Resources

Materials for Mentors and Mentees

Our library of Mentorship Agreements and Compacts is a resource useful for setting and aligning expectations between mentor and mentee. This library compiles a list of examples and worksheets for a variety of career stages.

Enhancing Your Mentorship Practice Infographic. This document was produced by CIMER as a part of its work with the NSF-supported Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN). Please share with colleagues who you hope will take their first steps into building sustainable cultures of mentorship at their institutions.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research offers resources for mentors and mentees focused on cultivating effective mentoring relationships, including information on mentoring best practices and the 4 stages of a mentoring relationship.

National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) offers videos on mentoring and professional development. The videos in this section offer advice and strategies on mentoring and professional development to help you become a successful scientist.

The NRNM Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM) initiative aims to enhance mentors’ and trainees’ ability to effectively address cultural diversity matters in their research mentoring relationships. Here you can find more information about CAM, the CAM study, and gain access to additional resources for self-reflection and education. 

Indiana University’s School of Medicine, Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development offers a faculty mentoring website. In addition to a discussion of mentoring benefits and models, it includes a ‘mentoring toolkit’ with practical resources for mentors and mentees.

The International Training and Education Center on HIV (I-TECH) has an extensive clinical mentoring curriculum. Many of the materials, particularly those on communication, building relationships, and theories of learning, may easily be adapted for use with research mentors.

The University of California–San Francisco’s Mentorship Development Program offers course materials on their Accelerate website, supported by their Clinical and Translational Science Institute. The site includes an extensive library of case scenarios as well as didactic materials on 9 central topics ranging from communication, diversity, and work-life balance, to institutional orientation and leadership skills.

The University of Pittsburgh’s Mentoring Resources Web Site offers information for mentors and mentees at every stage of the mentoring relationship. Sponsored by the Institute for Clinical Research Education, it provides resources that explore topics such as deciding on the right mentoring models, communicating effectively, giving and receiving feedback, mentoring underrepresented populations, and finding strategies for problem solving.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The online book, Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty, includes a chapter on “Mentoring and Being Mentored.” It includes topics such as what mentoring is, a mentor’s responsibilities, strategies for effective mentoring in and out of the lab, how to get the mentoring you need, and gender and culture issues.

NIH Scientific Workforce Diversity (SWD) Toolkit (PDF) is a free, downloadable interactive resource institutions can use to help advance their own faculty diversity and inclusion. The toolkit guides users through evidence-based interrelated activities that SWD is currently using to foster an inclusive culture that unleashes the power of diversity to achieve research and institutional excellence. These include expanding diversity of the candidate pool, proactive outreach to diverse talent, mitigating bias in search processes, and developing/sustaining mentoring relationships and sponsorship.

Duke University offers a toolkit of mentoring vignettes, discussion questions, and other tools for cultivating a culture of mentoring.

The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM is a consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine which studies mentoring programs and practices at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It also includes an Online Toolkit.

The University of California-San Diego has a formal structured mentorship program designed to support the success of junior faculty, while also improving their sense of satisfaction and engagement with the institution. This faculty mentor training program (FMTP) enhances senior faculty training in effective mentoring, facilitates the adoption of a formalized faculty mentor program within the individual departments/divisions and cultivates an environment where mentoring excellence is valued.A

Online Mentor Training Courses

National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) serves as a national hub for several online mentor training courses including synchronous online sessions and self-paced asynchronous sessions.

The University of Minnesota’s Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring offers asynchronous online self-paced research mentor training. Content is organized into five modules that cover mentoring models, mentor roles and responsibilities, structure and dynamics of the mentoring relationship, and strategies for facilitating, and addressing challenges to, the mentoring process. This training is currently being expanded through NRMN.

Then NRMN Resource Center is now offering a self-directed online course titled “Mentoring Undergraudate Students”. Originally called “Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring” by the University of Minnesota.

The University of Minnesota’s Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring offers an asynchronous, self-paced mentor training module focused on enhancing mentee motivation. 

Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) Network offers online, synchronous mentor training for post-docs and graduate students as well as online discussion around topics in teaching and mentoring. If your institution is a member of the CIRTL Network (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning), your graduate students and post-docs can participate in online, synchronous mentor training.

 

Virtual Mentoring Programs

National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) connects scientists at all career stages of research for structured, virtual mentoring relationships which include guided discussion and training elements.

MentorNet connects STEM students & professionals and engages them in effective online mentoring partnerships over 16 week.

Online Mentee Training Courses

Build Your Reserach Community from the Science Communication Lab (formerly iBiology). A free, five module online course that guides science trainees through the crucial steps of identifying mentors and building and maintaining strong mentoring relationships.  

Video Role Plays

by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Video vignettes with follow up questions for discussion

Three Wavelengths by Paul Szauter
Video role play of the Entering Mentoring case study, The Slob


A Conference Call in Real Life by Tripp and Tyler
Video role play of what it would look like if the annoyances of conference calls happened in real-life meetings.

Songs as Case Studies

Songs as case studies The following songs by Uri Alon, Professor and Systems Biologist at the Weizmann Insititute of Science, can be used like case studies to start discussions on mentoring as part of mentor or mentee training.

First Day in the Lab by Uri Alon 

This song could be used in mentor training to talk about onboarding new mentees and orienting them to the lab or research group, and aligning expectations. It could also be used with mentees to discuss acclimating to a new environment.

Scooped Again by Uri Alon

This song could be used in discussions with mentees to discuss the frustrations and realities of doing science. It could also be integrated into a discussion on ethics.

Sunday at the Lab by Uri Alon

This song could be used in discussions on work-life integration with mentors or mentees.

University of Wisconsin–Madison Local Training

Mentor and mentee training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are available through the following programs:

Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching WISCIENCE

Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning

Institute for Clinical and Translational Research

Please send us any additional links that would make good additions to our site.