Navigating grad school can feel daunting and challenging at times but having someone who can guide you and who knows how you feel is a key element to ensuring success.<\/p>\n
The Graduate School<\/a> at UConn is committed to providing this support, and to help meet these goals, they created the Network for Enriched Mentorship, or NEM<\/a>. Now in its second year of operation, the current cohort includes more than 70 faculty and staff members paired with over 85 students, says Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Department of Sociology Professor Mary Bernstein<\/a>. NEM is aimed at providing support to students, but a key element is that it is also aimed at training mentors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to create mechanisms, techniques, skills, and tools to have our faculty be as excellent as they can be, as far as their mentoring and advising with an eye to our minoritized populations, knowing that if we can make things better for this population, then it will make things better for everybody,\u201d says Bernstein.<\/p>\n NEM pairs mentors with experience in navigating the obstacles of graduate school with mentees in need of support. As part of The Graduate School\u2019s commitment to graduate student success, Associate Professor in the Department of Animal Science Mary Anne Amalaradjou<\/a> and Neag School of Education Assistant Professor Chen Chen<\/a> joined The Graduate School team serving as the program\u2019s first two faculty affiliates for inclusive excellence. They have been instrumental in improving mentorship across campus, which included the creation of a mentor guide<\/a>, a forthcoming mentee guide, and learning from other programs to help tailor the NEM program. In the new cycle, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies (GSCU) Peter Chen<\/a> is a new NEM program director, taking over from C. Chen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe look for faculty and staff from across all colleges and units to serve as mentors. We had students from different units and the other campuses who wanted to have that mentoring experience,\u201d says Amalaradjou.<\/p>\n Potential mentees and mentors submit applications<\/a>, and if chosen, they are paired based on various aspects, like interests, background, or other similarities,<\/p>\n \u201cWe purposefully match students with mentors outside of their program because this is not meant to be career advice, it is meant to be another way to provide students with support or help navigating obstacles that they encounter in their departments,\u201d says Bernstein.<\/p>\n The program provides guidance on how to get the conversation started between newly matched mentors and mentees to help establish the enduring relationships that are so beneficial for graduate student success.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cParticularly for a Ph.D. student, their advisor is one of the most important and influential relationships for that student, and it’s even more significant for a student that is perhaps first-gen in graduate school, or who comes from some other type of minoritized background,\u201d says Assistant Dean of The Graduate School Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Affairs Karen Bresciano<\/a>. \u201cWe want to do our best to help faculty have the skills needed to be the best advisors and help students be the best mentees possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Bresciano says a third goal of the program is to help address what is called the \u201chidden curriculum,\u201d which is the knowledge about higher education that a student with family members who have already navigated the process can impart, but if you are a first-generation student, you have to learn firsthand.<\/p>\n Amalaradjou says that one of the NEM events they planned included support services from around campus, including Student Health and Wellness<\/a>, the Ombuds Office<\/a>, and the Center for International Students and Scholars<\/a>, to ensure that mentees and mentors are aware of what is available.<\/p>\n \u201cUConn is a big place, and we wanted to create a safe space where everyone had the opportunity to ask questions in person,\u201d says Amalaradjou.<\/p>\n Evidence of NEM\u2019s success is seen in the program\u2019s exit survey for the first cohort, says Amalaradjou, where mentees spoke highly of the program, and mentors expressed gratitude at being able to support students. Peter Chen recalls a story he heard from one of the mentees during the most recent event in December. The mentee was struggling and his NEM mentor invited him to their family\u2019s Thanksgiving celebration.<\/p>\n \u201cThat student was going through a very difficult time, academically and financially, and he really enjoyed this experience and appreciated the program.\u201d<\/p>\n The program provides a space to create a sense of community. In December, all students were invited to the \u201cNEM Happy Hour,\u201d where they had the opportunity to meet other mentees, enjoy food, chat, and play trivia games. The event was well attended despite the cold evening after a snowy day.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were sharing their experiences about using the resources on campus and sharing conversations. It was a good downtime for the students before the semester ended. They were asking when the next event will be. We hope to have another one towards the end of the spring semester,\u201d says Chen.<\/p>\n Beyond the physical gathering, a Slack group has been established to keep the NEM students connected across distances.<\/p>\n The NEM program is also a great way to hone mentoring skills since mentor training is now mandatory for new faculty at UConn.<\/p>\n \u201cMentorship is not taught, and it is very much like parenting,\u201d says Bernstein. \u201cYou’re not really taught what works and what doesn\u2019t, and what works for you may not work for somebody else. There are fundamental skills and ways you can align expectations to improve the mentoring experience, both for faculty and for graduate students.\u201d<\/p>\n To recognize this important work, at the end of the program, the grad school sends out a letter to all mentors that is also shared with their department head and the Dean as a way of recording the commitment of time outside of other responsibilities.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s important to support mentorship, which must be a university-wide commitment. It has to be acknowledged because much of faculty service isn’t rewarded or acknowledged,\u201d says Bernstein. \u201cThere is a personal reward, but people are struggling to balance their research and their teaching and their other service obligations. We need to figure out how to improve that as a university, and we believe that this is a really important first step.\u201d<\/p>\n NEM is a valuable resource in addition to others offered by The Graduate School, including a series called Grad Chat to bring together members of the graduate community to support one another with a focus on identity-based groups, says Bresciano, who spoke about a recent Grad Chat event:<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a feel-good event. I left feeling very encouraged that this is meeting the needs of our students. They want to be supported, to support one another, to learn from one another, and they want to meet each other and people outside of their departments. They like the idea of these conversations being open to the graduate population, focusing on different topics.\u201d<\/p>\n