professor

O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs

Abegunde Welcome

Mentoring has always been an essential part of my life. As a creative scholar, learning how to successfully negotiate and integrate the artistic and academic worlds would not have been possible without the help of a community of similar scholars and artists. Every day they teach me how to walk the paths that are opened by my research.
Maria Hamilton Abegunde, Director (2014-2022)

The Graduate Mentoring Center Opens

Dear Graduate Mentoring Community,

My experience at IU was made easier and more fruitful because a community of family, friends, peers, colleagues, faculty, staff, and strangers supported me during my doctoral journey. They helped me succeed by supporting who I was and empowering me to complete what I started.

How did they do this? They made sure I knew about the resources on and off campus, helped me network and publish, encouraged me when no light appeared at the end of a project, pushed me to question any tightly held assumptions about my subject, and shared with me graduate school "codes" and "languages". In addition, they offered me a good meal, a funny movie, great music, and spaces of silence and reflection when I - we - needed them.

In short, they helped me understand that balance, community, culture, mentorship, and scholarship could all be created and achieved with, quite literally, a little help from my friends and mentors. These tenets guide The Graduate Mentoring Center.

As a graduate student, you may sometimes feel isolated. You may sometimes feel that you won't ever get through "this", whatever "this" is at the moment. You may have a family you need to support while conducting your research. It may be the first time you've been on a campus so large. Or your research is not going as you had hoped. While it is true that "wherever you go, there you are", it is not true that you are the only one or need to be alone on this journey.

During turbulent times you may feel as if your research is unimportant compared to the urgent work that is needed to change the world. You may even feel like you want to put your work aside to do something more important. I want to assure you that what you are thinking and feeling is part of the process of growing into what it means for you to be a scholar.

I invite you to contemplate or visit the reasons why you decided to pursue a graduate education and how, now more than ever, that choice can help you be the change you want to be in the world. More than anything, I invite you to contemplate this with a mentor or a group of mentors who may be your peers.

If you do not yet have a mentor, or would like a new one, please do not hesitate to contact us at iugmc@indiana.edu with any questions you may have. You may also contact us via this form.

Maria Hamilton Abegunde, PhD
Director (2014-2022)

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