Graduate School

Faculty who wish to earn a Badge of Completion must complete Workshop One, Workshop Two, and Workshop Three. The digital badge can be added to the trained mentor’s personal website or in an email signature. Upon completion of the required training, faculty can request a Badge of Completion by contacting Mo Childers ([email protected]).

Faculty members may take the workshops without earning the badge of completion, but we encourage faculty to complete the full program.

Workshop One - Introduction to Mentorship Training and Maintaining Effective Communication

(Two hours)

Introduction to Mentorship Training

Mentors will:

• Learn about other mentors in the group to begin building a learning community
• Reflect on group dynamics and ways to make the group functional
• Establish ground rules for participation
• Prepare to establish effective mentoring relationships with mentees

Maintaining Effective Communication

Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Provide constructive feedback
• Use multiple strategies for improving communication (in person, at a distance, across multiple mentees, and within appropriate personal boundaries)
• Engage in active listening
• Communicate effectively across diverse dimensions, including varied backgrounds, disciplines, ethnicities, and positions of power

Workshop Two - Aligning Expectations and Fostering Independence

(Two hours)

Aligning Expectations

Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Design and communicate clear goals for the mentee
• 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

Fostering Independence

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 mentees confidence, establish trust, and foster independence
• Create an environment in which mentees can achieve goals

Workshop Three

(Two hours)

Professional Development

Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Learn to identify the roles mentors play in the overall professional development of their mentees
• Mentors will learn strategies to engage in open dialogue on balancing competing demands, needs, and interests of mentors and mentees, e.g, grant funding, creativity and independence, career preference decisions, non-research activities, personal development, work-family balance, etc.

Addressing Equity and Inclusion

Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to:

• Increase understanding of equity and inclusion and their influence on mentor-mentee interactions
• Recognize the impact of conscious and unconscious assumptions, biases and prejudices on their mentor-mentee relationship and acquire skills to manage them
• Identify concrete strategies for learning and addressing issues of equity and inclusion