'The culture of mentoring is so important, and we're trying to improve it'
An aerial view of campus over the water towers (UConn Photo)
Graduate school is an intense commitment, and when asking anyone who has navigated the experience, a common theme arises: mentorship can make or break one's chances at success.
A team of UConn faculty and staff members including associate dean and professor in the Department of Sociology Mary Bernstein, Jennifer Cavallari professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, and Rachel Prunier '10 Ph.D, director of Teaching and Learning in the Life & Physical Sciences for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) and lecturer in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB), are working to strengthen the culture of mentorship at UConn and UConn Health.
"This is one of the most important relationships in their life," says Prunier. "So, you need to choose a mentor carefully."
The Graduate School (TGS) identified improving mentorship as a critical priority from its Strategic Plan and findings from the 2020-2021 BIPOC Graduate Student Support study. In response, Bernstein established a formal mentorship training program for new faculty based on the Entering Mentoring curriculum of the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research. In 2024, The Graduate School made this requirement mandatory for new graduate faculty wanting to be appointed to the graduate faculty at UConn.
At UConn School of Medicine, twice yearly trainings are offered to faculty working with master's or Ph.D. students, and Cavallari is in the process of expanding the training to clinical faculty. While the principles of the mentor training hold true for any discipline, the curriculum can be customized with case studies and activities that are discipline relevant. Prunier, working through CETL and EEB, began training graduate students and postdoctoral researchers on a small scale by providing a combined mentee/mentor training in EEB. To serve the needs of the Research Apprentice Program and the university at large, she then refined and expanded the combined mentee/mentor training to all graduate students and post-doctoral researchers by facilitating three training cohorts (together with colleagues) in the summer of 2025.
To learn strategies to meet these needs, Bernstein, Prunier, and Cavallari attended facilitator training through the Center for the Improvement of Mentoring Experiences in Research (CIMER). Bernstein's faculty mentorship training team has since grown to include 11 faculty and staff members in addition to herself, Cavallari, and Prunier. The mentor training is offered on the UConn Storrs and UConn Health campuses as well as virtually. The mentorship training team come together to share resources and experiences to enhance the delivery of the training.
"Research shows that when faculty receive the CIMER training, their mentoring behaviors change, and that results in increased graduate student productivity, faster time to graduation, and more success," says Bernstein.
Mentorship training for faculty helps lay the foundation for successful mentoring by exploring fundamentals like establishing clear expectations and supporting the unique needs of each individual mentee. This clarity ensures a better working, teaching, and learning environment all around.
"The program emphasizes that UConn is a place where we care about our graduate students and postdocs and about their success, and also about the undergraduates who are mentored by our graduate students. I think instilling that from day one is critical," says Bernstein. "The truth is faculty are under a lot of pressure with grants and deadlines, and there are faculty who are absolutely dependent on their graduate students to get their work done, so not treating your mentees well is counterproductive."
In reflecting on her own graduate school experience, Bernstein says although she had a wonderful advisor and was part of an active and supportive group of grad students, she needed additional support which she found in other members of her advisory committee.
"The training highlights that it should be a team, that it's not just one main person, but that you may get different things from different people," says Bernstein.
Mentoring is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and training instills the importance of having discussions about how to approach everyday things such as how frequently to meet, to the most constructive way to give feedback, and what expectations are reasonable.
"For the mentors, something might sound reasonable, but it might sound very different because they are dealing with the power differential, and I think it takes time and a lot of self-awareness," says Prunier. "Everything we do as faculty, as mentors, as teachers in the classroom, it's all the same. If you're doing it right, it's all about forming relationships based on trust, figuring out how to do that while seeing people as individuals who have individual needs, and working towards a common goal."
In the CETL combined Entering Mentoring and Mentoring Up program, Prunier and her collaborators help grad students and postdocs learn how to be mentors and more effective mentees,
"Oftentimes, they're also mentoring students, and they might not have good models for how to do it. Even if they do have good models, they might not understand why it works. One of the great things about the training is it talks about behaviors, and it's not about being a good mentor or a bad mentor, it's about certain mentoring behaviors and how they enable you to help your mentees," says Prunier. "Everyone gets something different out of the training, some students come away with an understanding how to ask for what they need, that it's okay to ask for what they need, or it's okay to ask to be treated differently than they're being treated. Some come away with an understanding of how they want to be a mentor."
Prunier says that anything that can be done to empower mentees to find good working situations or how to improve existing situations is helping to build a positive mentoring culture.
"In The Graduate School, unfortunately, we see the cases when things are going awry," says Bernstein. "Part of our goal is to minimize the times when these relationships become problematic, and the student can't complete their work."
Bernstein and Prunier stress that it is important for everyone to know these tools and resources are available because this training has the power to produce positive rippling effects throughout UConn's community and beyond.
"The culture of mentoring is so important, and we're trying to improve it," says Prunier. "There is a problem nationwide and it is something that's going to make a huge difference in UConn's success. We've got to show that we are a place that students want to come to, where they will succeed and have that culture of mentoring built in and making it happen is important. Hopefully we can keep pushing the needle, changing behaviors, helping faculty and grad students recognize good ways of interacting."
