Tag Archives: mentoring

A workshop on building and maintaining a mentoring network in academia

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Last week I gave a workshop on “taking ownership of your own mentoring” at Kiel University again (link to the pptx slides in case you want to give a similar workshop yourself). This is one of my favourite topics to talk about (especially in combination with how to use social media for that purpose; and I love getting the participants’ feedback that they realized during the workshop that they already have a much larger network than they were aware of, and that they are excited to work with it more purposefully in the future) and since I redid my slides for the purpose, here is the workshop in a nutshell.

What I always find super important to point out:

  1. Good mentoring is not a magical unicorn. It is possible (and not terribly difficult) to find it! But make sure that you don’t overtax one person with all your mentoring demands, it makes much more sense to build a network of many different peoples so there are built-in redundancies ;-)
  2. Mentoring has many different facets. It helps to be aware of what they are in general as well as what aspects are most relevant to you right now. But also considering the aspects that aren’t relevant right now but still building a network for to help in those areas is probably a good idea.
  3. Mentoring can be found almost anywhere and at any time. In my workshop, you learn where & how to do it!
  4. SUPER IMPORTANT: Mentoring is not a one-way street. Of course you cannot always mentor everybody back the same way they mentor you, and in many cases it’s probably not even appropriate to try. BUT: That’s where the network idea comes in. Pay it forward, or help someone else out. You can be as much of a mentor to many people as others are to you. And you should be aware of that and try to fill the mentor-role, too!

And this is “The Mentoring Map” that we suggest: For all the different aspects of mentoring, you should try and put at least three-ish names of people or organizations (for details on the individual mentoring facets, check out the chapter we published on it)

And here are a couple of ideas where you can find people for all those different facets:

As if meeting people wasn’t difficult enough, now, in covid-19 times, it has become even more difficult. So that’s why the next three sessions of the workshop will look at how mentoring can be found via social media. Looking forward to working more with that group of young scientists, some of which have already connected with me on social media. See, it is working! :-)

P.S.: If you are intersted in this workshop, please feel free to contact me. It works great virtually :-) Here is a link to the pptx slides in case you want to give a similar workshop yourself. Please feel free to use, share, modify! Any questions, suggestions, comments, please let me know!

Of timeless relevance: the ESWN mentoring map and how you can provide mentoring to others at any career stage

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Me realizing that there are three cameras aimed at me simultaneously at some point during my presentation (Picture: Sara Siebert)

This week I had the honor to be invited to give a talk to a network of PhD students of the three Leibniz institutes in Kiel, which is just forming. Being as big a fan of networking as I am, of course I could not say no to this opportunity, especially since I had a really good resource to share: The Earth Science Women’s Network‘s mentoring map.

The mentoring map is a tool that helps you think about what your mentoring needs are and whether you have a strategy in place to get those needs met. And if you realize you don’t — well, then you might want to read our 2013 chapter to get ideas on what strategies you might want to consider to find intellectual community, sponsors, emotional support, or whatever you just realized you are missing.

Even though during that presentation my focus was on conveying the different kinds of mentoring needs you might have at different points during your PhD journey and beyond, and then on identifying people and resources who might help you meet those needs, one point that I tried to make is that mentoring is not a one-way street. In my experience the best networking advice (and, by building an amazing network around you, also the best advice for how to make sure you have your mentoring needs met) is to pay it forward, to provide to others what you would wish that others provide to you.

Be the kind of person that you would love to have in your own network

This last piece of advice at first sounds like it is really difficult to put into action, and almost unattainable if you are just starting out with your PhD. But it is not. There are so many ways in which you can provide value to others around you, and have that become a habit. A couple of examples, in no particular order:

  • Offer to proof-read other people’s writing. Especially when you are just starting out, forcing yourself to read something really carefully, even though it might not be 100% what you need to be reading for your own research, is a great way to widen your horizon and pick up on what you like and don’t like in texts. And if you have to look up grammar rules to make sure your edits are correct — even better, you just learned something for your own writing!
  • Check in on people, ask how they are doing, and actually listen to their response. Sometimes only one person noticing that something is off makes a huge difference to someone
  • If you come across interesting articles, summer schools, blog posts, twitter profiles, … that remind you of something you talked about with someone or that you think might be interesting to them, just forward it. It takes a couple of seconds on your end, and even if they already got that information through some other route, they will appreciate the thought and effort and are a lot more likely to return the favor next time they see something that might be interesting to you
  • Be open about your own ideas, and always give credit to others if you talk about their ideas in front of others
  • If you have a network of any kind that might be interesting to others, offer to share it with them. Bring them with you to your work so they can meet interesting colleagues over coffee, give them your mom’s phone number because she can give advice on a topic they are struggling with (Danke, Joke, es ist nicht vergessen), send introductory messages for them
  • Similarly, if you have visibility in an area where they are trying to build it, ask them if they would like to write a guest post on your blog, or retweet their tweets to expose your followers to this new and interesting person, or ask them if they want to present a workshop with you
  • Follow up with people! Just sending an email saying “Hi! We met at conference x and talked about y and I just wanted to follow up so we can stay in touch” is so much more than most people do, but it has started an interaction that both of you are more likely to remember than if you never followed up
  • Remember that most people you meet feel at least as awkward about not knowing you as you feel about not knowing them. Just introduce yourself and maybe ask if they would like to have a coffee sometime! If you’ve been in your job for two weeks and feel like the complete newbie, chances are you still know so much more than the person whose first day it is today and they’d be super grateful if you took them under your wing and showed them how to operate the photocopy machine

What else are habits you would recommend people develop so they become the kind of person you would like to have in your own network? Let me know in the comments!

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P.S.: Just have to show the pictures below because it makes me proud that there is so much social media activity going on now at my former workplace :-)

Taking ownership of your own mentoring

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Have you ever had questions related to your career development that you didn’t know who to ask for answers for? Or have you ever felt that you would probably profit from having a mentor, but didn’t know who that mentor could be? Or do you have a great mentor but wonder whether you might be relying too heavily on him or her? Then this post is for you!

(This post, and the article referenced at the bottom, are heavily inspired by the work of Kerry Ann Rockquemore, especially this post, and workshops she gave for the Earth Science Women’s Network.)

So. Let’s get started. Do you even know what your current mentoring needs are? In the image below we suggest different kinds of mentoring needs that you will probably all encounter throughout your career, hopefully not all at the same time.

It is really helpful to try and identify a person for each of those fields that might possibly be able to help. If you fill out the blank spaces in the graphic below now, before you actually urgently need someone to fill a specific role, it’ll be very valuable once the time comes!

Mentoring_map_01

A “mentoring map” to help you identify your mentoring needs as well as who might be able to fill those needs.

If you aren’t quite sure what each of the fields above contains, the image below might give you ideas:

Mentoring_map_02

Mentoring map. What exactly are your mentoring needs?

And now that you know what your needs are, how do you actually identify possible mentors for each category? We give some ideas in the image below!

Mentoring_map_03

Mentoring map and where to find possible mentors for the different mentoring needs

Do you feel like you are taking unfair advantage of your mentors? Then maybe think about paying it forward. Be a sponsor to the student that stands out in your class and recommend her for a scholarship. Be the safe space your friend needs. Give substantial feedback on your office mate’s paper. Even if you feel you are nowhere near ready to “be someone’s mentor”, that is probably not true. Give back when the opportunity arises, and don’t feel bad to ask for the mentoring you need!

For more details, check out our article:

Glessmer, M.S., A. Adams, M.G. Hastings, R.T. Barnes, Taking ownership of your own mentoring: Lessons learned from participating in the Earth Science Women’s Network, published in The Mentoring Continuum: From Graduate School Through Tenure, Syracuse University Graduate School Press, ed. Glenn Wright, 2015.

Pdf of the chapter here.

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P.S.: This text originally appeared on my website as a page. Due to upcoming restructuring of this website, I am reposting it as a blog post. This is the original version last modified on November 4th, 2015.

I might write things differently if I was writing them now, but I still like to keep my blog as archive of my thoughts.

Using Scientific Meetings to Enhance the Development of Early Career Scientists

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Early online release of a paper on “Using Scientific Meetings to Enhance the Development of Early Career Scientists” by Urban and Boscolo.

Even though it has apparently been online for quite a while, I was only just recently made aware that the paper “Using Scientific Meetings to Enhance the Development of Early Career Scientists” by Ed R. Urban and Roberta Boscolo has been released online. I provided some comments on an earlier version, and I think this paper is a really good resource.

The paper contains many concrete steps that you can take to engage early career scientists in meetings, suggests activities meeting planners should consider and shows examples of those activities in practice. If you are in the process of planning a meeting, or if you are going to plan one soon – check it out!