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 a broader set of relationships, inclusive of both meaningful relationships and mentoring relationships. How might we better understand mentoring through this relational-orientation?

We turn to mapping as a practice for orienting us in this more complex and dynamic understanding of mentoring.

When you pick up a map or pull up a map on a device, for what purposes are you doing so? In the broadest sense, a map helps orient you. That is, it can help you understand where you are. It can also help you identify where other things are; it can help you measure distances; it can help you make assessments about your location and your possible movements; it can help you plan how to move from here to there. That is, a map, as well as a mapping practice, can serve multiple orienting functions.

The Relationship-Rich Mentoring Map below is designed to serve multiple orienting functions specific to mentoring relationships. Most generally, it represents one way to understand, identify, analyze, measure, assess, and plan the development of a relationship-rich environment that recognizes the multiplicity and value of many relationships, including mentoring relationships. The map we have developed draws salient relational characteristics and functions from the literature on mentors and mentoring to construct sliding measures that map out various kinds of relationships that support student learning and development.

At the broadest level, the graphic depicts three kinds of valued relationship spaces (mentoring relationships, other meaningful relationships, and supportive context) defined by a set of relational measures (mentoring characteristics and functions), each depicted on a sliding scale from less to greater.

1. The upper-right of the graphic marks the space of mentoring relationships. In that space, there could be a variety of relationships, each likely featuring strengths in some but not all relational measures. Those relational features identified, though, would tend, in general, towards the “greater” end of both the X and Y axes.
2. Moving toward the bottom-left away from the mentoring relationship space, the graphic marks the spaces of other meaningful relationships. These spaces recognize a variety of other important relationships within the relationship-rich educational environment that aid student development and offer important forms of support. The relational features of these meaningful relationships would, generally, trend more moderately on the X and Y axes, though there may be some very strong features of the relationship identified. Let us reemphasize, here, that meaningful relationships are critical, not only for the strength of a whole constellation but because they hold potential to become mentoring relationships.
3. Finally, the bottom-left of the graphic marks relationships that may be less significant independently but are part of a broader, supportive context. Much of the literature on mentors and mentoring addresses the value of (a) a broader institutional culture that values relationships, (b) the individuals that make up and activate those cultures, and (c) the opportunities for and development of the individuals within, as well as the institution as a whole. This third relationship space may include less well-developed relationships, such as those with staff and other students with whom one may interact more superficially on a regular basis in one’s residence hall (e.g., hellos and brief conversations in passing; sharing hall kitchen, laundry, and bathroom spaces; implicit check-in’s about how one is doing).  Nevertheless, as in the case of a residence hall, these less well-developed relationships can provide a broad supportive context out of which may develop more meaningful relationships over time.

Relationships matter, across the board.

Unlike the problematic trajectories found in some orientations toward mentoring that we identified in an earlier post, this map of meaningful relationships, including mentoring relationships, recognizes that mentoring is not an all or nothing proposition. There is a range of significant relationships within a mentoring constellation, some supportive or meaningful relationships that may later develop into mentoring relationships. Also, there is not a singular point that defines a mentor; one person does not have to be “all” to another to be in a mentoring relationship. Mentoring relationships can, and do, take a variety of relational forms. Together, these meaningful and mentoring relationships form a mentoring constellation.

The Relationship-Rich Mentoring Map helps us understand, value, and differentiate the wide range of meaningful relationships that characterize a relationship-rich educational environment, while also defining mentoring relationships as distinctive and significant among other meaningful relationships.

Authors

Tim Peeples is Senior Associate Provost Emeritus and Professor of Humanities at Elon University. He also holds the position of Senior Scholar in the Center for Engaged Learning.

Jessie L. Moore is Director of the Center for Engaged Learning and Professor of English: Professional Writing & Rhetoric at Elon University.

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.

How to Cite this Post

Peeples, Tim, Jessie L. Moore, and Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler. 2024, August 6. “Mapping Mentoring Relationships and Constellations.” In Mentoring Matters: Supporting Students’ Development of Mentoring Constellations in Higher Education. Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/mapping-mentoring-relationships-and-constellations/.