Mentoring initiatives and activities have had a significant positive effect on education at many levels. This workshop is designed to establish a mentoring community of renowned mentors in an effort to create a national resource of faculty and educators who have excelled in enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. This effort brings together for the first time nationally recognized Mentors who have been awarded the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). The workshop hosts discussions to inform successful strategies for establishing several key features for the initiation of the mentoring community. These key features include 1) establishing a Community of Mentoring Leaders in STEM fields; 2) establishing a sub-group of Mentors that can serve as a national resource for agencies, committees, and advisory groups by providing information on best practices for policy development relevant to strengthening STEM education throughout the nation; 3) establishing a learning community environment for Mentors that supports the opportunity for enhanced collaboration and connectivity ; and 4) establishing pathways of knowledge transfer for sharing of best practices and increasing dissemination efforts. These efforts are aimed at substantially enhancing future dissemination and subsequent adoption of best mentoring practices. Strategies for effectively evaluating and assessing mentoring programs will also be discussed during the workshop.
Mentoring has proven to be an effective mechanism for ensuring student retention and success in STEM fields. Specifically, select mentoring programs for women, minorities, and underrepresented groups have shown significant gains in increasing the presence of students from various backgrounds in the STEM fields. The establishment of a formal Mentoring Community available to assist students interested in STEM fields, as well as program development, will ultimately provide an opportunity for members of these groups to enter the STEM Workforce. Previous recipients of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring Program (PAESMEM) are very knowledgeable of mentoring program development and practices. Therefore, PAESMEM recipients could serve as national resource for others interested in mentoring. By providing information on best practices and prior experiences of PAESMEM recipients, other individuals and organizations will be better prepared to help women, minorities, and members of other underrepresented groups to be successful in STEM fields. Given the great potential for additional impact on STEM education efforts as well as the focus of the new administration on funding and utilizing mentoring programs and activities to increase the success of students in our country; the goal of this workshop award was to stimulate the establishment of an organized mentoring community and a repository of resources that can assist others in their mentoring programs, efforts, and activities. Thus, the workshop was designed as a forum for open dialogue to stimulate idea generation regarding strategies that can be employed and/or exploited to accomplish the following: 1) Establishing a Community of Mentoring Leaders in STEM fields that can serve as a national resource for agencies, committees, task forces, advisory groups, etc. by assisting with informing and influencing policies and practices relevant to STEM education in our community; 2) Establishing Pathways of Knowledge Transfer for sharing of best practices and increased dissemination of reports thereby enhancing the adoption of mentoring practices nationally; and 3) Establishing a learning community environment for mentors that supports the opportunity for enhanced collaboration and connectivity to promote information and resource sharing. Suggested action items generated by the PAESMEM workshop attendees included: 1) Developing a white paper, with a strong executive summary, supporting documents and appendices that can be posted on the Website. This white paper should present evidence on the importance of mentoring and its effectiveness; and present summary information on establishing mentoring programs, replicating successful mentoring practices, and forming learning communities. 2) Establishing a listserv of PAESMEM recipients. 3) Setting up a task force to design a PAESMEM website. 4) Developing a web site to help build a PAESMEM community and share information among the group. 5) Developing a multi-faceted dissemination strategy that aids in engaging others in the practice of mentoring. 6) Hosting a national mentoring conference for PAESMEM awardees. 7) Creating an online journal that publish measurable (e.g., increased retention, how many mentees go into STEM careers), scholarly work on the impact of mentoring efforts. Also, establishing an editorial board for the journal created that includes persons from diverse disciplines to ensure that the articles are written in a universal format that is easily understood by various readers is essential. The goals of this workshop were met and the significant project outcome included the development and distillation of a comprehensive list of action items necessary to achieve the establishment of a national mentoring community to serve as a resource for our nation.
