GCTM

Mentoring is an essential factor in the success of budding scholars and scientists. The goal of training graduate students is to develop skills to enhance the relationship with the graduate student’s mentor and those that the graduate student mentors. The mentorship training by the Graduate Center for Transformational Mentorship (GCTM) at Clemson University meets the guidelines set forth by various government agencies for training grants and is based on the training by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER).

Training sessions that will be available spring of 2024:

Introduction to Mentoring Up
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Learn about other mentees in the group to begin building a learning community.
2. Define mentoring relationships and their role as a mentor/mentee.
3. Prepare to effectively reframe the relationships with their research mentors and “mentor up”.

Maintaining Effective Communication
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Communicate effectively across diverse dimensions including varied backgrounds, disciplines,
ethnicities, positions of power, etc.
2. Accept and use constructive feedback.
3. Identify different communication styles/ approaches.
4. Use multiple strategies for improving communication (in person, at a distance, across multiple
mentors, and within proper personal boundaries).

Aligning Expectations
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Effectively establish mutually beneficial expectations for the mentoring relationship.
2. Clearly communicate expectations for the mentoring relationship.
3. Align mentee and mentor expectations.

Addressing Equity and Inclusion
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Improve and expand understanding of equity and inclusion, and how diversity influences
mentor-mentee interactions.
2. Recognize the impact that conscious and unconscious assumptions, preconceptions, biases, and
prejudices bring to the mentor-mentee relationship and how to manage them.

Building Research Self-Efficacy
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Identify signs of self-efficacy that resonate when conducting research related tasks
2. Define self-efficacy and its four sources
3. Articulate their role in building their own research self-efficacy
4. Assess the influence of others on their research self-efficacy
5. Devise strategies to support others’ research self-efficacy

Achieving Independence
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Define independence, its core elements, and how those elements change over the course of a
mentoring relationship
2. Identify the benefits and challenges of fostering independence, including the sometimes
conflicting goals of fostering independence and achieving grant-funded research objectives.

Seeking Professional Development
Mentees will have the knowledge and skills to:
1. Identify the roles mentors play in their overall professional development
2. Develop or revise their individual development plan IDP
3. Recognize and engage in open dialogue on balancing the competing demands,
needs, and interests of mentors and mentees, e.g., research productivity, grant funding, creativity
and independence, career preference decisions, non-research activities, personal development,
work-family balance, etc.

Graduate students can earn a digital badge for participation in workshops:

For more information, contact Dr. Karen High (khigh@clemson.edu) or Dr. Marieke Van Puymbroeck (mvp@clemson.edu).