Graduate School Mentoring Workshop focuses on best practices, real-life scenarios

Ask a dozen people to tell you what a mentor is, and you might get as many different responses.

At a recent workshop conducted at the Graduate Life Center on the Blacksburg campus, Graduate School Dean Aimee Surprenant said mentors fill multiple roles. They are supervisors, guides, coaches, advisors, helpers, and teachers. They may serve one or more of those roles for each of their mentees, but “not every mentor should serve all roles.” To that end, she said mentors must manage students’ expectations. “We do expect you to be the person in charge of that relationship.”

More than 50 faculty members and postdoctoral scholars attended the mentoring workshop, led by Kevin Edgar, one of the Graduate School’s three associate deans. The workshop was based on the Mentoring Road Show, a customizable program Edgar and Associate Dean William Huckle developed for departments, centers, and other groups to share and discuss best practices for faculty mentors. “Mentoring is the responsibility of a lot of people,” Edgar said. “Everybody has responsibilities and expectations.”

Exercises based on experience

Edgar used participatory exercises to engage the audience. The three case studies used during the workshop were based on real situations that occurred at Virginia Tech. After reading a scenario, participants at each table discussed their reactions to the incident and what could have been done differently. Many offered reflections based on their own experiences, and several nodded as the scenario was read aloud.

A two-way street

Tremayne “Trey” Waller, director of graduate student programs for the College of Engineering, shared a presentation focused on that college's mentor training. He, too, used a participatory exercise, during which attendees talked about their perceptions of mentoring and its challenges. Waller noted the commonalities and differences they raised. He said he uses this exercise as an icebreaker with students to lead a conversation about the expectations students may hold about mentorship. Echoing Surprenant, he said there is no single way to mentor, and the relationship is interactive. “Mentorship is a two-way street. You’re trying to help someone grow. They’re an apprentice,” he said.

The most important question

Building on the focus on personal experience and best practices, a panel of professors shared their own work as mentors. Linsey Marr, University Distinguished Professor and the Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Jonathan Auguste, associate professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; and Megan Dolbin-MacNab, professor of human development and family science in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, talked about their relationships with their mentees and what they felt they could do better. They also addressed what they considered to be the most important question to ask a potential mentee. For Marr, the question is, “Why do you want to pursue this degree?”

New requirement

Chris Smith, Postdoctoral Affairs program administrator, shared information about a new National Science Foundation requirement for grant writers to include mentorship plans for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers on projects. Each student or postdoc on the project should also have an individual development plan, he said.

Genuine interest in helping others

Executive Vice Provost Don Taylor brought the workshop to a close, reminding the attendees that they needed to find opportunities for their own personal and professional growth and to have a genuine interest in helping students achieve their goals. “I firmly believe in the importance of mentoring,” Taylor said.