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1. Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities Program

   Minerick, A. ( June 2022 , Zone 1 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   This paper describes the development and implementation of a Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities (CIMC) program. CIMCs were designed to create networks of mentoring as a robust support and feedback mechanism for faculty facing compounded challenges related to their personal characteristics and/or specific identities, especially intersectional identities traditionally underrepresented in STEM (e.g., women of color, LGBTQIA+ faculty, faculty with disabilities), or simultaneous demands of an academic career and family caregiving responsibilities. Communities were formed with two to three junior and/or mid-career faculty, women, and men, from four midwestern institutions; each CIMC was facilitated by one or two more senior mentors. Virtual meetings were held at roughly bimonthly intervals. Mentors were regularly provided guidance on mentoring and topics to discuss with their mentoring groups. The CIMC networks facilitated career obstacle problem-solving, as well as enhanced a sense of community and belonging. The program worked to reduce the isolation, exclusion, and silencing of non-majority individuals within the typical academic career progression in addition to adapting to support during pandemic-altered faculty challenges. Key advantages of CIMCs included enabling inter-institutional exchanges and reflective learning among committee members about similarities and differences in climate and opportunities on different campuses. This paper will review the premise and literature on peer and peer-plus mentoring as well as describe the process of forming and supporting the CIMCs. Formative assessments for this ongoing program will also be discussed. This paper can serve as a guide for other institutions to form communities of support for diverse faculty. 

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2. Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities Program.

   Minerick, A. ; Cervato, C. ; Goltz, S. ; Bilen-Green, C. ; Rouleau, M. ; Wahl, D. ; Sotirin, P. ( July 2022 , Zone 1 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   This paper describes the development and implementation of a Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities (CIMC) program. CIMCs were designed to create networks of mentoring as a robust support and feedback mechanism for faculty facing compounded challenges related to their personal characteristics and/or specific identities, especially intersectional identities traditionally underrepresented in STEM (e.g., women of color, LGBTQIA+ faculty, faculty with disabilities), or simultaneous demands of an academic career and family caregiving responsibilities. Communities were formed with two to three junior and/or mid-career faculty, women, and men, from four midwestern institutions; each CIMC was facilitated by one or two more senior mentors. Virtual meetings were held at roughly bimonthly intervals. Mentors were regularly provided guidance on mentoring and topics to discuss with their mentoring groups. The CIMC networks facilitated career obstacle problem-solving, as well as enhanced a sense of community and belonging. The program worked to reduce the isolation, exclusion, and silencing of non-majority individuals within the typical academic career progression in addition to adapting to support during pandemic-altered faculty challenges. Key advantages of CIMCs included enabling inter-institutional exchanges and reflective learning among committee members about similarities and differences in climate and opportunities on different campuses. This paper will review the premise and literature on peer and peer-plus mentoring as well as describe the process of forming and supporting the CIMCs. Formative assessments for this ongoing program will also be discussed. This paper can serve as a guide for other institutions to form communities of support for diverse faculty. 

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3. Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities: a virtual mentoring model

   Minerick, A.R. ( December 2022 , The chronicle of mentoring coaching)

   An increasing body of work is exploring mentoring within contexts that go beyond traditional one-on-one mentoring, including learning communities and mentoring circles. Research indicates that these alternative forms of mentoring better support all faculty, including those whose identities tend to lead to isolation in STEM: BIPOC faculty, women, and LGBTQ+. Group mentoring approaches can address multiple facets of the mentee(s) as a whole person in an efficient manner. Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities (CIMCs) were designed to create networks of mentoring as a support and feedback mechanism for faculty who may also face challenges related to their personal characteristics and/or specific identities, especially intersectional identities traditionally underrepresented in STEM, or simultaneous demands of an academic career and caregiving responsibilities. Communities were formed with two to three junior and/or mid-career faculty and one or two senior mentors from four midwestern institutions. With the goal of retention at the forefront, quantitative and qualitative assessments of the CIMCs were designed to enable formative feedback to guide improvements to the CIMC support network and further implementation phases. While it was not originally the intent, the CIMCs also provided an opportunity to more deeply examine how the pandemic impacted women faculty with identities that compound disadvantage. Virtual meetings were held at roughly bimonthly intervals. Mentors were regularly provided guidance on mentoring and topics to discuss with their mentoring groups. While the pandemic impacted the original timeline and topical foci of the CIMCs, the virtual format of the CIMCs provided an opportunity to offer resources to assist faculty in navigating these unprecedented challenges: CIMC mentors and groups followed a "just in time" format with topics introduced and addressed responsively. 

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4. Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities: a virtual mentoring model during COVID-19.

   Minerick, A.R. ; Cervato, C. ; Bilen-Green, C. ; Koretsky, C. ; Rouleau, M. ( October 2022 , The Chronicle of Mentoring and Coaching)

   An increasing body of work is exploring mentoring within contexts that go beyond traditional one-on-one mentoring, including learning communities and mentoring circles. Research indicates that these alternative forms of mentoring better support all faculty, including those whose identities tend to lead to isolation in STEM: BIPOC faculty, women, and LGBTQ+. Group mentoring approaches can address multiple facets of the mentee(s) as a whole person in an efficient manner. Cross-Institutional Mentoring Communities (CIMCs) were designed to create networks of mentoring as a support and feedback mechanism for faculty who may also face challenges related to their personal characteristics and/or specific identities, especially intersectional identities traditionally underrepresented in STEM, or simultaneous demands of an academic career and caregiving responsibilities. Communities were formed with two to three junior and/or mid-career faculty and one or two senior mentors from four midwestern institutions. With the goal of retention at the forefront, quantitative and qualitative assessments of the CIMCs were designed to enable formative feedback to guide improvements to the CIMC support network and further implementation phases. While it was not originally the intent, the CIMCs also provided an opportunity to more deeply examine how the pandemic impacted women faculty with identities that compound disadvantage. Virtual meetings were held at roughly bimonthly intervals. Mentors were regularly provided guidance on mentoring and topics to discuss with their mentoring groups. While the pandemic impacted the original timeline and topical foci of the CIMCs, the virtual format of the CIMCs provided an opportunity to offer resources to assist faculty in navigating these unprecedented challenges: CIMC mentors and groups followed a "just in time" format with topics introduced and addressed responsively. 

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5. Developing a Culturally Adaptive Pathway to Success: Implementation Progress and Project Findings

   Kang, E. ; Dong, J. ; Jackson, M. ; Allen, E. ; Galvan, D. ( June 2020 , ASEE's Virtual Conference)

   With support from NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM), the Culturally Adaptive Pathway to Success (CAPS) program aims to build an inclusive pathway to accelerate the graduation for academically talented, low-income students in Engineering and Computer Science majors at [University Name], which traditionally serves the underrepresented and educationally disadvantaged minority students in the [City Name area]. CAPS focuses on progressively developing social and career competence in our students via three integrated interventions: (1) Mentor+, a relationally informed advising strategy that encourages students to see their academic work in relation to their families and communities; (2) peer cohorts, providing social support structure for students and enhancing their sense of belonging in engineering and computer science classrooms and beyond; and (3) professional development from faculty who have been trained in difference-education theory, so that they can support students with varying levels of understanding of the antecedents of college success. To ensure success of these interventions, the CAPS program places great emphasis on developing culturally responsive advisement methods and training faculty mentors to facilitate creating a culture of culturally adaptive advising. This paper presents the CAPS progress in the past two project years. In particular, we will share several changes that we have made after the first project year to improve several key components of the program - recruitment, cohort building, and mentor training. The program strengthened the recruitment by actively involving scholars and faculties in reaching out to students and successfully recruited more scholars for the second cohort (16 scholars) than the first cohort (12 scholars). Also, the program has initiated new activities for peer-mentoring and cohort gathering within each major. As continuous development of the mentor training, the program has added a training session focusing on various aspects of intersectionality as it relates to individual’s social identities, and how mentors can use these knowledge to better interact with mentees. In addition to these changes, we will also report findings on how the program impacted on scholars’ academic growth and mentors’ understanding about the culturally adaptive advisement to answer the CAPS research questions (a) how these interventions affect the development of social belonging and engineering identity of CAPS scholars, and (b) the impact of Mentor+ on academic resilience and progress to degree. The program conducted qualitative data collection and analysis via focus group meetings and interviews as well as quantitative data collection and analysis using academic records and surveys. Our findings will help enhance the CAPS program and establish a sustainable Scholars Support Program at the university, which can be implemented with scholarships funded by other sources, and which can be transferred to similar culturally diverse institutions to increase success for students who have socio-economic challenges. 

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