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, including national surveys and institutional surveys and interviews, we developed composite cases of student, staff, and faculty experiences with mentoring constellations. These composites illustrate different pathways to forming both meaningful and mentoring relationships, the functions and roles served by individuals in the constellations, and the relationship-rich campus climate in which mentoring constellations are formed. The Relationship-Rich Mentoring Map is a helpful tool for visualizing mentoring relationships, other meaningful relationships, and the supportive environmental context. In our composite analyses, we also consider who is missing from the constellations and how mentors and institutions might help students address these gaps. 

In the interviews we conducted with students, staff, and faculty, we introduced the term “mentoring constellation” and asked participants, “Do you see yourself as having (or being part of) a constellation now?” Although no one seemed to have prior knowledge of the constellation model, it truly resonated with our participants. As seen in the following quote, one student embraced the concept and extended the analogy by conceptualizing “North Star” mentors and differentiating the types of support offered by others in the constellation.  

I love the term constellation of mentors, I’ve just been thinking about it. Because definitely if you were to map out people that influence you … some people are North Star constellations and some are just on the map that help get you to bigger things …I just think that that’s a really cool term. 

As students reflected on who was in their constellations, they typically named one or two primary mentors first. As the interview progressed, they often added names, sometimes with interjections such as, “Oh, I just thought of another person in my constellation!” Our reminders to participants that we are thinking about mentoring broadly across contexts and roles afforded open discussions of “who else” might be represented in the constellations. In some cases, then, the interviews seemed to function as a sort of intervention for conceptualizing mentoring relationships beyond a traditional, hierarchical model of “one mentor/expert and one mentee/novice” (Vandermaas-Peeler and Moore 2023; Vandermaas-Peeler 2021). 

Articulating the benefits offered by a constellation model, one student appreciated gathering multiple perspectives from individuals across different domains and drawing on them to form her own plan. As seen in the following quote, her synopsis, “that’s just how life works,” is an apt descriptor that captures the collective response to the mentoring constellation model. 

I have my people who are a bit more professional and academic and people who are a bit more social and emotional and help me in that regard. Also, I think it’s just healthy to develop multiple relationships and not be reliant on one person, to not overwhelm them. But also, that’s just how life works, I think. And so it’s been nice. They all provide some different insight and sometimes I’ll take part of something that one of them says and something that another one of them says, and that’s what I go with. So, it’s nice to just have different perspectives. 

We discovered in our interviews that many students have a large constellation of multiple relationships that support their academic, personal, identity, career-focused, cultural, and/or social development. As we have noted in several composites, some students came to college ready to meet potential mentors through diverse pathways such as residential life, first-year courses, and on-campus employment. Others struggled to find mentors in their first year, but through their own agency, the intentional scaffolding of caring individuals, and/or programmatic structures, eventually identified pathways to building their constellations over time.  

In 64 interviews with students on our campus, only a handful reported that they did not (yet) have a mentoring constellation. Some of these were students in their first year of college during the pandemic (2021-22), and they expressed confidence that they would find mentors in the near future. However, we know that not all students are successful in finding mentors. One student in her third year reported with disappointment that she didn’t have a mentoring constellation, noting:  

I do wish Elon had taught me, from an early standing … how to get a mentor. I vividly remember when I first came to Elon, everyone was talking about mentors. I think my tour guide, my orientation leader, everyone was talking about mentors. And in my head, I was like, “How does everyone have one?” I was like, “Where do you sign up for this? What organization is just handing these out?” I vividly remember having that thought because I wanted one, but no one ever told me how to get one. 

Accounting for differences in students’ preparedness to develop mentoring constellations and helping to ensure they don’t fall through the cracks is critical work for higher education professionals. Staff members who participated in our interview study also embraced the concept of mentoring constellations. Many saw themselves in a “connector” role, helping students identify resources and introducing them to individuals across campus with related interests. Staff supervisors were often identified as “primary mentors” in relationships with students who worked with them for multiple semesters, reinforcing the importance of intentionality and sustained relationships over time as important factors in mentoring relationships. Staff composites illustrate an enduring commitment to developing meaningful and mentoring relationships with students, often identified as the reason they work in higher education. They also highlight challenges related to meeting expectations of developing meaningful and mentoring relationships within the institutional relationship-rich culture, particularly when these efforts are not part of their contractual responsibilities or their performance evaluations.  

Our faculty composites elucidate the potential of mentoring to bridge and augment teaching, scholarship, and/or service roles. For some faculty, teaching and advising are springboards to developing meaningful relationships that extend beyond the borders of classrooms, with the potential of becoming mentoring relationships. High-impact practices such as undergraduate research, internships, and community-engaged and global learning experiences offer opportunities for multiple mentoring relationships within the constellation model. The following quote by a faculty participant highlights the important role of mentoring in their work. 

For me, to be a mentor is to connect the teaching, the scholarship, and then the meaningful relationship of mentoring an undergraduate student … so that the students get to know what you do. … When I’m teaching in the classroom, I am more intentional in introducing to the students, not only the subject matters that I am teaching, but how that subject matter is related to my own scholarship, and then my own scholarship is also connected to the application of the knowledge in understanding the real world and the work that I’m doing also engages diverse communities. 

In a series of forthcoming blogs, we share composite cases illustrating, through our data, how mentoring constellations function in the everyday lives of students, faculty, and staff. Through these meaningful and mentoring relationships, students are supported in multiple domains across a wide variety of experiences. There are also gaps and challenges in the ways constellations are operationalized and experienced, and through the composites we offer strategies to address them. We welcome your insightful suggestions, comments, and questions.  

References 

Vandermaas-Peeler, Maureen. 2021, February 18. “Mentoring for Learner Success: Conceptualizing Constellations.” [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/mentoring-for-learner-success-conceptualizing-constellations. 

Vandermaas-Peeler, Maureen, and Jessie L. Moore. 2023. “Exploring Mentors’ Perceptions of the Benefits and Challenges of Mentoring in a Constellation Model.” International Journal for Academic Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2023.2279306.   

About the Author 

Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler is a Professor of Psychology and founding Director of Elon’s Center for Research on Global Engagement at Elon University.

Learn more about the authors and the Mentoring Matters project.

Cite this Post  

Vandermaas-Peeler, Maureen. 2025. “’I can find my North Star’: Understanding Mentoring Constellations in Practice.” Center for Engaged Learning (Blog). March 18. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/i-can-find-my-north-star-understanding-mentoring-constellations-in-practice.