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I gave a workshop on @ESWNtweets' "taking ownership of your own mentoring" last week. And since I think it's such a helpful framework, especially in the times of covid and social distancing, here is a short thread! @waterbarnes @emsaurios
The main premise is that we tend to rely too much on mentors that we are in a formal mentoring relationship with: supervisors, bosses, "mentors". But it's easy to overtax one person (or even if they were willing to mentor us, they might just not be very good at it), therefore...
it might be a good idea to have all our different mentoring needs can be met by different people or organisations. That way, it is easier to find mentoring. And importantly, we see mentoring as a two-way street -- be a mentor to others too, not only a mentee!
We suggest that there are many different facets of mentoring, from people lobbying for you behind closed doors, to others listening to you when you really have to talk, to those giving you feedback on writing or brainstorming ideas with you. And many more!
Once you are aware of both possible needs in general, and your current mentoring needs, you can start putting names to each o the different facets. Like most participants in my workshop, you will probably realize that you know a lot more people than you thought!
And for those areas in your mentoring map where you can't come up with names just yet, we have suggestions for you where you can find people that might help you fill those needs
Social media is of course a great tool for that (which we'll talk about in the next workshop session, tomorrow night), but for now you can find more information here: https://mirjamglessmer.com/2020/11/02/a-workshop-on-building-and-maintaining-a-mentoring-network-in-academia/ and, of course, invite everybody to check out the mentoring map and connect with us! :-)
