Tag: mentoring

Understanding and enacting my FULL purpose in the academy

I have lost count of the times that I’ve been invited into a space to share my scholarship⁠—recent advances in my teams’ understanding of the acclimation of plants or cyanobacteria to their local environment or my recent insights into meaningful mentoring, leadership, or institutional transformation⁠—that I’ve also had intentional interactions with Black women scholars around BEING and BEING WHOLE in academic spaces.

These interactions and conversations happen when I’m stopped in corners of exhibit halls, convention centers, or hotel lobbies. They happen over coffee, lunch, or dinner when I’m invited to share space and conversations by these Black women scholars and other young women⁠—women who have been waiting to see themselves represented as speakers on the “big stage” or in leadership and expert consulting roles.

I’ve come to embrace that—in addition to my scientific purpose of exploring interesting and relevant science questions and contributing to scientific advances, as well as engaging in the efficacious mentoring of junior colleagues and innovative academic leadership—my full scholarly purpose also encompasses the mentoring moments [or episodic mentoring] and ongoing mentoring that occurs from encountering junior women scholars of color⁠.

I currently work on a large research campus and I’ve increasingly noticed that these engagements are also happening locally.

As a first and only in so many of the stops along the trajectory of my own professional journey, I recognize how rare such opportunities can be for young Black women and other women of color to encounter and actively engage with senior women of color in academic circles. So, I fully embrace these opportunities and recognize that MY FULL PURPOSE in the academic spaces I inhabit spans scientific and representational contributions.

In embracing my FULL purpose, I hope to contribute in some meaningful way to these scholars also walking fully into their own purpose. The academy needs these women and their brilliant contributions—even when the very academy that needs them can’t always see, affirm, cultivate, acknowledge and reward the priceless contributions that will be made.

As always, if you have thoughts on this or other posts, find me on Twitter at @BerondaM.

National Mentoring Month 2020: Joy…and contemplation

It’s National Mentoring Month and the concentrated focus on and celebration of mentoring brings me joy. There are rich discussions of the definition(s) of mentoring, meaningful enactment, and acknowledgements of the hard work of dedicated mentors being carried out in physical and online spaces (see #NationalMentoringMonth for Twitter-based discussions).

This National Mentoring Month followed the recent release of the NASEM’s (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine) consensus study report on The Science of Effective Mentoring in Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine, and Mathematics (STEMM) in late 2019. This report and the accompanying online guide have a wealth of information based on mentorship literature, the thoughtful input of multiple mentoring scholars and experts on inclusive/equitable mentoring, and suggestions for effective implementation.

While I’m encouraged and inspired by ongoing discussions far and wide on the importance of impactful mentoring, I’m also contemplating some ongoing discussions and initiatives related to “mentoring” of minoritized and marginalized scholars in academia. There is growing interest in developing mentoring programs designed to increase diversity among the student ranks and of university faculty. Many of the initiatives focus on recruiting and supporting individuals from underrepresented backgrounds as they enter and transition into graduate programs, postdoctoral training, and ultimately the faculty ranks.

What I’ve been evaluating and contemplating is how many of these efforts still are firmly embedded in, advancing, or are aligned with deficit-based perspectives of the individuals from “diverse” backgrounds whom they seek to recruit and “support”. The deficit perspective – i.e., that you recruit individuals who need targeted or special guidance and assistance in how to “fit in”, survive, and have success in “high performing” environments – is undoubtedly still strongly at play in academic environments, especially at the student level as strongly invoked in most “leaky pipeline” analogies of poor preparation, low performance, ill fit, etc. We are strongly drawn to stories of persistence and grit of minoritized colleagues, which focus on individual traits of making it through a tough system without us asking questions of systems’ fallibility, pipeline blockages, or structural deficits.

These issues of focusing on deficits extend beyond students and also permeate approaches to diversifying the faculty ranks. What is less clear to me is whether there is a sufficient focus on whether the programs that are being deployed are structured as one more hurdle for a minoritized or marginalized person to jump over to show that they are “worthy” of long-term place in a community. Or, alternatively, I ponder whether these efforts are being thoughtfully and intentionally advanced with an equal chance to ask whether there is something in the environment(s) impeding the establishment and flourishing of individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds.

So while I’m celebrating a focus on mentoring this month, I’m also asking how and WHEN institutions will start to truly ask questions about historic and persistent system failures to attract, cultivate, and retain a diverse faculty from the perspective of probing what environmental failures and dearth(s) in leadership exist which impede supporting the growth of individuals broadly.

I’m also keen to know when there will be earnest questions asked LOCALLY about the lived experience of those from minoritized and marginalized backgrounds who have entered and persisted in particular contexts. While there are certainly inquiries into this nationally and in other ways, the failure to ask locally can lead to the (false) perspective that the lived experiences of some marginalized individuals and groups are bad – but “we don’t have that problem here!” I contemplate frequently whether there is true interest in understanding whether the lived experience of local marginalized individuals (i.e., what represents climate) matches the institution’s or unit’s espoused values and expressed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (i.e., what represents culture).

We must cultivate the bravery to invite, fully listen to, and reflect on such perspectives, rather than assuming that the persistence of a minoritized or marginalized colleague is a sign of a healthy or supportive environment – or that some significant effort for retaining them has work effectively. A default position that the persistence of minoritized individuals equates to retention will allow institutions to blatantly ignore ongoing environmental or climate issues.

So yes, an opportunity to focus on the importance and power of mentoring during National Mentoring Month brings me joy…but there’s much still to contemplate.

One of the first things I’m contemplating is how radically the conversations would shift if we moved the focus from diversity to equity.

As always, if you have thoughts on this or other posts, find me on Twitter at @BerondaM.

Mentor, rather than imprint

In many recent talks on #mentoring, I’ve continued to distinguish effective and progressive mentoring from many other forms of support that we offer, particularly in academic environments, and often under the banner of “mentoring”.

We frequently offer advising and call it mentoring. Advising is distinct from mentoring in that the former is advice that is helpful for anyone on a specific path. For example, all students completing a particular degree must take certain courses, perhaps participate in particular internships, or accomplish other specific goals. Mentoring is specific advice and input based on personal knowledge of a particular individual.

We also frequently engage in imprinting and call it mentoring. I’ve described imprinting based on the common understanding of a mature individual “training” less experienced individuals in navigating safely through a context based first and foremost on the mature individual’s experiences or behavioral norms of a group. One of the most common examples is a “mother” duck leading ducklings, who “fall in line” behind her.

Imprinting has its place, for example the ducklings learn (hopefully) how to safely navigating their environments, in order to survive, grow and persist.

However, mentoring should not be imprinting.

I have met resistance (and not infrequently so) to my suggestion that mentoring should not be centered on imprinting, which the objectors perceive as simply helping one learn how to navigate safely through an environment. Moving wholesale away from imparting principles for navigating an environment is not exactly what I’m suggesting when I indicate that mentoring ≠ imprinting.

Instead, I’m suggesting that mentoring can’t (or shouldn’t) focus on an individual learning to “replay” exactly the moves that a mentor has made to pursue success. Rather, the advice from a mentor should focus on why specific moves were made – i.e., “to what end” specific moves where made. Then, a discussion can be engaged as to what specific ways a mentee may achieve a particular end.

This perspective focuses on the “why” rather than the “what” and acknowledges that individuals may have distinct ways or motivations to approach the same destination. Alternatively, the individuals may be navigating the same “training space” as the mentor with a completely different destination in mind upon leaving the space. Imprinting doesn’t always allow for these realities.

So imprint if you desire, but understand that it’s not mentoring…and it may be self-serving and self-affirmative.

As always, if you have thoughts on this or other posts, find me on Twitter at @BerondaM