Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 1, 2004|Volume 33, Number 5

New database to help link
women mentors and mentees

Female graduate students who are looking for a mentor -- or female faculty and administrators who are interested in becoming a mentor -- are invited to attend an informational meeting taking place 5-6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 7, in Rm. 119B of the Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St.

The meeting will focus on a new database and other resources offered by the Women Mentoring Women (WMW) initiative, a joint creation of the Women Faculty Forum, Graduate Career Services and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

WMW had its roots in 2002-2003, when the Graduate School was chosen as one of 14 universities to participate in the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's "Responsive Ph.D." initiative, a program to improve doctoral education. The Yale discussions focused on the theory and practice of mentoring.

Susan Hockfield, then dean of the Graduate School, now provost of Yale and president-elect of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted that the mentoring relationship is at the "core" of the graduate school experience.

"Mentoring impacts every aspect of graduate education," she said. "Most obviously, it affects a student's ability to enter the academic world as a competent and confident professional. But it touches as well on student satisfaction with the degree, on time to degree, on the relation between the Ph.D. and the non-academic world, on preparedness for non-academic employment, and on the training of future Ph.D.s."

According to Rachel Thomas, director of programs for the Women Faculty Forum, "Women can benefit especially from a mentoring relationship with women faculty, staff, and/or advanced post-docs." This is particularly true, she notes, for female students in fields traditionally considered "male" -- such as the physical sciences, mathematics and business -- who "may feel particularly isolated from their professors and peers because of the small number of female faculty mentors available in their departments. ...

"While a mentor of any gender can provide insight and guidance for a student," adds Thomas, "female mentors offer female mentees experiential advice of great relevance to their own lives. With the aid of mentors who have truly 'been there,' female students are able to visualize their futures, recognize and address roadblocks that may lie in their paths, and overcome those challenges successfully."

The WMW database is designed to make it easier for female students, faculty and staff to connect and establish formal mentoring relationships. The database, which is entirely voluntary, lists the names of potential mentors and mentees, along with their departmental affiliations, research interests and contact information. It is open to female students currently enrolled in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, post-docs (who can enroll either as a mentor or mentee), members of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and staff. Mentees are encouraged to look for matches within and outside of their own departments, as mentoring relationships can be helpful in thinking about academic career paths in a broad sense. A WMW mentor can be a more general resource to supplement the support received from one's academic advisers, notes Thomas.

In addition to being useful to students looking for mentors, the database can be a source of information for faculty seeking graduate help for conferences, symposia and research assistance, says Thomas, who developed the database with Angelica Bernal, a graduate student in political science, and Mary Johnson, director of Graduate Career Services.

"By entering your information into the WMW database you are not committing to a certain number of mentoring relationships or a certain number of devoted hours," Thomas assures potential mentors. "Rather, we hope that you will have an initial meeting of not more than an hour with potential mentees who contact you, in order to find out whether a suitable mentoring relationship might be possible between the two of you. You can remove your name from the database at any time."

The Oct. 7 informational meeting is co-sponsored by Graduate Career Services and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. To learn more about the database, or to enroll, visit the website at www.yale.edu/graduateschool/careers/mentoring.html.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Yale boasts three MacArthur Fellows

YSN receives $2.5M grant for research center

As Yale College dean, Salovey will be 'voice on campus' . . .

Reunion focuses on law education in an era of globalization

Satirists rarely reformers, says scholar of genre

Conference looks at influence of Henry Fielding

New database to help link women mentors and mentees

Estonian librarian learns about American system as Yale intern

Exhibit features modernist furniture of the Depression era

City-Wide Open Studios festival celebrates its seventh year

Talks will explore century-long evolution of psychoanalysis

Renewed support will promote center's goal of improving care for elderly

Surgeon earns award for studies on link between aging and tumor growth

Campus Notes

Yale Books in Brief