Youth Initiated Mentoring

1. Youth Initiated Mentoring Empowering Students from Underserved Backgrounds for Higher Education and Career Success Joan Becker, Vice Provost Academic Support Services and Undergraduate Studies

2. UMass Boston • 16,164 students in Fall 2018—12,714 undergraduates and 3,450 graduate students • Offer bachelors degrees, masters, and doctoral degrees • 51% of our non-international students are students of color • Our undergraduates are even more diverse with 56% students of color • 59% are first generation college students • 50% come from low-income backgrounds • 53% of our students speak a language other than English at home

3. Connected Futures: Teaching Students to Develop Networks of Mentors • Pilot Efforts • Urban Scholars—high school students • Directions for Student Potential—Summer program for students who don’t meet admissions standards but have demonstrated potential. • Non-credit course piloted in spring 2016, fall 2016, and spring 2017 • Approved as a 1 credit courses in 2017 • RCT Evaluation—six sections in Fall 18 and Spring 19 served 200+ students • Fall 19: six sections; plan to offer 6-8 sections in spring 20

4. Connected Futures • 1 credit course—meets 75 minutes per week • Currently offering 6-8 sections per semester; serving 120-160 students • Taught by academic advisors, success coaches, and career specialists • Aimed at first year students, but open to any student • Looking at tailoring sections to beginning students—focused on transition into higher education, ones to students close to degree completion—focused on transition to career.

5. Connected Futures Pedagogical Approach • Interactive, collaborative, and relevant • Connected to student’s goals • Role playing to practice new skills • Constructive feedback • Focused on the “here and now” • “Real world” homework assignments • Culminates in a networking event • Supportive • Safe, supportive context: “like a family”

6. Connected Futures Curriculum • Week 1: Welcome! What is a mentor, and how can mentors help me? • Week 2: What are my strengths? • Week 3: How do I set goals in my personal and professional life that I can really achieve? • Week 4: What are my tools for developing and maintaining relationships with mentors? • Week 5: How do I define my social identity, and what effect does that have on networking for me? • Week 6: How can I cope effectively with some common challenges to networking? • Week 7: How do I use my relationships in college to help me achieve my goals?

7. Connected Futures Curriculum • Week 8: How do I identify, recruit and develop a relationship with a mentor? • Week 9: Who do I need to connect with here on campus? • Week 10: Who am I going to reach out to for an informational interview? • Week 11: What other tools might I need as I recruit mentors? • Week 12: What’s next for me? How will I use networking and mentor attracting skills in the future? • Week 13: Semester Reflection • Week 14: How do I prepare for the Networking Event? • Week 15: Networking Event

8. What is a mentor, and how can mentors help me? • Discussion of what a mentor is. What might make it easy to connect with a mentor (outgoing, membership in many groups, encouragement of family/friends, etc.)? Are there things that might make it more difficult (feeling shy or isolated, having insular relationships)? • Discussion of social capital: networks of relationships between people that allow the individual and society to be more successful. • Responsibilities of the mentee • Take action. • Ask questions. • Don’t be afraid to disagree. • Be open to feedback. • Be clear on your needs.

9. What is a mentor? • A mentor is someone with lived experience, providing guidance, support, knowledge in a way that allows another person (the mentee) to thrive in the mentoring relationship. • A mentor gives guidance, points you to resources, supports you, discusses goals and ideas with you, provides you opportunities to reveal and discuss challenges, helps you strategize ways to be successful • Characteristics of a mentor: good listener, helpful, productive, experienced, respectful, approachable, gives valuable advice, give constructive feedback, is a cheer leader, willing to be a sponsor https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-find-qualities-good-mentor

10. What are my strengths? Clifton Strengths Quest • Everyone has a group of talents within them and your greatest talents hold the key to high achievement, success, and progress to levels of personal excellence • Becoming aware of your talents builds confidence and provides a basis for achievement • Learning how to develop and apply strengths will improve achievement • Each talent can be applied in many areas including relationships, learning, academics, leadership, service, and careers • As you develop and apply strengths, your achievements will increase and you will experience greater and more frequent success https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx

11. How do I set goals in my personal and professional life that I can really achieve? • Discussion of the types of goals: Personal, Career, Social, Academic • What makes a goal Successful? • SMART Goals • Goal hurdles--accessing supports

12. What are my tools for developing and maintaining relationships with mentors? • Discussion of the elements of professionalism Standards by which a company/workplace operates Doing what it takes to make others think of you as competent, reliable and respectful Expectations for behavior and appearance, • Role of first impressions • Social media and professionalism

13. How do I define my social identity and what effect does that have on networking for me? • Our social identities are shaped by a myriad of characteristics including:Race; Ethnicity; SES/Class; Gender; Sex; Sexual Orientation; National Origin/Indigeneity; First Language; (Dis)ability--physical, emotional, developmental; Age; (Non)Religious/Spiritual Affiliation • Students are asked to discuss: • Identities you think about most often; • Identities you think about least often; • Your own identities you would like to know more about; • Identities that have the strongest effect on how you perceive yourself; • Identities that have the greatest effect on how others perceive you. LSA Inclusive Teaching Initiative, University of Michigan (http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/)

14. How can I cope effectively with some common challenges to networking? • Managing racial, gender, and other biases—overt and implicit • Understanding and overcoming imposter syndrome

16. How do I develop my relationships in college to help me achieve my goals? • Support On Campus • Ask students to share sources of support on campus and why they would use them - have students write on poster paper and have each group present •  Create a campus eco-map • Introduce Eco-Map and show example. Have students create a campus eco-map, using the people/offices on campus that can help them achieve their goals, identifying strong (solid lines) and weak ties (dotted lines) • Campus Interview • Using the campus eco-map, have students select an office on campus to visit. Preferably have students select a weaker tie or no tie on their eco-map that they would like to grow to a strong tie.

17. How to identify and recruit a mentor? First identify why you need a mentor. What ways can they help you develop and grow? What are the attributes you desire before you launch your search? Where can you find a mentor? You can find a mentor at the following places: • Campus • Place of worship • Work place • Referrals • LinkedIn • Professional Associations • “a friend, a friend of a friend, a family member, an alumnus of your school, a co-worker or peer, a current or former boss, someone you got to know through a networking event”

22. Networking Event • Required culminating activity • Students are encouraged to invite mentors, we also invite faculty, staff, alumni, and people in our networks • Information networking time • “Speed dating” rounds for mini-informational interviews

23. Core Principles • Focus on students’ assets and cultural wealth • Recruit mentors from similar backgrounds to the students being mentored—difference education • Start where the individual is not where you want them to be • Agency development—teaching underserved youth to build mentoring networks

24. Connect futures in the context of other intentional mentoring efforts. • Peer Mentoring • Learning Community Programs • Peer Coaches • Peer Advisors • Undergraduate mentored research experiences • Career networking opportunities and job shadowing • You have to teach youth to fish but you also have to stock the pond.

25. Questions?