Inclusive Mentoring in Engineering and Science:  An Evolving Workshop Model   (Experience)

Benjamin C. Flores; Audrey Boklage; Maura Borrego; Emily Violet Landgren; Karina Ivette Vielma; Ernest Chavez

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: Advancing Equity in Engineering Education
Tagged Division: Minorities in Engineering Division(MIND)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47601

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Paper Authors

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Benjamin C. Flores University of Texas at El Paso

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Dr. Benjamin C. Flores joined the faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 1990 after receiving his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University. Since 2004 he has been the PI and Director of the University of Texas System Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. Dr. Flores is the Forrest O. and Henrietta Lewis Professor of Electrical and Engineering at UTEP. In 2010, he received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring.

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Audrey Boklage University of Texas at Austin

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Audrey Boklage is research assistant in the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Her current work is focused on exploring pedagogical moves and interactions within university makerspaces to create a theoretical lens to info

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Maura Borrego University of Texas at Austin orcid.org/0000-0001-7131-4611

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Maura Borrego is Director of the Center for Engineering Education and Professor of Mechanical Engineering and STEM Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Borrego is Senior Associaate Editor for Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and E

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Emily Violet Landgren University of Texas at Austin

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Emily is a 2nd year graduate MS/PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Her master's research focuses on disability accommodations in engineering classrooms and will produce a research-backed facilitation for faculty to navigate relationships with their disabled students. She plans to complete her PhD research in biomedical acoustic applications. She has a B.S. in Integrated Engineering & Humanities from Lehigh University.

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Karina Ivette Vielma The University of Texas at San Antonio orcid.org/0000-0001-5452-8888

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Dr. Karina I. Vielma is a first-generation college student who dreamed big. As the eldest of five children, Dr. Vielma became very resourceful, attributing her skills to growing up in poverty. Her parents had high expectations for school and this prepare

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Ernest Chavez Colorado State University

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Abstract

Mentorship is a high-impact practice that is beneficial to undergraduate STEM students. Effective mentor-protégé interaction is positively correlated with various protégé-related outcomes such as an increased sense of belonging, better adjustment to college, enhanced self-confidence in professional skills and abilities, an increase in retention, bolstered academic performance, and greater student engagement with their major. These positive outcomes have led to a resurgence in mentorship practice and research. A National Academies Report emphasizes the importance of developing mentoring approaches as a scientific process. While students of mentoring on the impacts of mentoring students are abundant, studies on mentorship training models are relatively few. One seminal training model developed by a prominent national center dedicated to the improvement of mentoring experience considers theoretically grounded, evidence-based, and culturally responsive training of mentors. The authors of this paper recently proposed a workshop model for raising awareness of the training requirements for faculty, drawing from the experience of national mentoring award recipients who serve at Minority Serving Institutions. We have expanded this evolving training model to address the specific context of research mentors at a Department of Energy National Laboratory. Uniquely, this model focuses on developing statement requirements for federal grant programs. Our model includes exercises to highlight Underrepresented Minority student backgrounds through a case study, arrive at an operational definition of mentoring, identify facets of mentoring that make the mentor-protégé relationship more holistic, explore intrinsic and external motivations for improving the quality of the mentorship experience, and begin the process of developing research mentoring philosophy statements and plans. Each opportunity to offer a mentoring training workshop has led to reflective discussions on improving the delivery of content and engagement opportunities. In addition to the iterative development of the model, the Principal Investigators delivering the model develop a more nuanced understanding of mentoring in practice. Challenges discussed include the accessibility of online mentoring resources, the role of graduate students as mentors, a balance between content delivery and exercises, the perspective of community college faculty, the needs of neurodiverse mentors and protégés, the social wealth of mentors and protégés, and the familiarity to the US education system by international faculty and audiences. These challenges represent opportunities for improving our holistic mentoring training model and point to the need for understanding the context of students and participants.

Citation
Format

Flores, B. C., & Boklage, A., & Borrego, M., & Landgren, E. V., & Vielma, K. I., & Chavez, E. (2024, June), Inclusive Mentoring in Engineering and Science: An Evolving Workshop Model (Experience) Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47601

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Mentorship is a high-impact practice that is beneficial to undergraduate STEM students. Effective mentor-protégé interaction is positively correlated with various protégé-related outcomes such as an increased sense of belonging, better adjustment to college, enhanced self-confidence in professional skills and abilities, an increase in retention, bolstered academic performance, and greater student engagement with their major. These positive outcomes have led to a resurgence in mentorship practice and research. A National Academies Report emphasizes the importance of developing mentoring approaches as a scientific process. While students of mentoring on the impacts of mentoring students are abundant, studies on mentorship training models are relatively few. One seminal training model developed by a prominent national center dedicated to the improvement of mentoring experience considers theoretically grounded, evidence-based, and culturally responsive training of mentors. The authors of this paper recently proposed a workshop model for raising awareness of the training requirements for faculty, drawing from the experience of national mentoring award recipients who serve at Minority Serving Institutions. We have expanded this evolving training model to address the specific context of research mentors at a Department of Energy National Laboratory. Uniquely, this model focuses on developing statement requirements for federal grant programs. Our model includes exercises to highlight Underrepresented Minority student backgrounds through a case study, arrive at an operational definition of mentoring, identify facets of mentoring that make the mentor-protégé relationship more holistic, explore intrinsic and external motivations for improving the quality of the mentorship experience, and begin the process of developing research mentoring philosophy statements and plans. Each opportunity to offer a mentoring training workshop has led to reflective discussions on improving the delivery of content and engagement opportunities. In addition to the iterative development of the model, the Principal Investigators delivering the model develop a more nuanced understanding of mentoring in practice. Challenges discussed include the accessibility of online mentoring resources, the role of graduate students as mentors, a balance between content delivery and exercises, the perspective of community college faculty, the needs of neurodiverse mentors and protégés, the social wealth of mentors and protégés, and the familiarity to the US education system by international faculty and audiences. These challenges represent opportunities for improving our holistic mentoring training model and point to the need for understanding the context of students and participants.

AU  - Benjamin C. Flores
AU  - Audrey Boklage
AU  - Maura Borrego
AU  - Emily Violet Landgren
AU  - Karina Ivette Vielma
AU  - Ernest Chavez
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Inclusive Mentoring in Engineering and Science:  An Evolving Workshop Model   (Experience)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/47601
ER  -