Program Structure and Activities – Mentoring for Social Justice and Community-Building

The Mentoring for Social Justice and Community-Building Project is structured through a series of activities over the course of the academic year:

Mentors organize one group meeting per month with mentees during the Fall and Spring semesters. Depending on the mentor’s proposed mentoring project, some of these meetings will be discussion-based and some may be experiential.
Mentors facilitate one-on-one meetings with mentees.
Mentees complete periodic check-in surveys to reflect on and shape their mentoring experience.
Mentors and mentees collaborate on a presentation reflecting on their learning and experience, to be shared at SGS and Douglass showcases in the Spring.
Mentors and mentees receive ongoing technical and facilitation support for the School of Graduate Studies and Douglass staff.
Mentors participate in campus-wide pop-up events and workshops on topics pertaining to mentoring for social justice and community-building.

Learn more about each of these activities below.

: As part of the application process, graduate student mentors submit a proposal around a topic pertaining to diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, and/or community-building around which they’d like to structure their mentoring relationship with their undergraduate mentees.

These “projects,” workshopped with program staff and other grad student mentors at the first mentor orientation, serve to guide the monthly mentoring dialogues that mentors facilitate with their team of undergraduate mentees over the course of the program.

Each mentor is matched with 3-4 undergraduate mentees based on shared interests, identities (for affinity-centered spaces), and aspirations. This mentor-mentee team works together over the course of program (one academic year).
: In the Fall and the Spring, the selected cohort of graduate student mentors attend a full-day orientation to develop a shared conceptual ground, learn strategies for inclusive facilitation and mentoring, peer workshop project proposals, and more.
: Each month, mentors facilitate mentoring dialogues (~1.5 hours each) with their team of undergraduate mentees on the topic outlined in their project proposal. Mentors work directly with mentees to craft the contours of their collaboration, develop shared goals, and map next steps.
: Graduate student mentors also dedicate time to meeting with each of their mentees individually to provide personalized support and build a stronger relationship.
: SGS and Douglass work together to host pop-up workshops and events for both the mentor-mentee cohort and the broader campus community on topics pertaining to Mentoring for Social Justice and Community-Building.

For example, in Spring 2022, the Rutgers Collaborative Center for Community-Engaged Research and Douglass Residential College came together for a panel discussion conceptualizing mentoring as a social justice and community-engaged practice. At another Spring 2022 pop-up event, Douglass undergraduate students reflected on their mentoring experiences and discuss challenges of and possibilities for critical, socially just mentoring.
: Program staff at the School of Graduate Studies and Douglass Residential College provide ongoing support for mentors and mentees through hosting monthly mentor check-ins, circulating surveys to mentors and mentees to assess their experience in the program, hosting orientations for graduate student mentors to acclimate them to theories and strategies of social justice mentoring, and providing campus and community resources and advice pertaining to the mentors’ projects, as needed.
: At the conclusion of the one-year guided mentoring project, mentors and mentees share reflections and lessons from their experience with the Douglass, SGS, and broader campus community at the Mentoring for Social Justice and Community-Building Showcase.