This content will become publicly available on June 1, 2025
- PAR ID:
- 10534869
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE Conferences
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Peer mentoring makerspace classroom first-year design engineering education
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland, Oregon
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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This full research paper explores the role of faculty mentors in supporting student mentees. Faculty mentors of undergraduate students have the ability to make an academic, professional, and/or personal impact on their students. For example, mentors may provide assistance with course planning, share career goal feedback, offer life advice, etc. The benefits of these relationships may prove to be especially valuable in competitive fields such as engineering. While students stand to gain much in mentor/mentee relationships, these interactions can be mutually beneficial, producing positive effects for mentors. Despite the importance of faculty mentoring undergraduate students, there is a gap in understanding what enables faculty mentors to feel effective in their roles. The majority of studies focus on student-related outcomes and do not delve into the mentors’ side of the relationship. Addressing this gap can serve to enhance the quality of student education by providing insight into mentoring relationships. This paper will utilize Zachary’s model for effective mentoring to understand the foundation of effective mentoring. This model provides a framework for understanding mentor-mentee interactions by describing the seven elements of an effective relationship: reciprocity, learning, relationship, partnership, collaboration, mutually defined goals, and development. Mentors in academia are put in the position to orchestrate student growth through these areas by lending their guidance and expertise. In order to better understand the faculty mentor experience within one-on-one and small-group faculty-to-student mentoring relationships in the undergraduate setting, this qualitative project will study a cohort of engineering faculty mentors of undergraduate engineering students at a mid-sized research university in the Midwest. Two research questions will be examined: a. What are the factors that enable faculty mentors of undergraduate engineering students to feel effective in their role? b. How can engineering faculty be supported to enhance their mentoring interactions? The primary focus of this study will be to fill a critical gap in the understanding of faculty mentoring of undergraduate students by investigating the factors that enable faculty mentors to feel effective and proposing strategies for their support.more » « less
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While the vertical transfer process and culturally responsive approaches to education have been studied extensively, few scholars have addressed these two areas of concern simultaneously, particularly within higher education contexts. This study explores what cultural responsiveness means and how it matters for low-income community college (CC) students aspiring toward STEM careers and transferring to STEM majors at a local university. As part of a bridge program, students received two STEM faculty mentors, one faculty mentor from the community college and the other from the local university, beginning in their last year of enrollment at the community college. Each STEM mentor was trained in culturally responsive mentoring, and their mentorship extended post-transfer. Students participated in focus groups to share their experiences. The findings reveal that specific aspects of the community college students’ identities, primarily their race and language, were relevant as aspects of culture that mattered for their STEM aspirations. The findings also show that cultural responsiveness in mentoring and support outside the classroom are important steps toward humanizing STEM spaces, but they are wholly insufficient when not paired with extensive culturally responsive efforts in STEM teaching and within the curriculum to improve the internal classroom climate for those with racialized identities.
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