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Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars Alicia Wilson-Ahlstrom,

Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars Alicia Wilson-Ahlstrom, Nalini Ravindranath, Nicole Yohalem, and Vivian Tseng The Forum for Youth Investment and William T. Grant Foundation Mentoring and the William T. Grant Foundation The William T. Grant Foundation supports research to improve the lives of youth. The long-term success of our work depends on the energy, talent, and success of junior scholars, and we view strong mentoring as key supports for them. Since 1982, the Foundation has invested in the development of promising early-career researchers through the William T. Grant Scholars Program. Scholars propose an ambitious program of work that will expand their expertise and skills; and they rely on the support and guidance of strong mentors to help them succeed. In 2005, we began to provide these Scholars with supplemental awards to support them in becoming stronger mentors themselves. We are also focused on ensuring high-quality training and mentoring for researchers of color. Our goals are for Scholars to become stronger mentors and develop a better understanding of the career development issues facing their junior colleagues of color. We also hope to increase to a modest extent the number of strong, well- networked researchers of color doing work on the Foundation’s research interests. The Forum for Youth Investment has been a partner in our efforts to support Scholars in becoming effective mentors. The Forum is a nonprofit, nonpartisan “action tank” dedicated to helping communities and the nation make sure all young people are Ready by 21® – ready for college, work, and life. This mentoring guide features knowledge gleaned from interviews with Scholars and their mentees, their progress reports to the Foundation, our mentoring workshops, and a review of selected literature. We hope you find the insights useful for your own mentoring. Suggested Citation: Wilson-Ahlstrom, A., Ravindranath, R., Yohalem, N., & Tseng, V. (2010, June). Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars. Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment. ©2010 The Forum for Youth Investment and William T. Grant Foundation. All rights reserved. Parts of this report may be quoted or used as long as the authors and the Forum for Youth Investment are recognized. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes without prior permission from the Forum for Youth Investment or William T. Grant Foundation. Please contact the Forum for Youth Investment at The Cady-Lee House, 7064 Eastern Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. 20012-2031, Phone: 202.207.3333, Fax: 202.207.3329, Web: www.forumfyi.org, Email: youth@forumfyi.org for information about reprinting this publication and information about other publications. Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars Alicia Wilson-Ahlstrom, Nalini Ravindranath, Nicole Yohalem, and Vivian Tseng The Forum for Youth Investment and William T. Grant Foundation Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars © June 2010 The Forum for Youth Investment 4 Table of Contents Introduction. ................................................................................................................5 Building and Maintaining Mentoring Relationships.................................................6 Develop Explicit Agreements......................................................................................................................... 6 Create a Comprehensive Mentoring Plan...................................................................................................... 7 Protect Mentoring Time. ................................................................................................................................. 7 Consider Mentoring in Group Settings. ......................................................................................................... 7 Mentoring Across Difference . ...................................................................................9 Acknowledge Context..................................................................................................................................... 10 Encourage and Broker Additional Mentoring Relationships........................................................................ 11 Consider How Race and Identity Influence Career Decisions. ..................................................................... 11 Develop Your Own Cultural Competency. ...................................................................................................... 12 Supporting Career Development . ..............................................................................13 Broker Access................................................................................................................................................. 14 Create a Career Development Plan................................................................................................................ 14 Develop and Review a Skills Inventory......................................................................................................... 14 Prepare Your Mentee to Assume the Role of Colleague............................................................................... 14 Collaborate With Your Mentee....................................................................................................................... 15 Discuss Work-Life Balance............................................................................................................................. 15 Develop Effective Task Prioritization and Time Management..................................................................... 16 Encourage Broad Thinking About Career Options........................................................................................ 16 Managing Conflict . .....................................................................................................18 Anticipate Potential Conflicts........................................................................................................................ 18 Revisit Underlying Structures and Agreements. ........................................................................................... 19 Identify Solutions........................................................................................................................................... 19 Seek Outside Help and Support..................................................................................................................... 19 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................20 Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars © June 2010 The Forum for Youth Investment 5 Introduction Having a good mentor early in a scholarly career can mean the difference between success and failure. It is striking that such an important activity in the training of new researchers has few established definitions of effective practice. Many who take on the responsibility of mentoring do so without a primer, drawing on informal resources and personal mentoring experiences. We hope this guide helps change that, by addressing many of the common questions and dilemmas mentors face and identifying specific strategies and resources for developing mentoring skills. The guide addresses four themes: (1) building and maintaining mentoring relationships, (2) mentoring across difference, (3) supporting career development, and (4) managing conflict within mentoring relationships. While the experiences and reflections of individuals connected to the William T. Grant Foundation’s Scholars Program are woven throughout the guide, the strategies and resources included here are relevant for any mentor or advisor, particularly those working in academic settings with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The first theme, building and maintaining mentoring relationships, examines the foundations of a strong mentoring dyad. Early and ongoing communication is essential; a solid beginning supports the relationship and often sets the stage for collaboration after the mentee joins the professional ranks of the research community. The second theme focuses on mentoring across difference, an important topic that is addressed too infrequently. This guide is only a starting point for acknowledging how and where social and interpersonal differences impact mentoring relationships and research careers. Many types of difference, including gender, sexuality, and social class, can play a role in mentoring relationships. In this document, we focus primarily on mentoring across racial and ethnic differences, but we hope some of the strategies and resources may be helpful for mentors and mentees dealing with other important differences. Career development, the third theme, is one that may consume a substantial portion of time and energy in any effort to mentor an early-career scholar. Good mentoring can make a critical difference in shaping early career decisions. Several researchers who were mentored by William T. Grant Scholars credit that experience with positioning them to confidently explore a range of options and transition smoothly into their first professional appointments. Lastly, managing conflict, the fourth theme, is critical to relationship-building. Because conflicts do arise between mentors and mentees, the best defense is to prepare for the possibility in a realistic and straightforward way. Most mentoring dyads survive bumps, big and small, with preparation and discussion about the potential for conflict and a willingness to re-examine communication. Good mentoring involves ongoing skill development and personal and professional growth for mentors as well as mentees. It is also important to remember that mentoring benefits both members of a dyad. Developing competent junior colleagues that work with you as graduate students and postdocs is valuable to your own research career. We hope this guide will be useful as you hone your scholarship while actively contributing to the development of future scholars. Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars © June 2010 The Forum for Youth Investment 6 Creating Mentoring Plans and Agreements As mentors and mentees begin to establish their relationships, an early task may be to create a mentoring plan and make some agreements about how each individual will contribute to the relationship. Mentoring dyads can turn to a range of resources on graduate and faculty mentoring, including planning templates, toolkits, guides, and sample agreements. Many institutions have their own mentoring toolkits or guides. However, if your institution does not have an appropriate set of resources, the following list may help: • How to Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty This is a comprehensive introduction to graduate level mentoring, produced by the University of Michigan. • Toolkit for Postdoctoral Scholars and Faculty Mentors This toolkit, created by UCLA to guide postdoctoral mentoring arrangements, includes a template for a written mentoring plan and a compact outlining mentor and mentee responsibilities. • Sample Mentors’ Expectation Letter This sample mentoring agreement outlining responsibilities, benefits, and roles for a postdoctoral appointment was developed at UC San Diego. • William T. Grant Scholars Supplement Grants Each year, the William T. Grant Foundation awards supplemental grants to a select few of its Scholars grantees to support mentoring junior researchers of color. The funding announcement for these supplemental grants includes guidance for drafting mentoring plans to support students and postdoctoral fellows of color. Good mentoring is not always easy to achieve. It requires work and commitment from both members of the dyad. Mentors and mentees we interviewed underscored the importance of establishing structures for the mentoring relationship. The basic commitment to the relationship already exists – each of you has a stake in developing a productive, mutually beneficial partnership. One of the first tasks is to turn that shared commitment into explicit, fully developed expectations related to meeting times, work plans, work products, and communication. This section highlights how others have approached building and structuring solid mentoring relationships with their junior colleagues. We discuss strategies for setting expectations, protecting mentoring time, and structuring that time effectively. Develop Explicit Agreements One mentor we interviewed took a very intentional approach to setting relationship goals and priorities with her mentee. She devoted the first few meetings to establishing “norms” uploads/Ingenierie_Lourd/ mentoring-guide 1 .pdf