This page offers practical templates and tools you can use immediately, whether you are an undergraduate, graduate student, postdoc, or faculty member. These resources support growth in roles as a mentor and as a mentee. Several of these tools are also used in Mentoring Reimagined workshops, where participants work through them together and adapt them to their own mentoring contexts.
Mentorship Networks
Mentoring works best when it is understood as a network rather than a one-to-one arrangement. Careers and academic paths require many kinds of support over time, and relying on a single mentor can create unnecessary pressure and unmet expectations. A network model invites more intentional questions: What kind of support is needed right now, and who is well positioned to offer it? This allows mentoring relationships, including assigned ones, to be valuable without being expected to carry everything.
Mentor map
A mentor map is a simple way to make your support network visible. It prompts you to name the categories of support you rely on (academic, professional, and well-being), then identify people, groups, and resources that fill each category. Use this map to assess what’s strong, what’s missing, and where you might diversify support; it can also normalize and validate the idea that seeking multiple mentors is expected (and healthy).
As a mentee: start by writing your name in the center, then work category by category. For each dimension of support, list 1–3 people you already rely on (or could reach out to), and note what you go to them for. Then circle two gaps: an area where you have no support, and an area where your support is too concentrated in one person. Finally, pick one next step: one specific ask for mentoring that you can make this month, and whom you will ask.
As a mentor: alongside your mentee, use the map to reduce the “I have to solve this” pressure and to help mentees build capacity. When a question isn’t in your lane or you don’t know the answer, you can pivot to network-building: “Where on your map would this fit?” “Who else might have insight here?” “Who's one person we could add to your network for this kind of support?” Over time, this helps mentees practice identifying needs, making targeted asks, and building a more resilient set of supports beyond any single mentoring relationship.
Building networks
Networks work best when mentees feel empowered to ask for specific help, and mentors feel comfortable helping to clarity (or referring someone onward when they’re not the right person). The question lists here are meant to support both sides: mentees can use them to identify needs and make concrete asks, and mentors can use them to ask better questions, clarify goals, and help mentees generate options without having to “have the right answer.”
Building Networks Resources
Setting Expectations
Misaligned expectations are one of the most common reasons mentoring relationships go sideways, even when both a mentor and mentee have good intentions. When expectations are implicit, mentees are left guessing how to prepare, how often to reach out, what kind of feedback is “normal,” and what success looks like. Making expectations explicit or visible creates a shared reference point. This directly reduces the “hidden curriculum” problem, whereby only some mentees are advantaged, but not others, simply because they already know unspoken norms or feel more comfortable asking.
Written agreements are one practical way to build transparency. Putting expectations in writing (goals, meeting rhythm, communication norms, feedback expectations, boundaries, confidentiality, and follow-up) reduces misunderstandings, supports accountability on both sides, and makes it easier to revisit and adjust as needs change. This can be a formal compact, or a simple email that captures what you agreed to.
Setting expectations does not require a formal contract; it can happen over email or in the first few minutes of a conversation. The key is transparency about goals, communication, feedback, boundaries, and what follow-up is expected, so the relationship can support learning and growth without guesswork.
Mentoring compacts/agreements
A mentoring compact is a short document that clarifies how a mentor and mentee will work together. It makes expectations explicit early, so both mentor and mentee can spend less time guessing and more time focusing on growth, learning, and follow-through.
At minimum, mentoring agreements should include the purpose and desired outcomes, meeting cadence, communication norms, feedback process, boundaries, confidentiality, and how you’ll revisit or end the arrangement. Mentoring agreements also benefit from making the mentor's philosophy explicit. The goal is to create a shared reference point you can return to when priorities shift, or something isn’t working.
Resources
Individualized Development Plan (IDP)
An IDP is a structured way to align day-to-day work with longer-term learning goals and professional development. They’re common in STEM doctoral training but adaptable anywhere: the core is setting goals, identifying skill-development priorities, planning milestones, and revisiting progress over time. Used well, an IDP supports both accountability and agency by keeping the mentee’s values and aspirations visible as plans evolve.
Resources
- Sample IDP template from UC Berkeley ESPM department (google doc) (PDF)