Release date: June 27, 2002
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or dhammac@emory.edu

Mentoring Can Play a Powerful Role in Students’ Lives

A good mentor can be a powerful force in a student’s life and academic success. For the parent, friend or other concerned adult, here are some tips for being a successful mentor.

Cynthia Shaw, director of student development and a long-time student advisor, takes a developmental tack in her mentoring.

• Hold students accountable for their behavior. If a student comes to you with a problem, ask "what has been your responsibility in this situation?" Shaw tells her students that being accountable is a part of the maturing process.

• Reserve the right to disagree. This works both ways, according to Shaw. "Students with whom I work know that I will always reserve the right to disagree with them and they with me. This understanding makes for an honest and open relationship." She says students often seek out a mentor that they hope will agree with everything they say or do, but that sort of relationship isn’t helpful to the student.

Arri Eisen, senior lecturer in biology, has earned a reputation as an excellent mentor, especially for students in the sciences, and it is a role he takes seriously. He sees mentoring as a collaborative process.

• The mentor does not ‘know everything.’ "You have as much to learn from your mentee as they from you. You just learn different kinds of things from each other," says Eisen.

• Let mentees make mistakes, but then use those mistakes as teachable moments: Why was this a mistake? What should we do differently next time?

• The ideal way is not necessarily the mentor’s way. "You’re not shaping mentees to be you, but to be what is ideal for them, which may change."

• Help the student identify their interests. Young people especially have broad interests and many insecurities; the mentor’s job is to identify students’ interests, wants, and desires, separate from other influences in their lives. "Are the students acting, thinking, doing in ways that they enjoy and make them satisfied, that further worthy (in their mind) goals or ideas?"

• A true mentor is a friend, but more and less than a friend. "You are someone to confide in and trust, but you are an authority, a role model, on a different level. So you must keep that distance and that closeness at the same time."

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