A few of us gathered in a collaborative word document to dialogue about our mentoring process and wrestle with the complexities of “outcomes” discourse. This emerged after many of us attended (and deeply resonated with!) Dr. Torie Weiston-Serdan’s keynote lecture on critical mentoring as part of the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement’s 2023 “Access Week” programming.<\/p>\n
In the talk, Dr. Torie urged us to move beyond theorizing\/imagining and toward doing,\u00a0<\/em>reminding us that there’s room for failure even though it often doesn’t feel that way in our institutions and structures. She challenged us to create spaces that elevate the “voice, power, and choice” of young people, departing from the adultism that defines so many mentoring relationships. She also critiqued how, often, adults will practice harmful and traumatizing approaches to mentoring rooted in the rationale that this is how it was for them. Dr. Torie invited us to take adults down the path of “remembering” and “rethinking” — Does mentoring really need to be this way?<\/em><\/p>\n Below are our reflections we felt moved to write after attending and being inspired by the talk.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Marina Feldman, 02.25.23 – When we first met as a group of mentors and discussed co-mentoring, and Atlas Complex, that really got me thinking about control and planning. How much did I want to plan the semester ahead of meeting with my students? How much should be co-constructed in the process? Since then, it has been really productive to let them guide the process. However, at this point, when they want to build a practical product together, maybe my experience and skills with planning can come in handy? I think this is a form of knowledge I learned by working with program coordinators in community-engaged education projects. I was often the person with lots of ideas, and they kept reminding me of feasibility and timelines. I think now I can do a little bit of both. And maybe the most helpful thing with my students\u2014since they want to end this process with product\u2014is to play the program coordinator and keep in sight the feasibility and steps that need to be taken.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Briana Bivens, 03.02.23 – This is such a good question, re: planning, Marina. It\u2019s always tricky to find that balance between not wasting folks\u2019 time (so some structure, I find, is helpful) while also avoiding the imposition of a stringent program that leaves little room for creativity and adaptation. As we all know, this mentoring program is housed in an institution and we appealed to that institution for support and funding. In this kind of context, I find there\u2019s often pressure to define a structure and set of measurable outcomes. When we applied for IDEA Grant funding to support the project, for example, we had to outline specific activities, outcomes, and assessment plans that would help us determine if we were \u201csuccessful.\u201d I think this kind of advanced planning is useful so we can clearly communicate to folks (y\u2019all and the Douglass students) what the program is about, what you can expect to be doing as part of it, and what you can expect to gain from the experience. But I also fear the outcomes-based approach to something like mentoring can be restrictive. Can we really define and anticipate what\u2019s going to emerge in our relationships with one another? And do we really want to put an end date on those relationships? What makes a \u201csuccessful\u201d mentoring experience anyway? And (I\u2019m drawing on Dr. Torie here) is there room for \u201cfailure\u201d in this thing we\u2019re facilitating together? It\u2019s something of an experiment! Marina, it sounds to me like you\u2019re doing a really awesome job of giving students space to decide what comes out of this yearlong experience while also providing some guidance on what\u2019s doable in the months we have left vs. what might be a longer term effort. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Liana Katz, 03.06.23 – Heading into the spring semester meetings, I have struggled a lot with communication and attendance with my mentees. Given all of our busy schedules, it has been difficult to find times that work for everyone. Because of this, my sessions have looked like a combination of micro group meetings and one-on-one office hours. We have also alternated between zoom and in person gatherings. Responding to Briana\u2019s question about what makes a successful mentoring experience, I find myself appreciative of the fact that my group is able to roll with the flow of the semester and is comfortable meeting in different formations that meet them where they are at in terms of individual commitments. At the same time, I worry that this fragmentation has been detrimental to building a co-mentoring practice. In our last meeting, I felt that I was strongly guiding the discussion, whereas in our earlier meetings we had more of a robust collective conversation. This also stemmed from the fact that we were discussing a process (IRB submissions) that only I had experienced. I felt more like an instructor than a co-mentor. This has got me thinking about how we build relationships that make the mentoring space one that feels (non-capitalistically) productive and supportive from the beginning. I don\u2019t know if I have succeeded in doing this. Maybe more frequent meetings would serve this goal? Or an interspersal of meetings and other group activities?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ariela Parisi, 03.22.23 – I have been thinking about the meaning of co-mentoring and how mentoring is related to leadership. I have been trying to give the group freedom to organize the film festival and be part of the process but sometimes their schedules were in conflict with the required activities and tasks. I find myself trying to find balance between co-mentoring and guidance. I believe that structure sometimes is beneficial to goal achievement. However, I needed to change my mindset due to the fact that I had the idea that \u201cexternal structure and planification\u201d were enemies of co-mentoring. I am planning to use strategies where I provide my mentees with options and opportunities. Choices rather than total freedom. I think that the full-circle moment of my mentoring project will be when at the end of the festival the mentees receive the full package with all the required materials and documentation to organize their own festival next spring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"