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Developing a Graduate Student Peer Mentorship Program
Ma7hew S. Savocaa,b,* aUniversity of California, Davis, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior, Davis, CA bGraduate Group in
Ecology, Davis, CA *email: mssavoca@ucdavis.edu
Overview • Graduate school can be stressful and
overwhelming. A recent study1 found 37% of Master’s students and 47% of PhD students meet the basic criteria for depression and anxiety and this incidence has risen in the past decade1,2.
• A strong mentorship network has been linked to decreased anxiety and depression as well as increased student performance, retenGon, and well-‐being1,2,3.
• One form of mentorship that oJen overlooked is peer or near-‐peer mentoring (Figure 1).
• I focused on my program, the Graduate Group in Ecology (GGE).
• My project’s goal was to formalize a peer mentorship structure within the GGE and help train graduate students in basic mentorship skills that will be useful in graduate school and beyond.
Program details • Peer mentors engaged in year-‐long mentorship training facilitated by group
discussions once per month and professionally-‐led workshops once per quarter.
• Group discussions on topics such as: • Stress management strategies in graduate school • Imposter syndrome • Mental health issues and resources
The workshops: 1. Enhancing listening skills from an ecological perspecEve
Presenter: Dr. Mónica Torreiro-‐Casal, Psychology Postdoctoral Intern, Student Health and Counseling Services
2. Mentoring 360: Developing full circles of mentoring relaEonships
Presenter: Dr. Steve Lee, Graduate Diversity Officer, Office of Graduate Studies
3. Recognizing and responding to distressed and distressing students
Presenter: Dr. Bai-‐Yin Chen, Staff Psychologist, Student Health and Counseling Services
A^endees of the discussions and workshops will receive a cerGficate of compleGon from Graduate Studies.
The way forward • Integrated peer mentoring into GGE recruitment this
year in hopes to enhance recruitment (see Gmeline below).
• Each peer mentor has agreed to mentor an incoming GGE student the following year as part of the program.
• Later this summer, I will connect incoming students to prospecGve peer mentors who have completed the peer mentorship program (see Gmeline below).
• I am currently in talks with several GGE students who are interested in taking over this program aJer I graduate next year.
References 1Hyun, J., Quinn, B., Madon, T., & LusGg, S. 2006. Graduate Student Mental Health: Needs Assessment and UGlizaGon of 4 Counseling Services. Journal of College Student Development, 47(3), 247-‐266. 2The Graduate Assembly. 2015. Graduate Student Happiness & Well-‐Being Report 2014. University of California, Berkeley <h^p://ga.berkeley.edu/wp-‐content/uploads/2015/04/wellbeingreport_2014.pdf> 3Nerad, M. & Miller, D.S.. 1996. Increasing Student RetenGon in Graduate and Professional Programs. New DirecGons for InsGtuGonal Research. 92: 61-‐76
Figure 1: Spectrum of mentorship, termed mentoring 360. My program focused on peer and near-‐pear mentoring, as indicated by the red box. Figure from Steve Lee’s Mentoring 360 workshop.
Timeline of peer mentorship program: Mentor training ConnecEng mentors with prospecEve students ConnecEng mentors with incoming students
Sept. 2015
Feb. 2016
June 2016
Sept. 2016
Acknowledgments Special thanks to the workshop presenters and cohort of peer mentors who volunteered their Gme for this project. I also want to thank the 2015-‐16 group of PFTF fellows as well as Teresa Dillinger and JP Delplanque for their support and feedback on the project.
ParGcipants in Dr. Torreiro-‐Casal’s workshop on December 4th 2015
Professors for the Future, 2015-2016
PFTF Fellow: Matthew Savoca Program: Ecology Major Professor: Gabrielle Nevitt
Project Title: "Developing a Graduate Student Peer Mentorship Program."
Project Summary: Academics often cite graduate school as the best time in their careers. And yet, despite all the wonderful things graduate school has to offer, there will also be stressful, overwhelming, and unnerving moments. The causes are innumerable and unique to each person, but have no doubt, every graduate student will encounter them; the question is, how to get though it?
For me, having a great support system of family and friends has been critical; however, an official peer support structure for graduate students at UC Davis is lacking. For this reason, as my Professors for the Future service project, I initiated a graduate student peer mentorship program, using the Graduate Group in Ecology (GGE) as a pilot group. Over the year, I organized three workshops and monthly discussion-based meetings where a collection of highly motivated GGE students, interested in enhancing their mentoring skills, have been preparing to become peer mentors for students entering the graduate program next year.
Thus far, I have connected peer mentors with prospective student mentees so the incoming cohort of GGE students will be prepared to hit the ground running when they arrive in Davis for the first time later this fall. By the end of the year, I will have also created a peer-mentorship training toolkit that other graduate programs can adopt and use to develop their own peer mentorship systems. My hope is that this program will be continued after I graduate and will augment and improve the recruitment and retention of early-stage graduate students in the GGE and UC Davis as a whole.
University of California, Davis
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