Mentor Training to enhance mentorship in an interdisciplinary training program

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Project Summary Effective mentoring relationships influence student professional development by shaping both the training experience and students’ perspectives on their field. Yet few of those involved in the training of graduate students receive formal training in how to mentor. We herein propose a series of mentor training activities tailored to the faculty in our T32 training program in Mathematical, Computational and Systems Biology. Workshop sessions will be adapted from the Entering Mentoring curriculum developed by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (https://cimerproject.org/). In addition, we will use interactive, small group sessions and invited speakers to reinforce key concepts and foster mentor-mentor support and peer mentoring among our program faculty. We will also use the Strength Deployment Inventory assessment, a tool to identify mentor personality and leadership strengths and motivations, to help provide mentors with strategies for engaging with diverse mentees. Opportunities for sustaining these activities beyond an initial year are also discussed in the proposal. Over the long run, we believe these changes will help improve the mentee experience and enhance student retention.