Encouraging

I had a mentor who encouraged me to pursue my goals and dreams

Mentorship is one of the most powerful experiences a student can have in college. Ultimately, mentoring is not just about guidance—it is about cultivating trust, promoting resilience, and empowering students to envision and achieve their goals.

The Impact of Mentorship

According to Gallup research, graduates who had a mentor encouraging their goals and dreams are:

  • 1.7 times more likely to thrive in all areas of well-being after college.
  • 1.9 times more likely to be engaged at work.
  • Note: Only 25% of college alumni strongly agree they had such a mentor.

This document offers faculty practices to help create “mentoring moments” in both structured and informal ways. The strategies below address common challenges such as time constraints, relationship building, alignment, communication, and space for reflection.

Goal: Define a personal mentorship philosophy and identify mentee needs.

Actionable strategy How to implement it Resources/examples
Clarify Purpose & Readiness Define my mentorship philosophy, shaped by the encouragement I received from my own mentor.
Practices for preparing for mentorship include:

  • Create statements that guide your mentoring philosophy, including your motivation to mentor and a clarification of your role.
  • Review the qualities of effective mentors and identify your strengths.
  • Examining your knowledge and worldview as a mentor.
  • Exploring the role of context in mentoring.
  • Identifying your strengths and growth areas as a mentor.

Develop a Mentoring Philosophy – Resource for mentors to create and develop their own mentoring philosophy (Univ of Colorado, Boulder)

4 Steps to Effective Mentoring – This blog post offers a practical roadmap for mentors aiming to build meaningful, results-driven relationships. It emphasizes that effective mentoring is grounded in intentionality, structure, and mutual growth.​

Equity-Minded Mentoring Toolkit – This toolkit is an action-oriented resource that prompts mentors to explore their views and values related to mentoring.

Harvard Catalyst’s Mentoring Information – This document provides an overview of characteristics of strong mentoring for both mentors & mentees.

Understand Mentee Needs Identify strengths, interests, and aspirations to prepare for meaningful guidance.
Practices for mentees to prepare for mentorship include:

  • Engage in self-awareness practices (outlined in the Harvard Catalyst’s guide) to increase understanding of your mentoring needs.
  • Take assessments, such as the High5 test and the Good Project Value sort, to strengthen your awareness of your values.
  • Identify how your values shape your mentoring needs and goals.
  • Define goals and what success entails.
  • Begin to envision your mentoring roadmap and collaboratively design the roadmap with your mentor.

Harvard Catalyst’s Mentoring Information – This document provides an overview of characteristics of strong mentoring for both mentors & mentees.

High5 Test – Personal strengths assessment tool that includes 100 statements.

The Good Project Value Sort – The assessment displays 35 cards with values on them to help you determine your core values. Understanding the top values of mentees can help mentors conceptualize mentee needs.

Personal Definition of Success – This is a facilitator’s guide from Harvard University to help mentees define success from a values-based perspective.

Mapping a Mentoring Roadmap – This article provides a thorough foundation for mentoring, including a specific mentoring framework. It can help mentees prepare for mentoring by defining their goals and increasing awareness of their growth areas.

Goal: Establish trust, align expectations, and set actionable goals.

Actionable strategy How to implement it Resources/examples
Tools for Relationship Building

Strong mentoring starts with connection, curiosity, and trust.

  • Icebreaker questions to engage with your mentor and mentee.
  • Encourages mentees to proactively prepare questions about career pathways, skills development, professional development, and networking opportunities.
  • Implementing intentional practices to establish trust and promote communication.

Icebreaker Mentoring Questions

Creative questions to get to know your mentor or mentee personally.

20 Questions to Ask a Mentor About Career Development

Questions focused on professional development for the mentee.

30 Questions to ask your mentor in your next meeting

These questions are for the mentee to use proactive planning. This site also has various additional useful resources to continue building the mentorship relationship. (How to Build a Successful Mentor Relationship, Mentor and Mentee: Roles and Expectations).
Aligning Expectations

Clear expectations create a strong foundation for a successful mentoring relationship.

  • Evidence-based mentoring resource designed to help mentors and mentees establish clear, shared understanding of their roles, responsibilities, and goals in the mentoring relationship.

  • Creating a mentor/mentee compact to agree on shared values and aligning expectations.

CIMER Aligning Expectations

Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research provides evidence-based mentoring information that is transferable to multiple mentorship experiences.

CIMER Mentorship Agreement Library

Examples of compacts. Customize to make a compact applicable to your needs.
Constructive Challenge & Goal Setting

Growth comes from challenge, clarity, and intentional goal setting.

  • Coaching growth mindset to encourage challenging your mentee beyond their comfort zone.
  • Defining what success means to you as preparation for setting SMART goals.
  • Setting SMART goals to strengthen accountability and ensure progress toward professional outcomes.

Growth Mindset Mentor Coaching

This information includes how the mentor can apply growth mindset principles to guide the mentee to utilize constructive feedback, challenges, and obstacles as learning opportunities.

Redefining Success

Describing how the mentee defines success and outcomes for mentorship to create optimal SMART goals.

Mentoring Goals for Mentors and Mentees

Creating SMART goals for both the mentor and mentee

Goal: Maintain regular communication and gradually promote independence.

Actionable strategy How to implement it Resources/examples
Consistent Support & Check-ins

Maintain regular communication and celebrate milestones.

Some practices that can support the on-going mentoring relationship:

  • Schedule occasional check-ins (for example, once per semester or at key transition points). “I’d love to hear how things are going—no need for anything formal, just an update when you have a moment.”
  • Send brief messages acknowledging milestones (presentations, publications, new roles, completed projects). “I saw your recent accomplishment and wanted to say congratulations. You’ve worked hard for this.”
  • Invite updates without expectation or pressure. “Please know I’m always happy to serve as a sounding board if you want to talk something through.”
  • Express continued belief in their abilities. “I see that you are working hard at **. You are really skilled in ** and that is why I believe that you will be successful at **.”

The American Psychological Association has created “Introduction to Mentoring: A Guide for Mentors and Mentees”

Get training to become a better mentor: The National Research Mentoring Network offers a free, self-directed course titled “Mentoring Undergraduate Students,” designed to support faculty in research-focused mentoring relationships. It is primarily focused on biomedical, behavioral, and social sciences, but many of the principles are broadly applicable.

“A Mentee’s Guide to the Mentoring Relationship” from the University of Utah is designed to help students understand their role in the mentoring process.
Adapt & Re-align Goals

Ongoing assessment of the mentoring relationship allows you to adjust plans as goals evolve.

Practices that support this include:

  • Co-create concrete goals and indicators of success: Begin the relationship with a shared time for goal-setting. It can be helpful to identify goals that are about habits (habitual goals) that require consistent practice, others that are possible in a shorter time frame (called reach goals) and then identify some goals that are more long-term, or stretch goals. Determine together how you will measure success.
  • Mentoring relationship check-in: Set a time for reflection on how things are going, and a space to share changes in needs, as well as discuss strengths and challenges.
  • Create a cycle for planning, goal setting, evaluation, and revising goals: Set a regular rhythm for planning, evaluating progress, and revisiting goals as needs and priorities evolve.

Harvard Catalyst’s “Assessing Mentoring Relationships” – Harvard Catalyst’s “Assessing Mentoring Relationships” resource provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating and enhancing mentor-mentee dynamics. It emphasizes the importance of regular assessments to identify strengths, address challenges, and support growth within mentoring relationships. Tools and strategies to facilitate these assessments, ensuring that both mentors and mentees can collaboratively build productive and supportive partnerships.

How to write SMART goals – A easy to use guide to help students craft goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

A Mentor’s Guide to Helping Mentees with Goal-setting: A good resource for mentors with specific steps to help guide goal setting and evaluation of progress.

Franklin Covey Time Management Matrix can be a helpful tool when goal setting or re-evaluating the use of time, energy and other resources.
Empower Independence

Gradually promote autonomy and confidence in decision-making.

  • Make growth visible: Create ways to notice and celebrate progress, such as a portfolio of work, a chart of practice, or another approach that captures growth over time.
  • Shift from advice-giving to affirmation: As the relationship develops, move from offering frequent guidance to affirming progress and recognizing developing strengths.
  • Connect to broader networks: Share professional connections and organizations to support the development of a wider professional community.
  • Plan for transitions in the relationship: Set time to discuss how the relationship may evolve or continue as goals are reached or the formal mentoring period comes to a close.

Documenting Learning Through Portfolios: Provides ideas for how to use portfolios to document growth and learning.

How to network: Offers some suggestions and concrete practices for networking, including how to help others build their own networks.

Wise-feedback: Offers a step-by-step guide for giving wise-feedback. While created for instructors, this tool might be helpful to mentors as well.

Reviewing and closing a mentoring relationship: A video that outlines some steps for closing or transitioning a mentoring relationship.

Goal: Model reflective practices and celebrate achievements.

Actionable strategy How to implement it Resources/examples
Guided Reflection & Future Planning Undertaking reflections strengthens goal alignment for relationships and considerations for effectiveness. During the reflection process, mentors 1) discuss lessons learned and areas of development, and 2) identify next steps and continued pursuit of long-term goals.
  • Planning the Next Step – Things mentors should consider when designing the reflection process.
  • University of Edinburgh’s “Reflecting on Experience” -The University of Edinburgh’s “Reflecting on Experience” resource, part of their Reflection Toolkit, offers a comprehensive suite of models to guide individuals through structured reflective practices.
  • UI Reflections on Mentoring Journey – The Indiana University Graduate Mentoring Center’s “Reflection” resource offers a structured guide for both mentors and mentees to introspectively examine their mentoring relationships. It provides reflective prompts to clarify the expectations, learning styles, and communication preferences.
  • Mentorship Reflection Guide – This Kennesaw State University’s guide is designed to help both mentors and mentees reflect on their mentorship experience, assess progress towards goals, and evaluate the effectiveness of the mentoring relationship. Use this guide to facilitate a meaningful reflection process that benefits both parties.
  • Assessment and Evaluation: What Can Be Measured in Mentorship, and How? – This book chapter theoretically discussed assessments and evaluations in STEMM mentorship. This is a part of the book titled “The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM” (2019).
  • Measuring the Effectiveness of Faculty Mentoring Relationships – This article presents the work of an Ad Hoc Faculty Mentoring Committee whose tasks were to define “mentorship,” specify concrete characteristics and responsibilities of mentors that are measurable, and develop new tools to evaluate the effectiveness of the mentoring relationship
Celebrate Progress Examples/Narratives on the mentoring experience:

Students:

Faculty:
Contributors

Jennifer J. Baumgartner

Meredith R. Buchmeier

Stacey D. Curtis

Joe Dikun

Amanda Grieme Bradley

Lauren Hyden

Eliot Parker

Michael Seymour

Moodjalin Sudcharoen

Jeremy A.M. Waisome