Mentoring Diverse StudentsUniversity of Texas – El Paso

Lorraine GutiérrezJanuary 10, 2012

Introductions – Who am I?

Plans for today

Provide an overview of mentoring and promising practices

Examine how mentoring can reduce the risks of unconscious bias

Discuss your experiences with effective advising and mentoring practices, and identify possible “promising practices” to address student challenges

Create an action plan to enhance your mentoring experiences

A mentor is a person in an individual’s chosen profession who is actively working to integrate a new person into a professional role.

A mentor feels some responsibility for the successful development of the student’s career.

Mentoring is an interpersonal relationship that contributes to the student’s sense of competence, confidence and effectiveness.

Mentoring advances the person’s scholastic and professional goals in directions they desire.

Effective mentoring involves understanding and acknowledging the student’s different identities and communities.

Alvarez, A. N., et. al. (2009). Tapping the Wisdom Tradition: Essential Elements to Mentoring Students of Color. Paglis, L., et. al. (2006). Does Adviser Mentoring Add Value? Williams-Nickelson, C. (2009). Mentoring Women Graduate Students: A Model for Professional Psychology.

Mentors and Mentoring

Careful mentoring can help avoidmany pitfalls.

Mentoring includes

Advising Supporting Tutoring Sponsoring Modeling

Benefits of mentoring to students

Improved academic performance Increased productivity Improved professional skills Higher self confidence Expanded social and professional

networks

Good mentoring: Quotes from students My advisor is very nice and warm-hearted. I got a lot of useful advice on

academic and career, and s/he is always patient to help me.

S/he gave me excellent advice and inquired as to how things were going, giving me a chance to ask questions and start discussions.

They treat me with respect. I understand my position as a graduate student working for accomplished individuals, yet they treat me with the respect I deserve as well. That is invaluable.

My advisor helped me understand the balance between research and coursework and hence get a good understanding of managing my time effectively.

My advisor is super-smart, and can usually help resolve technical problems when I get stuck. Overall, my advisor is a caring person who does his/her best to listen to feedback and learn from it.

My advisor is willing to spend time to talk about career development with his/her students, and s/he really knows the most effective way to train his/her students to achieve their career goals.

Benefits of mentoring to faculty

Attract good students Amplify your own

success Develop your

professional network Satisfaction of seeing

your students succeed

Expand your knowledge of the field and life experiences

Students’ perspectives on mentoring challenges Every advisor should sit down with their advisee and discuss the program requirements, both

short and long term.

One of biggest problems of new graduate students is to set his/her academic advisor as soon as possible in order to have both academic and financial supports. However, it is very difficult for first year graduate student to get financial support.

I do not feel the program cares about how a student is doing. There is no formal proper follow-up on student progress, and there is no evaluation of who deserves more to be awarded financial aid.

Students generally tend to stick with students from their own community. As such it becomes sometimes difficult to interact with many of them. Also, unfortunately in my department graduate students do not tend to go outside their labs, and so sometimes the environment is a little stifling.

There seems to be a lot of tension between faculty & students, with students feeling that they have no one to talk to when they have a problem with their advisor, unless they want to risk their reputation by going to the dean or other faculty!

Provide clear guidance in research. This has not been achieved because faculty are not directly involved in research; rather, they rely on post-docs to keep the labs running well. However, when such post-docs are not interested in helping others, this model falls apart.

Mentoring in a Diverse World The global environment

and changes in society make mentoring a diverse student body increasingly important

Studies show that students and faculty may be most comfortable working with people who they view as similar to themselves

Effective mentoring requires working with students from many different backgrounds

Smith, R. (2002). Race, Gender, and Authority in the Workplace. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, pp. 509-542

Stereotypes and their impact

Stereotypes are… social expectations associated with a group identity such as: gender, race/ethnicity, culture, religion, profession, age, education, etc.

Stereotypes affect… perceptions and behaviors in ways that are automatic and unconscious

Steele, C., Spencer, S., Aronson, J. (2002). Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat. Advances in Experimental social Psychology, 34, 3790404

Self Fulfilling Prophecy or “Pygmalion Effect” When teachers are told to expect superior

performance from certain students, these students perform better even when aptitude is equal across the students

Typically, student performance was significantly better than students who were not identified as high potential

Stereotypes and Performance

13Jussim, L. and Harber, KD (2005) Teacher Expectations and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Knowns and Unknowns, Resolved and Unresolved Controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2), 131-155.

Identity and Perceptions

Perceptions can be influenced by very subtle cues, such as a name or email address or clothing Even when objective data are available, memory can be biased

Pittinsky, T. L., Shih, M., & Trahan, A. (2006).  Identity cues:  Evidence from and for intra-individual perspectives on stereotyping. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 2215-2239.

Stereotypes and Perceptions

Pittinsky, Shih, & Ambady (2000) -- 109 Participants randomly assigned to 3 groups

read a college application for “Emily Chen” all read the same application

Asked to recall the student’s SAT Math Score; instead, she was described as:

An Asian-American High School Student, or A Female High School Student, or A High School Student.

Pittinsky, T., Shih, M. & Ambady, N. (2000). Will a Category Cue Affect You? Category Cues, Positive Stereotypes and Reviewer Recall for Applicants. Social Psychology of Education 4: 53–65.

Results – average Math SAT Score

Stereotypes about groups can affect the performance of group members aka “Stereotype threat:”

When individuals are made aware of a negatively stereotyped group identity (e.g. gender or race) test performance is poorer than when identity not mentioned

Early studies were conducted with African American and European American college students

Has been replicated over 300 times with different groups and with men and women with similar results

Stereotypes and Performance

17Steele, C.M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi, and other clues to how stereotypes affect us. NY: Norton.

Small Cues can Result in Stereotype Threat

“this is a test of intelligence” “this is a test of mathematical ability” “this is a test of natural athletic ability” “this is a test of racial sensitivity”

Shih, M., Bonam, C., Sanchez, D., & Peck, C. (2007). The social construction of race: Biracial identity and vulnerability to stereotypes. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 13, 125-133.

Gender Stereotypes and Interactions

Stereotypes can be implicit – Woman in Mechanics Environment – Man in an Arts and Crafts Environment

Individuals randomly assigned to male-female pairs to perform same task Activity described as a “building” task or “arts &

crafts” task In “building” task situation – men took charge

and made the most suggestions In “arts and crafts” task – women took charge

and made the most suggestionsShih, M., Sanchez, D., Ho, G. (2010). The Costs and Benefits of Switching between Social Identities. In R. Crisp (Ed). The Psychology of Social and Cultural Diversity. (pp. 62 – 84). Blackwell: Malden, MA

How does Stereotype Threat work?

Distraction Cognitive burden Anxiety Physiological discomfort Underperformance

Nguyen, H.-H. D., & Ryan, A. M. (2008). Does stereotype threat affect test performance of minorities and women? A meta-analysis of experimental evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 1314-1334

Impacts on students

Student’s often react to stereotype threat in the following ways: Disengage from the

activity Decrease their

performance Distance themselves

from the group Change fields or areas

of study

Good, C., Aronson, J., & Harder, J. A. (2008). Problems in the pipeline: Stereotype threat and women’s achievement in high-level math courses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29, 17-28; Osborne, J. W., & Walker, C. (2006). Stereotype threat, identification with academics, and withdrawal from school:  Why the most successful students of colour might be the most likely to withdraw.  Educational Psychology, 26, 563-577.

Wise Mentoring Can Lessen Stereotype Threat

Trustworthy feedback explicitly links High expectations High standards of

assessment Confidence in capacity of

student Mentors can communicate that

ability or intelligence is not “fixed” but “expandable” If mentors stress expandability

the gender gap in math is eliminated

Cohen, G.L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. (2006, Sept. 1). Science, 313, 1307-1310; Aronson, Fried & Goode (2002), Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 113-125

Reducing the Impact of Stereotypes

Encourage common identities (e.g., graduate student, member of a particular lab)

Hold high expectations of all students Provide role models from a variety of

backgrounds Recognize that the graduate program is

challenging for all students, regardless of identity or background

Communicate how skills and abilities can be learned and developed

Promising Practices

New Student Orientation Programs “Buddy” Programs that match more

advanced grad students with new ones Mandatory yearly performance reviews

written and oral discussions of strengths and weaknesses

Honest communication Frequent contact/interaction with students

– Academic activities: brown bags, colloquia, workshops Social activities: pot lucks, movie nights, picnics

Match students and faculty with similar intellectual interests

Developing “mentoring plans” with students on an annual basisBrown, M. Davis, G., McClendon, S. (1999) Mentoring Graduate Students of Color: Myths, Models,

and Modes. Peabody Journal of Education, 74, 2, 105-118; George, Y. & Neale, D. (2006) Report from study group meetings to develop a research and action agenda on STEM career and workforce Mentoring. American Association for the Advancement of Science Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs, December 2006.

Promising Practices

Provide supports for mentors Involve faculty in selection of students Build mentoring into faculty workload Reward mentoring through recognition,

awards, and faculty reviews Offer mentoring workshops and professional

development Acquaint faculty with recent research on

mentoring practices

Provide adequate program support for mentoring activities

Adams, H. (1992). Mentoring: an essential factor in the doctoral process for minority students. National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in engineering. Notre Dame: IN; Hill, R, Castillo, L, Ngu, L, Pepion, K. (1999). Mentoring ethnic minority students for careers in academia. The counseling psychologist, 27 (6). 827–845.

Small Group Discussion

o In your small group, discuss the following:o What are some of the “challenges” for

students in your program?o What can a mentor do to address these

challenges?o What can a department or school do to

address these challenges?

Addressing these challenges… What is one thing you can try to

address mentoring challenges this semester?

MORE Mentoring Resources

MORE website www.more.umich.edu Bibliography Downloadable documents Links to mentoring websitse