Join the Student Affairs Mentor Program
What is the overall intent of the program?
“I enjoyed learning more about my mentee’s department and her role on campus with students.”
Student Affairs realizes that the foundation of our programs and services is provided by the excellence of our staff. With the completion of one successful year we are ready to start another energizing year for the Staff Mentoring program. It is our hope that through the Staff Mentoring program, we can develop better relationships within our workforce and foster better staff relations. By matching incoming and experienced staff, we hope to provide the information and support to help those new to Student Affairs.
“I have re-learned the value of meeting other individuals from different departments.”
We hope this program will provide newer staff the opportunity to become more familiar with the campus and surrounding communities as well. Since Student Affairs is comprised of many units, it can be difficult to become familiar with each other. We hope that this mentoring opportunity will encourage staff to branch out and discover how vast Student Affairs really is. So if you’re interested, keep reading and uncover for yourself if the Staff Mentoring Program is for you.
We hope by the end of the program you will be better acclimated to your department, Student Affairs, the campus, and the community.
Who is the program for?
The program is geared to both experienced professional staff members and recently hired professional staff within Student Affairs. You decide if you would like to be a mentor or mentee. There are no years of service to qualify. For instance, someone that has been in Student Affairs five years may want to explore possibilities for their next professional step and therefore would sign up to be a mentee. Or that person may want to contribute to acclimating a new staff member to the campus and community and therefore would sign up to be a mentor. You decide based on your professional goals.
What is the timetable of the program?
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Wednesday September 16, 2009
Online application: https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/9062403
Mentor program kickoff in the Illini Union Colonial Room Wednesday September 30, 2009
Workshops:
• Monday, November 16, 2009, 9-11am (Allen Hall Main Lounge)
• Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 2-4pm (ARC MP7)
• Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 10am-12pm (Illini Union Colonial Room)
What incentives do staff have in participating in the program?
“I think that being a mentor and engaging in a mentoring relationship has reminded me of the importance of professional connections outside of one’s own department and possibly even functional area. The high point has been getting to know my mentee and talking to her about her own professional transition to the university.”
You too can have an experience such as the one described by a participant form last year. For mentors, there is satisfaction in the opportunity to share your experiences and knowledge with someone else. The program provides an opportunity to make a lasting impact in your field as well as increasing your own personal involvement with Student Affairs. Also, spending time with these new and incoming staff members may keep you fresh and hip in your workplace. Mentees will benefit from professional guidance as well as important information that only an experienced staff member can provide. In addition, Student Affairs has numerous units and departments whose complexity can be daunting without the proper perspective. With this mentoring program, we hope to provide newer staff with insight as to the inner-workings of all of Student Affairs, the campus, and the community. Finally, we hope that the program is also able allow staff to make lasting relationships.
There will also be a networking component to the program this year. In addition to meeting your mentee/mentor, you will also have the opportunity to meet others and gain or share valuable insights from more than one person.
How will I be matched with a mentee or mentor?
A recent book, Power Mentoring (Ensher & Murphy, 2005), gave the Professional Development Committee (PDC) some new ideas for shaping this successful mentoring program. The authors propose that mentoring is actually much more complex than the traditional model of one older, wiser mentor and one younger learner. Interviews with mentors and mentees revealed that mentees had a number of mentors that they relied on, each for somewhat different things. And, learning was transactional: mentors frequently received just as much from the mentee as they provided.
With those pieces in mind, the PDC reshaped the Mentoring program in two major ways. First, the application is significantly more robust. In addition to taking account of years in the profession, skills and work experiences are included. This is meant to reflect the idea that mentees select mentors who can offer specific kinds of expertise and knowledge, not just the raw experience of years in the field. Second, the program has a new emphasis on both what can be learned and what can be shared from both mentor and mentee. That is why each person, no matter the role they’d like to play, is asked to fill in what areas of knowledge they possess, and which intrigues them to explore more.
With all of this difference, some things do stay the same! There is a value to positioning more seasoned professionals with newer ones – experience does matter! A significant part of the behind-the-scenes matching process will emphasize this value. There is also a strong emphasis on how one’s identity shapes the need for a mentor. You can share with us how your identity plays into the mentor you need, or the mentee you’d like to assist. In this way, we hope to find matches that are mutually beneficial, and that will work out over a longer run of time.
What Students are Saying