Mentor Training
The Office of Undergraduate Research is excited to offer a series of Mentor Training workshops based on the nationally recognized curriculum. These workshops, designed to strengthen and enrich the mentoring experience, are facilitated in partnership with CIMER-trained faculty and cover a range of essential mentoring topics for fostering impactful mentorship.
Mentors who complete all eight modules will earn a Mentor Training Certificate, demonstrating their commitment to research mentoring excellence.
Curriculum
Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to
- Provide constructive feedback
- Use multiple strategies for improving communication
- Engage in active listening
- Communicate effectively across diverse dimensions, including varied backgrounds, disciplines, ethnicities, and positions of power
Learning Objectives
- Design and communicate clear goals for the research project
- Listen to and consider the expectations of their mentee in the mentoring relationship
- Consider how personal and professional differences may impact expectations
- Clearly communicate expectations for the mentoring relationship
- Align mentee and mentor expectations
Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to
- Assess their mentee's understanding of core concepts and processes and ability to develop and conduct a research project, analyze data, and present results
- Identify reasons for a lack of understanding, including expert-novice differences
- Use multiple strategies to enhance mentee understanding across diverse disciplinary perspectives
Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to
- Define independence, its core elements, and how those elements change over the course of a mentoring relationship
- Employ various strategies to build their mentee's confidence, establish trust, and foster independence
- Create an environment in which mentees can achieve goals
Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to
- Articulate ethical issues they need to discuss with their mentees
- Clarify their roles as teachers and role models in educating mentees about ethics
- Manage the power dynamic inherent in the mentoring relationship
Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to
- Recognize the impact of conscious and unconscious assumptions, preconceptions, biases, and prejudices on the mentor-mentee relationship and acquire skills to manage them
- Identify concrete strategies for addressing issues
Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to
- Identify the roles mentors play in the overall professional development of their mentees
- Develop a strategy for guiding professional development using a written format
- Initiate and sustain periodic conversations with mentees on professional goals and career development objectives and strategies
- Engage in open dialogue on balancing the competing demands, needs, and interests of mentors and mentees
Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to
- Reflect on the mentor-training experience
- Reflect on intended behavioral or philosophical changes
- Articulate an approach for working with mentees in the future
Upcoming Workshops
- Aligning Expectations, Thursday, October 2nd, 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM
- Maintaining Effective Communication, Wednesday, November 12th, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Our Facilitators
, Director, LaSPACE/NASA EPSCoR
, Director, Office of Undergraduate Research
, Professor of Physics, College of Science and Physics and Astronomy REU co-director
Dr. Zakiya Wilson-Kennedy, Associate Dean for Academic Innovation and Engagement and Associate Professor of Chemistry, College of Science