Mentoring

I commit to tailoring my mentorship to each student and explicitly asking them about their mentorship needs and expectations as well as long-term career goals. I commit to checking in with them personally on a regular basis so we can appropriately calibrate their research goals with their other ongoing commitments.

I commit to continually reflect on how my mentorship style is effective (or ineffective) in supporting individual students. This reflection will take into account my own positionality and how this may impact my mentoring relationship with students with different backgrounds than my own. I further commit to seeking out resources and readings to continually improve my mentorship.

I commit to providing developmentally appropriate, scaffolded feedback with the overarching goal of helping my mentees grow as scholars and researchers. For example, when providing feedback on written drafts, I will point out both strengths and areas for improvement. I also commit to tailoring my feedback to individual students and providing individualized strategies for meeting expectations. If students ever fall short of expectations, I commit to promptly communicating about avenues for improvement in an encouraging and respectful manner. I also commit to transparency in this process, such as through a mutually agreed upon performance improvement plan.

Although equity considerations also inform many of the values already listed here, I further commit to continuing to educate myself on equitable research and mentoring practices, and applying these principles to my research and work with students.

In my interactions with student researchers, I commit to seeing them as a person first and a student second. In practice, this means that I encourage work-life balance and want my students to be able to develop interests outside of the lab as well.  I will encourage an open line of communication and strive to create a mentoring environment where students feel comfortable showing up as their full selves.

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I commit to reflecting upon and being open to receiving feedback on my own limitations as a mentor, whether this relates to subject area expertise, technical skills, interpersonal skills, lived experience, equity issues, or other aspects of mentorship. When my limitations as a mentor impact the support I provide my mentee, I will do my best to connect my mentee with other colleagues or resources who may be able to meet their needs.

In my discussions with students, I commit to reflecting on the impact our research will have on our community and children and families more broadly. I commit to modeling this in my own conduct and asking questions to help students learn how to think about issues of impact, dissemination, and accountability to the community.

I commit to maintaining long-term relationships with mentees if they are interested, including after graduation/completion of the program through chats/email check-ins, forwarding relevant job postings/opportunities, offering to read graduate school application essays, serving as a reference, etc.  

I commit to providing clear expectations for students. Whenever possible, I will provide expectations in writing, such as in this agreement document. I will also strive to be clear and transparent about the reasoning behind expectations for students and will encourage students to ask questions to help them fully understand what is expected of them.

I commit to connecting my students with resources aligned with their research and career goals, such as forwarding job opportunities or professional development programs that may align with their interests. I also commit to making special effort to connect to resources where my own mentoring may fall short, as outlined in the section on Recognizing Limitations and Knowledge Gaps. When possible, connection to resources will also include facilitating connections with other lab members and researchers at Mt Hope to help foster a sense of community.

I commit to celebrating my students accomplishments with them! Research can be an arduous process with long-term payoffs, and it is important to celebrate accomplishments both big and small.

In academic settings, we often work with others who may have different knowledge bases than our own. I want to create an environment that values the unique knowledge each of us bring to our work, regardless of level of prior research experience. Additionally, I want to foster an environment where my mentees feel comfortable asking questions to help foster their understanding. Finally, I strive to be open to feedback from my mentees about how I can better meet their needs. I aim to receive feedback openly and non-defensively, and demonstrate that I have internalized feedback from my mentees through my actions.