Doctoral/Postdoctoral Mentoring Program
The Graduate/Postdoctoral Mentoring program is a Graduate School program that pairs postdoctoral mentors with doctoral student mentees for "near-peer" mentoring. The program starts in early October and runs through April.
Mentors and mentees meet one-on-one throughout the year. They also participate in a workshop series that provides mentorship training to both mentors and mentees.
By the end of the program, mentors and mentees will have built a strong mentoring relationship with someone outside of their discipline, practiced seeking and providing personalized support, and developed mentorship skills, including:
- Establishing intentional expectations for a mentoring relationship
- Perspective-taking
- Active listening and communication
- Fostering a supportive environment
“Near-peer” mentoring is similar to peer mentoring, but the mentor is one step ahead of the mentee in their career paths. As with peer mentoring, a “near-peer” mentor doesn’t have supervisory responsibility over the mentee, and may be able to relate to the mentee’s experiences because they’ve recently been in the same position themselves. Additionally, a “near-peer” mentor might serve as a role model to a mentee, or give them a sense of what to expect from their career in the future.
Ideally, you will have a network of several mentors during graduate school and throughout your career. Having multiple mentors helps you receive a range of perspectives and types of support; no single person can offer everything you may need from a mentoring relationship.
It is important to seek out mentors with experience in your department or field (such as other graduate students, postdocs in your department, faculty members, scholars at other institutions, etc).
It’s equally important to have mentors who will support you in other ways. Interdisciplinary mentors can provide an alternative perspective, as someone who is familiar with the dynamics of graduate school but unconnected with your department. You might discuss topics like: work/life balance, anxieties or challenges you may be facing, how to navigate academia or the university’s resources, and how your experiences and background might inform your scholarly identity.
The Graduate School invites postdocs and doctoral students to enroll in the program at the beginning of Fall Semester each year. The program will be advertised in the Graduate Pathways newsletter (for doctoral students) and the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs newsletter (for postdocs). Participants will be asked to submit a brief survey to help match up mentors and mentees.
Please contact Anne-Charlotte Mecklenburg at amecklen@umd.edu with any other questions.