The University of Georgia, the birthplace of public higher education, launched the UGA Mentor Program, its first comprehensive mentorship initiative, in August 2019. The program provides students with an avenue to develop their personal and professional networks; explore professional goals, career interests, and workplace preferences; and help students gain an appreciation for mentoring as a personal and professional development tool.
Mentoring is critical for individuals, particularly within the early stages of their career development. eMentoring is an innovative concept where the mentoring between the protégé and mentor functions via online processes. Attendees will brainstorm innovative ideas and best practices to foster a culture of mentoring across their campus community that leads to greater student personal and professional achievement.
Particularly for those new to the profession, developing supportive, consultative peer connections is an essential piece of becoming a professional and of growing in the field. This is particularly important for students who are female, of racial or ethnic minorities, immigrants, or part of other disenfranchised groups. Numerous scholars have noted that alumni are increasingly key stakeholders and can potentially offer a wide variety of value to students’ employability. Join this session to listen to presenters discuss campus partnerships that have helped guide the creation of an inclusive program, and how they’ve developed educational programming to intentionally serve their minoritized populations. In addition, presenters will share the success stories of students and the impact that mentorship has had on their overall personal and professional success.
Following this program, you will be able to:
- Learn the benefits of mentorship in supporting student success personally and professionally through the lens of an eMentoring program;
- Understand how to design and scale an evidence-based, inclusive, eMentoring program by learning about one to two mentoring frameworks; and
- Identify one to two ways to incorporate continued learning activities for mentors and mentees to further mentoring relationship and student success; and
- Identify strategies to engage alumni mentors in career development programming and services to increase students’ career clarity and career connections.