Building a Culture of Mentoring

Effective mentoring is too important to simply be left to chance.

Good mentoring relationships can make a big difference in one's graduate school career and professional life, no matter the discipline or vocation.  Whether one is seeking general guidance or in-depth knowledge and skills to achieve specific goals, a mentor can be the key to success. 
 
A mentor can provide valuable feedback, encouragement, and pointers towards the best opportunities for one's professional development and career.  Many times, the mentor is an experienced individual in one's field who holds a position of aspiration for the mentee. 
 
Successful mentoring relationships come with incredible advantages.  They constitute more than checking boxes of accomplishment.  Great mentoring relationships involve active participation from both parties.  We have collected below various resources to help you map your way to a great mentoring experience. 
  • Council of Graduate School (CGS) Resources

    This toolkit, compiled in 2024, centers on impactful mentoring relationships and supporting student success.  They are targeted to different roles, with some overlap due to the vertical interactions in higher education.

    Mentoring Resources for Mentors and Mentees
  • NCFDD Mentoring Resources

    Centralizing on your needs as an academic, our mentoring map offers an opportunity for you to map your current mentoring network, identify your unmet needs, and plan how to expand your existing network to meet your current needs.

    The NCFDD Mentor Map Interactive Mentoring Map
  • Center for Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER)

    This is free for non-profit use and with dozens of courses on a variety of timely topics. The base curricula includes Entering Research, Entering Mentoring and Mentoring Up. CIMER has developed a total of 23 curricula to cover a wide range of disciplines and careers. Visit MyCIMER and create a free account to preview and download the curricula. 

    CIMER Project Overview MyCIMER
  • CGS Healthy Research Labs & Teams

    Learn how to cultivate and sustain healthy research environments. Webinars, framework documents, and more are available

    Healthy Research Teams & Labs Toolkit
  • Free online courses on Effective Mentoring (University of Minnesota)

    Want to know more about effective mentoring? • “Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring 101: For Research Mentors of Graduate Students, Fellows, and Early-Career Faculty” • “Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring 102: For Research Mentors of Undergraduate Students” • “Enhancing Motivation Using the CARES Mentoring Model”.

    Mentor Training

Past Workshops

We built upon the content of the online U. Minnesota courses during our University of Mississippi Mentoring Workshops, offering two workshops (each available in two instances) to start a longer term conversation on effective mentoring at our university.

These workshops were designed to be of interest to current and future faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. These workshops were designed to be of particular interest to current and future faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students.

Each workshop was repeated—so we suggested that participants attend one of each—and takeaway lunches were available for those who RSVP’d.

Sponsored by The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, The Graduate School, the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Student Union 124

What are effective mentoring practices? How do we support effective mentors, and how do we share their knowledge and experiences? This panel will address their experiences with mentoring at the University of Mississippi.
• Dr. Cristiane Surbeck, Chair and Professor of Civil Engineering
• Dr. Leigh Anne Duck, Associate Professor of English
• Dr. John Bentley, Professor of Pharmacy Administration
• Dr. Norris “EJ” Edney III, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion
• Kritika Gupta, Ph.D. Student in Nutrition and Hospitality Management
• Dr. Annette Kluck, Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Leadership & Counselor Education, Moderator

Student Union 321

By examining realistic scenarios, difficulties in mentoring and steps needed for effective mentoring can be addressed. In this session, hosts will present three mentoring vignettes. Participants worked in groups to discuss responses to the mentoring challenges and identify best practices.

The vignettes are available here for download.