IGE: Mentoring for Life: Enhancing STEM Graduate Student Well-Being

Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti MI

Investigators

Abstract

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines have a retention issue, especially for underrepresented graduate students. Although students leave for many reasons, one underlying cause is a lack of attention to mentoring and students’ well-being. Students who do not feel as if they belong are more likely to leave as are students who are unable to develop a trusting, supportive relationship with faculty. The loss of these graduate students represents a potential loss to future scientific capacity. This National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award to Eastern Michigan University will pilot a Mentoring Certificate program designed to expose STEM graduate students to evidence-based practices in mentoring and well-being. This work will pilot, test, and validate mentoring interventions grounded in models of graduate student socialization and socio-cognitive career theory, designed to address the multiple underlying causes of declining well-being, and simultaneously train graduate students to be effective mentors. The training of graduate students to mentor effectively will ensure sustainability as these students become faculty, supervisors, and mentors themselves. This project seeks to understand how are graduate student professional identity, career satisfaction, and sense of belonging in STEM impacted by a mentoring program designed around student well-being? Through interactive workshops, emotional well-being groups, and resource development graduate students will gain the tools necessary to: (1) successfully mentor diverse STEM students; (2) better manage their own emotional well-being; and (3) advocate for improved mentoring experiences within their own departments. STEM departments will have an opportunity to learn about the proposed graduate training certificate and reflect on ways in which mentor training and best practices can be integrated into departmental culture. An evaluation study will provide the project team with formative and summative feedback to inform their team processes and design of the intervention. Qualitative focus group data will be used to expand upon and clarify quantitative survey data. The evaluation of the Mentoring Certificate program will provide evidence for which aspects of the program are effective for enhancing graduate student well-being and success. The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.