Program Structure

Populations we work with

Mentoring Reimagined can be offered to participants across the academic arc, including faculty, postdoctoral scholars, or graduate students, depending on a unit’s goals and capacity. We work with each audience in separate sessions so that examples, discussions, and applications are relevant to participants’ roles and experiences.

When possible, we encourage units to engage multiple audiences in parallel. Effective mentoring depends on shared expectations between mentors and mentees, and parallel engagement helps those ideas become a shared language across a department, program, school, or college.

Session Types

Participating units commit to a minimum of three sessions, totaling four hours over the course of the academic year: one Sustainable Mentoring Workshop, one Skill-Building Module, and one “Lunchtime” Conversation (which can be at any time of day). Additional modules or conversations can be added based on the unit’s goals and are encouraged.

The structure of Mentoring Reimagined is designed to drive culture change in mentoring across campus, not simply to deliver one-off workshops. Rather than relying on passive “training” or intensive programs that can only reach a small portion of the campus community, the program engages units over the course of an academic year through multiple interactive, hands-on, context-specific workshops and working sessions.

The yearlong commitment is crucial given that mentoring culture does not change through a single conversation. After the initial workshop, the program is shaped by the unit’s own mentoring needs: units select the Skill-Building Modules most relevant to them, and “Lunchtime” Conversation topics are generated collaboratively around local questions, challenges, and priorities.

Sustainable Mentoring Workshop

The program starts with a facilitated, interactive workshop that explores the core ideas, skills, and tools of effective and reimagined mentoring.  The workshop emphasizes mentoring as a set of attainable skills for participants as mentors and mentees, focusing on practical tools for immediate use. 

Units can elect to focus more on the skills below that align greatest with their mentoring needs. For more details on each skill below, please visit our Mentoring Skills page.

Skills participants explore:

  • Mentorship networks of support

  • Mentoring with structure

  • Mentoring with care

  • Mentoring like a coach

What to expect:

  • 2 hours

  • Best held in-person (with refreshments), can be held remotely

  • Interactive, reflective, and tool-focused

  • Facilitated by program faculty leads

Skill-building Modules

Once a common foundation and shared language have been established, the unit selects one or more skills to explore in greater depth. These short, focused sessions center a specific mentoring tool or strategy that participants can use immediately.

Units can select the module(s) most relevant to their mentoring needs or for which there is the most interest. For more details on each skill, please visit our Mentoring Skills page.

Skills to choose from:

  • Mentorship networks of support

  • Mentoring with structure

  • Mentoring with care

  • Mentoring like a coach

What to expect:

  • Typically 1 hour

  • Best held in-person (with refreshments), can be held remotely

  • Chosen by the unit

  • Centered around a specific tool or strategy

  • Units can choose more than one

"Lunchtime" Conversations

As the unit moves through the program, it generates a topic for a facilitated, discussion-focused conversation designed to make mentoring more concrete, visible, and locally relevant within the unit. 

These sessions are co-facilitated by experienced mentors in the unit and can be held over lunch or in another informal format that supports conversation. 

Below are example topics a unit might choose; we will work with you to develop a topic that fits your context.

Topics might include but are not limited to: 

  • Making mentoring visible in faculty self-statements for merit and promotion

  • Using mentoring agreements in labs, research groups, or graduate programs

  • Strategies for using start-up funds

  • Navigating mentoring-related conflict

  • Building a strong mentorship network as an early-career faculty member

  • Mentoring early-career faculty as they start a lab or research group

  • Supporting students interested in careers beyond academia

  • Mentoring and advancement in book-based disciplines

What to expect:

  • Typically 1 hour

  • Topic generated by the unit

  • Best held in-person (with lunch or refreshments)

  • Led by experienced mentors in the unit (with facilitation support from the Mentoring Reimagined team)

  • Can be part of the long-term sustainability plan for mentoring culture in the unit