Mentoring Up Training for Postdoctoral Scholars and Graduate Students
Overview
Mentoring is collaborative. Ideally, mentees and mentors engage as partners through reciprocal activities such as planning, acting, reflecting, questioning, and problem-solving. Successful mentoring relationships are those in which mentees reach the individual milestones that allow them to progress to the next stage along the trajectory for a sustainable career.
Mentee success is defined as mentees having gained…
- Personal and professional competencies necessary to define their research goals.
- Experience for that career.
- The ability and opportunity to progress toward that chosen career goal.
The content of each session in this curriculum is designed to address some of the challenges and concerns that mentees might encounter throughout their career. In this mentoring up series, mentees will develop the knowledge and skills to proactively and effectively address these challenges and navigate their mentoring relationships and career progression.
Notice: Each event requires a minimum number of participants. If the minimum isn’t reached the event might be cancelled or postponed.
These workshops are sponsored and hosted by UCLA Bioscience Graduate Programs & Postdoctoral Affairs.
Workshops
Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, 4:00-5:30pm (Zoom)
RSVP Link coming soon
A shared understanding of what each person expects is critical to establishing effective mentor-mentee relationships. Challenges arise when mentors and mentees have misunderstandings about expectations in the relationship, which naturally change over time. Therefore, ongoing reflection and communication about expectations are needed to maintain a positive and productive mentor-mentee relationship. During this workshop, participants will utilize case studies and small-group discussions to build key mentoring competencies that support aligning expectations with their mentor.
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Effectively establish mutually beneficial expectations for the mentoring relationship.
- Clearly communicate expectations for the mentoring relationship.
- Align mentee and mentor expectations.
Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, 12:00-1:30pm (Zoom)
RSVP Link coming soon
Self-efficacy is the perceived confidence people have in their ability to perform a specific task or skill. Participants will gain strategies for bolstering their research confidence and minimizing self-doubt.
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Identify signs of self-efficacy that resonate when conducting research-related tasks
- Define self-efficacy and its four sources
- Articulate their role in building their own research self-efficacy
- Assess the influence of others on their research self-efficacy
- Devise strategies to support others’ research self-efficacy
*This workshop is also a part of the Leadership Training Program for Graduate Students & Postdoctoral Scholars
Thursday, Apr. 18, 2024, 12:00-1:30pm (Zoom)
RSVP Link coming soon
Good communication is a key element of any relationship and a mentoring relationship is no exception. It is critical that mentors and mentees seek to understand their own and the other’s communication styles and agree on the preferred modes, frequency, and relative responsibilities for communication. During this workshop, we will use evidence-based methods to help participants develop skills to maximize the effectiveness of their mentoring relationships. Trainees will utilize case studies and small-group discussions to build a key mentoring competency, effective communication.
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Communicate effectively across diverse dimensions including varied backgrounds, disciplines, ethnicities, positions of power, etc.
- Accept and use constructive feedback.
- Identify different communication styles/ approaches.
- Use multiple strategies for improving communication (in person, at a distance, across multiple mentors, and within proper personal boundaries).
Wednesday, May 8, 2024, 4:00-5:30pm (Zoom)
RSVP Link coming soon
A goal in any mentoring relationship is for the mentee to achieve independence. Defining what independence looks like in a particular field and at various career stages is essential. Dialogue between mentor and mentee about what an independent mentee knows and can do are important conversations to have throughout the mentoring relationship.
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Define independence, its core elements, and how those elements change over the course of a mentoring relationship
- Identify the benefits and challenges of fostering independence, including the sometimes conflicting goals of fostering independence and achieving grant-funded research objectives.
Frequently Asked Questions
This curriculum is designed for those conducting academic research. While the individual activities included in the curriculum may focus on a specific type of research or a specific aspect of a mentoring relationship, the curriculum as a whole is designed to include activities relevant to a broad range of mentees across diverse areas of research and varied stages of their mentoring relationships.
You must be a graduate student or postdoc.
Yes. See priorities list for who is chosen for the course.
RSVP opens at the start of each quarter.
This series can be completed in any order.
- First priority will be given to graduate students and postdocs who are in the biosciences.
- Second priority will be given to graduate students and postdocs of any discipline.
Questions?
Postdocs should email Dr. Lynn Talton (LTalton@mednet.ucla.edu).
Grad students should email Dr. Diana Azurdia (DAzurdia@mednet.ucla.edu).