Image of Relationship-Rich Mentoring Map, illustrating the importance of supportive context and other meaningful relationships to foster mentoring relationships. Text overlay reads, "Mentoring Matters: Defining Mentoring Relationships."

Mapping Mentoring Relationships and Constellations

As we explored in a previous post, if we take mentoring relationships seriously, as recent mentoring scholarship compels us to, our orientation shifts. It calls on us to understand mentors and mentoring – those sets of meaningful relationships – within…

Three people sit at a table, talking while looking over documents by a computer. An overlay reads, "Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. Mentoring Matters. Defining Mentoring Relationships."

Taking (Mentoring) Relationships Seriously

As we have earlier explored, recent mentoring scholarship argues that our definitions of mentoring should move away from role-based orientations towards a relational-orientation that defines mentoring “in terms of the character and quality of the relationship and in terms of…

A blue gradient with a text overlay, "When we worry about AI replacing student effort, trust seems like it matters the most."

AI and Academic Integrity

Some of the early conversation about generative AI in education was its affordances for cheating. There were scores of social media posts. Institutions held discussions about how much, if any, to invest in AI detection software. And several thinkpieces opined about the…

Three people sit at a table, talking while looking over documents by a computer. An overlay reads, "Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. Mentoring Matters. Defining Mentoring Relationships."

Defining Mentoring: Towards Mentoring Constellations

As scholarship on mentoring moved away from roles and actions towards processes and relationship development, definitions of mentoring have developed greater commonality not only around a shared focus on relationships, but also a shared focus on the general functions and…