April 22, 2025Collaboration in Creation: A Guide for Preparing and Presenting Research Posters – Part 2, For Mentors by Sabrina L. Thurman, Kenan Carter, Anna Grace Gilbert, Megan Parks, and Kyla Zeldin In our previous post, we, the members of the Infant Development Lab, shared advice for students on how to prepare to present research posters. In Part 2 of this series, we will now share several ways faculty mentors can support…
April 15, 2025Strategies and Resources for Mentees Developing Mentoring Constellations by Jessie L. MooreGiven that mentoring relationships are learner-centered, mentees should have significant agency in developing their mentoring constellations. In this section, we explore strategies and resources mentees can use to identify and develop meaningful and mentoring relationships. Mentoring relationships “promote academic, social,…
April 8, 2025Collaboration in Creation: A Guide for Preparing and Presenting Research Posters – Part 1, For Students by Sabrina L. Thurman, Kenan Carter, Anna Grace Gilbert, Megan Parks, and Kyla Zeldin“No idea is fully formed until it can be communicated.” The Boyer Commission 1998 As we near the end of the academic year, many undergraduate research students and their mentors are planning to present research posters showcasing their accomplishments. In…
March 18, 2025“I can find my North Star”: Understanding Mentoring Constellations in Practice by Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler In Mentoring Matters, we introduce a definition of mentoring relationships and explore the mentoring constellation model in higher education. Here we consider the important question, how do mentoring constellations operate in practice? From our comprehensive analyses of multiple data sources,…
December 10, 2024Mentoring in a Constellation: Supervisors and Mentors of Student Employeesby Jessie L. Moore, Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler, and Tim PeeplesIn our 2020 institutional survey on mentoring, fourth-year students identified on-campus student employment as the fifth most common experience that prepared them to connect with potential mentors. Supervisors of student employees offer a dynamic example of meaningful relationships that can…
December 6, 2024What’s in an Undergraduate Research Space?by Sabrina L. Thurman, Kenan Carter, Anna Grace Gilbert, and Kyla ZeldinThis semester, we have found ourselves thinking about the importance of research spaces for undergraduate research mentoring and research productivity. Dr. Thurman recently returned from a post-promotion sabbatical and rebuilt the infrastructure for her lab. Her psychology research program centers…
November 12, 2024Conceptualizing Mentoring Constellations in Study Abroad: Mentors’ Perspectivesby Maureen Vandermaas-PeelerRecently I had the opportunity to think about mentoring in the context of a semester study abroad program with undergraduate research (UR) mentors working with DIS, Study Abroad in Scandinavia. Before talking with the mentors, I had asked their students…
November 8, 2024Help!: When Problems Arise in Mentoring Relationshipsby Sabrina L. ThurmanJust like any other relationship, differences in opinions, values, and desires can lead to problems in mentoring as the relationship advances. Problems in mentoring might lead to superficial interactions, below-average engagement, unmet expectations, and difficulty relating to one another (Eby…
October 29, 2024Conceptualizing Mentoring Constellations in Study Abroad: Students’ Perspectivesby Maureen Vandermaas-PeelerWhat kind of development and/or support do your mentors provide? It was necessary at some point to figure out how the knowledge I was obtaining at university could be applied. Therefore … I worked at a biotech company where I…
October 8, 2024Building Trust in Mentoring Relationshipsby Sabrina L. Thurman, Azul Bellot, and Tiffanie GrantMutual trust is widely recognized as a significant component of effective mentoring relationships because emotional and psychological safety allows both mentors and mentees to use their energy for learning and productivity rather than self-protection. Unfortunately, limited research exists on building…