March 3 Minutes

March 3, 2016

GCEC Professional Development Committee Meeting

2:00-3:00, Student Union #211

Present:

Kimberly Barchard,

Jessica Word,

Mary Riddel,

Valarie Burke,

Peter Gray 

Mary-Ann Winkelmes

Gina Sully

PG Shrader

Absent with prior notice:

Ariel Rosen, 

Melissa Bowles-Terry, 

Absent without prior notice:

Carolyn Sabo, 

Andrew Andres

We had one agenda item: to discuss the possibility and structure of a potential new Graduate Mentorship Certificate. Grad Faculty Fellow Elizabeth Nelson also joined us given her involvement in other campus faculty mentoring discussions.

·        Valarie: RAMP has been unveiled. Already requires grad students to be enrolled in workshops on topics of grad mentorship. If going to have for them already, why not open this up to other grad students?

·        Discussion of RAMP program, which will begin in fall. Look at full profile.

·        NSHE mentor network—faculty mentoring students. Nevada STEM Mentor Network. Perhaps some link could be made to these folks—maybe grad students could be listed in that group too. Maybe give ideas for possible individuals to staff workshops.

Topics for workshops for the Mentoring Certificate Program: we discussed some possible topics, plus for conversation purposes drew from examples given on the UCI website, but one can find other possible ideas for topics on other websites (e.g., Cornell) plus various other UNLV resources.

·        Introduction to mentoring: pros, cons, be honest with demands of what this entails

·        Communication

·        Building trust in mentorships

·        Ethics and professionalism (what are appropriate interactions)

·        How to develop a work plan with a student—writing a research plan; mapping out schedules and availability; how to progress

·        UC Irvine list of 6 workshops—maybe go with that same order.

We’d also want grad students when done with their grad degree to be in a position to mentor other grad students, say as junior faculty. So like the teaching certificate, this could help provide some professional development related to mentorship in advance. That could be an argument for having a certificate—encourages a student to take a sustained look at mentorship. Serves as a goad to do something when very busy.

There are also some workshops under development for junior faculty under the topic of mentorship. Some other universities have workshops overlapping with both faculty and grad students. Some of the workshops already in place in GPSA that are related to mentoring.

Idea: how to train to mentor vs. designated a mentor after attending some workshops.

Discussion of doing in parallel (as will be) rather than doing ahead of the beginning of a mentorship relationship. Consider the order in which workshop topics are offered, as that would be important. Be protective of graduate student time—start small, and be selective.

Mentoring workshops at different stages—for faculty mentoring grad students vs. grad students mentoring undergrads. Have different relationships; different audiences. May also not want a faculty and grad student duo in same workshop to enable open discussion. Maybe try to merge discussions. Phases in one’s life as a faculty member—what you need in initial years as a faculty member may be different from what you need mid-career.

Lots of psych grad students mentor undergrads; rather than just making things up as go along, can be helpful to offer workshops with more formal process; large portion of Psych undergrads (about 50% from exit surveys) claim to have research experience, such as helping with experiments for thesis/dissertation projects; often very narrow, such as transcripts or data entry, while others do annotated bibliography

Some students may not have exposure to what’s expected in mentoring—consider student body; maybe mentoring someone who isn’t a lover of school or as natural with the library as you; how to see those gaps

Grad students advising many undergrads—can take burdens off faculty members if can gain some guidance in mentoring undergrads, even if faculty may have IRB responsibility;

Make more neutral opportunities for faculty or grad students to have discussions

Why not to make this a formalized certificate program? No dedicated faculty. Who would administer? Valarie and her office would handle applications and attendance.

Objectives. Not-credit certificate programs. Assessment? Take exit interview to get feedback on the certificate program?

Perhaps about 100 research certificate program completed. And about 100 currently in it. Lots of engineering students—faculty buy-in.

Discussion of a cohort-style (like teaching certificate) program vs. a menu of options. May make sense as a cohort—a process of working through topics. Better networking. Maybe build in a grad faculty fellow who helps with this process. Idea that would be difficult to manage this as a cohort without faculty involvement. Would need to be done in one year.

HR has some online recorded modules. Maybe some on ethical/professional behavior. Maybe supplement.

Service learning entities perhaps too.

Resources for mentoring as a webpage on the grad website. Tomorrow’s Professor e-newsletter—archived, and can look for topics; Rick Reis at Stanford perhaps the organizer. Chronicle vita page has some mentoring resources.

Instructional development and website may have some mentoring resources.

Develop a webpage with online resources. Maybe include on Grad Rebel Success Center.

Take-home Points:

Begin to offer a Graduate Mentorship Certificate for 2016-2017. Application process should be open and simple, along the lines of the Research Certificate Program. Seek to integrate with various other campus resources, particularly RAMP. Try to develop as a cohort model to be completed in one year. Require completion of approximately 6 workshops in a sequence that would make some sense, with ideally Grad Faculty Fellow involvement.

Also seek to develop a webpage with mentoring resources for grad students.

Wrap-up at 2:59 PM.