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.

Professionals listening to a presentation

 

Professionals working together during a workshop

 

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

Other Resources