This is the best professional development activity I have done since I became a faculty. Practical, inspiring, and revealing, this course has made me a happier and more resourceful mentor.
This course has given me much needed structure for becoming a better mentor. I wish every new assistant professor was given the opportunity to take such a course, so that they can start their new lab on a good footing, rather than learning from avoidable mistakes.
Prior to taking this course, my knowledge about how to mentor came from observing my mentors (in their mentorship relationship to myself), and from making mistakes. This course helped me to better understand the expectations of and boundaries for mentorship roles and exposed me to a host of strategies for handling difficult conversations. It also made me much more aware of how mentees’ issues can go unresolved and helped me to think about how to ensure that my mentees are supported in addressing the issues they face. I feel so much more prepared to support my mentees, having taken this course.
How to mentor effectively is something that scientists are never taught, but it’s a key part of scientific success. This course goes through so many important issues that are rarely discussed. Every university should offer a course like this.
Every academic mentor should take the mentoring course by Yael and Laura! For me, the course created structure and reflection in a topic that, until then, had been very messy. The course relied extensively on research on mentoring and managing in organizations (and in families!), which few academics are even aware of. Faculty make many mentoring decisions somewhat arbitrarily, e.g. setting meeting schedules (without individual customization), how much to hang out socially with the lab (without considering the balance between personal boundaries and being accessible as a human being), or how to praise (without thinking about unintended side effects). Faculty often fail to make explicit what mentees can expect of them, leading to misunderstandings, disillusionment, and tension; the course made clear that expectations both ways need to be openly communicated, and offered strategies for doing so effectively. In my 13 years as faculty, I have had conflicts with a few mentees, without properly reflecting on what happened and what could have prevented it; this course helped me to do so. Immensely valuable was to hear the diverse perspectives from other faculty participants in the course, both in the lectures and in the smaller “mentoring circles”. Every academic mentor, regardless of rank, experience, or type of institution, will benefit from this course.
A fantastic course that draws upon the science underlying mentoring to improve the way I practice and implement my mentorship approach. I especially appreciate the combination of conceptual learning and actionable strategies, which could be incorporated immediately to improve the dynamic between myself and my mentee.
This course entirely reshaped how I think of mentoring, and allowed me to take a structured, thoughtful and more considered approach.
This course was invaluable for making me a better, more thoughtful mentor. As a relatively junior PI, I have been able to put it to use to improve my mentoring and I have already shared key insights from it with senior PIs facing mentoring challenges. I am confident that it will help me create an equitable and nourishing mentoring environment for my trainees.
This course is a fantastic time investment for mentors at all stages of their careers, but I think especially for junior faculty, like me. It’s a way to start your lab on the right foot, by adopting from early on a culture of mentoring, armed with lots of tools and strategies to help you navigate your mentoring relationships. The course is designed to help you set clear expectations with your mentees, rethink your interactions with them, be intentional about the time you spend mentoring and guiding them, and be respectful of who they are.
This course was better than anything my university has ever offered me. I highly recommend it to anyone
This was an incredibly useful course that provided very concrete suggestions for how to improve my mentorship practice. I know that I will be returning to the course materials time and time again.
This course was an incredible resource. It is an opportunity to think carefully about mentorship, with a similar rigour that you might apply to your science. It acted as a catalyst to help me reflect on the choices I make as a mentor, while helping me decide on the choices I would need to make to become the mentor I would like to be. Also, the mentoring circles are an invaluable resource — one that I hope will carry on for a long while beyond the course itself. Thank you, Yael and Laura!
This course not just helped me be a better mentor for my students, but also made mentoring much more enjoyable, fun, and less stressful. The tools and skills I’ve learned will undoubtedly enable me to better continue learning and developing myself as a mentor and group leader.
As a junior faculty with students with diverse backgrounds and many different strengths and needs, I have found this course immensely helpful. Attending the course and mentoring circles were very useful for my mentorship, productivity, and mental health. I appreciate having no-cost access to all the course materials and mentoring circles. I would recommend the course to all my colleagues, senior and junior alike.