- Not that Kind of Advice: It Is Never Too Early to Be a Mentor
The further I get into running my own research program, the more I realize the significant impact good mentorship has had on my career. My mentors have trained me scientifically, provided career advice, and supported work-life balance. A large impetus for starting this blog has b...
- Empowering Women through Mentoring
I still remember my first time in a lab. I was doing my last year of college and I got a fellowship to collaborate for a few hours a day in a research lab. It was an old and rusty lab, and my PI was in the first steps of her career, trying to get tenure, taking care of her kids a...
- Not that Kind of Committee Meeting: Tales of Faculty Mentoring
Now that you have assembled your faculty mentoring committee, it is time to prepare for your meeting. A week before the meeting, I send out an updated CV and any documents that I want reviewed, like grant pink sheets or a manuscript draft. I also include an extensive document det...
- Not that Kind of Committee: Tales of Faculty Committee Design
If you are like me, one of the best parts of completing graduate school was no longer having committee meetings every six months. Oh the glorious freedom of doing research without having to prepare for these meetings! Then I started working on my career development award and quic...
- What You Should Expect from Mentors
Four senior investigators with long track records of mentoring successful scientists sat down to talk about what trainees and early career faculty need most from mentors. While it’s key that a mentor tailor the training experience to the mentee’s professional and personal go...
- Helping When You Have No Answers
One sign of a caring community is that individuals regularly reach out to each other for help. In many circumstances, we can best help by sharing our knowledge or suggesting solutions. Questions ranging from “What is the proper statistical analysis?” to “How can I improve my ch...
- Speed Mentoring: Seven Steps to a Successful Session
Speed mentoring is a riff on speed dating that allows trainees and early career faculty to meet multiple mentors in a short time. Have you ever wished you could have ten minutes for advice or conversation with an experienced researcher outside your immediate circle of mentors...
- The Hierarchy of Learning
In medical school, there is a common saying: “see one, do one, teach one.” Generations of learners have taken pride in this statement and have passed it along, often smugly, as gospel. It has been considered wisdom, handed down from ancient Greece to modern times, as an essential...
- What You Really Need from Mentors
Notes from a panel with Dr. Gordon Bernard, Dr. Tina Hartert, and Dr. Kevin Johnson of Vanderbilt University
Want this in a sweet downloadable, printable format? Click here!
A mentor should…
You should…
Be a coach, teacher, advisor, sponsor, agent, role model...
- You Need Mentors – Noun, Plural
Unavailable mentors, or those who do not provide enough freedom, or who do not provide feedback, or who don’t take concerns seriously, are often anchored in one problem: Having a single mentor. You need a mentor panel.
We believe in diversified mentoring so strongly at our ins...
