Reflections on the Challenges of Mentoring

Abstract

Mentoring mathematics students continues to be a challenge, for me and surely for others. I taught in the EDGE Program at Spelman in the summer of 2004. To help students make the transition from undergraduate to graduate school, I decided to offer a sample of a first year graduate algebra course. While this was not a terrible approach, it missed the mark on some of the key goals of the program. In this article I describe the challenges of mentoring young women at this stage, with more questions than answers. Along the way I mention some of my own experiences, and my observations of the power of the EDGE Program.