- International Mentoring Day was launched to acknowledge and support the work of mentoring initiatives around the world.
- Mentoring can take many forms, but what matters is that mentors have experience and the desire to share their information and knowledge.
- Mentoring is a reciprocal two-way process that demands mutual respect.
- Mentoring programmes benefit both the mentee and the mentor: each develops different sets of skills and can build confidence.
Celebrated on 17 January each year, International Mentoring Day highlights mentoring initiatives around the world, and is an opportunity to encourage the formation of mentor–mentee relationships. Whether you are an aspiring student, a committed professional wanting to progress in your career, or someone who wants to give back and help others accomplish their goals, mentoring is a great way for people to strive for professional and personal development.
Join us in celebrating International Mentoring Day by exploring some of our articles that provide further insight into mentorship.
Scholarship and mentoring: The key to recruiting minority students to STEM
Professor Jen-Mei Chang and Professor Gino Galvez, California State University, USA, have introduced a scholarship programme that uses mentoring to encourage talented, low-income, underrepresented minority students to study and pursue a career in STEM.
Our article delves into the details of this programme and its benefits.
Building a community of learning and a legacy of mentoring
Access to academia is difficult in the US, particularly for students who believe that they are not worthy. Changing this requires tackling a history of inequity and underrepresentation in academia. Senior educator, Dr Carolyn Walker Hopp, has created a legacy of mentoring by drawing on her own experiences.
Read our article to find out more.
One of the most powerful aspects of mentoring is bringing mentees together to share experiences that can lead to revealing commonality within a group.
Dr Carolyn Walker Hopp.
SurgTime™: A leap forward in arthroscopy and telemedicine mentoring
Sharing knowledge through mentoring and training is critical in medicine but traditionally has needed to take place face-to-face. California-based orthopaedic surgeon Dr William Stetson has contributed to exciting advancements in mentoring within the medical community by developing a telesurgery internet platform that enables clinicians to share knowledge globally.
Find out more about this technology by reading our article.
SurgTime™ allows us to accelerate the learning curve for surgeons in developing countries to learn these new surgical techniques.
Dr William Stetson
Storytelling and humanism: A new college mentoring theory
Many high school students, especially low-income, minority, first-generation students, lack the mentorship they need to succeed in further education. Dr Joshua Cruz is passionate about improving the experience of college students and suggests that a mentoring programme based on humanism and storytelling may encourage high school students to pursue further education.
“Others’ experiences, even those that are negative, help us move forward with more confidence.” Dr Joshua Cruz.
Learn more about Dr Cruz’s theory of mentoring in our article.
