Mentoring Undergraduates: Professors Strategically Guiding the Next Generation of Professionals

Abstract

One faculty member and three former undergraduate mentees discuss the development of their mentoring relationship. This paper is one description of how a mentoring relationship develops over time and how it benefits students, faculty and the university. Mentoring is not defined as how faculty impact students, but as an interdependent relationship, each person influencing, and being influenced by the other. The paper concludes by examining some of the systemic, institutional challenges that keep mentoring from happening and describes some future research that needs to be undertaken. My own interest in mentoring began during my first year of college. As a naïve freshman, I was surprised when a faculty member approached me after a large lecture class and mentioned that he had read my last assignment and thought I had a lot of "academic ability." I suggested he must have confused me with another more promising student. Upon his insistence, the conversation continued as did the relationship. Thirty years later, the fact that his interest focused on my person, rather than my understanding of a component of his course, still motivates me to pursue mentoring relationships with undergraduate students. During my freshman year I spent many hours in that professor's office, asking questions about classes, majors, careers, and further education. The earliest discussions dealt with issues focused mostly on my educational pursuits, but over time, the discussions evolved, often into issues of a more personal nature. One day, while sitting in his office, I said to myself, "I want to do what he does." My interest in higher education, being a faculty member, and positively impacting the