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Resources for Graduate Student Mentees and Their Faculty Mentors

For Graduate Student Mentees

Graduate Students, Professional Students, and Postdoctoral Scholars all benefit from effective mentoring relationships. Mentors help trainees develop the academic, professional, and interpersonal skills they will need for successful careers, whether within academia or in other professional settings. The following resources provide guidelines for finding and working with mentors, understanding mentoring relationships, and more.

The CFE curates a collection of mentoring resources for Carolina faculty mentors, mentees, and departments. They also provide helpful training, peer support groups, and consultations. To get started, consider creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP), learning how to align expectations in mentoring relationships, or exploring our resources for mentees. The CFE also maintains a resource collection designed to help graduate students navigate the early stages of their academic careers. 

The Graduate School’s Professional Development and Diversity and Student Success teams provide training to help graduate students both manage relationships with their mentors and develop their own mentoring skills. 

UNC-Chapel Hill is a member organization of the National Center for Faculty Development of Diversity. Students are encouraged to participate in training and other resources. Graduate students may be especially interested in the Dissertation Success Curriculum and the 14-Day Writing Challenge to help build strong professional habits. 

The University of Georgia Graduate School provides guided worksheets for creating mentor-mentee compacts that support structured, successful mentoring relationships: Mentor-Mentee Worksheet #1, Mentor-Mentee Compact  Worksheet #2. The University also supplies a Mentoring Agreement Template and a Mentoring Partnership Agreement worksheet. 

The University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School provides a graduate student mentoring guide with specific advice for working with faculty (advisors, supervisors, dissertation chairs, and mentors). 

The National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) provides research mentor and mentee training through its National Mentoring Resource Center. These workshops are designed to maximize the effectiveness of mentoring relationships between faculty and graduate students. NRMN partners closely with the Center for Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER). CIMER believes that effective research mentoring relationships are critical to developing the next generation of researchers. The Center provides mentor and mentee training that focuses on how to improve mentoring relationships at all career stages. The Center also promotes cultural change that values excellence in research mentoring as a critical aspect of diversifying the research workforce. 

Even the most excellent faculty mentor will not be able to meet all of your academic and professional needs. Identifying a developmental network of individuals to support your professional and personal growth during your graduate school training and beyond will set you up for a successful and fulfilling career. As you complete the University of Michigan’s Graduate Student Mentoring Map exercise, think broadly and inclusively about all of the people who can support your academic, professional, and personal goals. Some of these individuals may be mentors, while others may be role models, advisors, peer colleagues, or family and friends. Reflect on what kind of training and skills you need and assess whether you have all of the people you need in your network. Revisit the map on a periodic basis, update it as your network grows, and identify gaps that you may need to fill.

Student Safety, Health, and Well-Being

Student safety, health, and well-being are foundational to building and nurturing effective mentoring relationships. The Graduate School provides extensive safety and health resources for graduate and professional students.  

The objective of the UNC Peer Support Core is to facilitate the development of mutual support groups and activities and individual peer support in units (departments, centers, offices, etc.) across UNC-Chapel Hill so that no individual is without someone to turn in coping with the challenges confronting us. The Peer Support Core does this by providing consultation and education on peer support principles and evidence, providing training and implementation assistance, and facilitating the Carolina Peer Support Collaborative. 

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect graduate students’ academic careers, employment, professional opportunities, and personal lives. The following resources explore these effects and acknowledge their implications. Please also visit Carolina Together to review UNC-Chapel Hill’s updated policies and safety precautions. 

Although the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine is a STEM-focused organization, these resources transcend disciplines.

For Faculty Mentors of Graduate Students

Faculty mentors may encounter unique challenges in their mentoring relationships with graduate students. Yet both faculty mentors and their graduate student mentees can benefit from the mentoring process. The following resources can help mentors nurture strong, effective, and inclusive mentoring relationships.

The CFE curates a collection of mentoring resources for Carolina faculty mentors, mentees, and departments. They also provide helpful training, peer support groups, and consultations. To get started, consider creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP), learning how to align expectations in mentoring relationships, or exploring our resources for mentors. The CFE also maintains resource collections designed to guide faculty through the early-career, mid-career, and senior stages of faculty development.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, TEAM ADVANCE (Targeting Equity in Access to Mentoring) “strives to build a culture of effective, equitable mentoring across the University.” Managed out of the Center for Faculty Excellence in partnership with the Carolina Women’s Center,  TEAM ADVANCE’s  diverse, experienced project team leverages the expertise of the University’s faculty and staff to develop and implement effective and impactful mentoring. TEAM ADVANCE conducts research on the effectiveness of mentoring programs, with an emphasis on systemic change for women of color and white women in STEM and related disciplines. While the grant focuses on STEM units, they welcome non-STEM faculty and departments to participate in their programming. Their strategic campus partnerships ensure that TEAM ADVANCE programs and resources  are accessible to departments and units across campus and will serve the University beyond the life of the grant. 

UNC-Chapel Hill is a member organization of the National Center for Faculty Development of Diversity. Faculty and staff are encouraged to participate in training and other resources. Faculty mentors may be especially interested in the Faculty Success Program and the Professor-ing podcast.

The University of Georgia Graduate School provides guided worksheets for creating mentor-mentee compacts that support structured, successful mentoring relationships: Mentor-Mentee Worksheet #1, Mentor-Mentee Compact  Worksheet #2. The University also supplies a Mentoring Agreement Template and a Mentoring Partnership Agreement worksheet. 

The NIH Guide to Culturally Aware Mentoring is a pre-recorded webinar and other mentoring resources related to the medical sciences. Although developed by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a STEM organization, these resources transcend disciplines. 

The National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) provides research mentor and mentee training through its National Mentoring Resource Center. These workshops are designed to maximize the effectiveness of mentoring relationships between faculty and graduate students. NRMN partners closely with the Center for Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER). CIMER believes that effective research mentoring relationships are critical to developing the next generation of researchers. The Center provides mentor and mentee training that focuses on how to improve mentoring relationships at all career stages. The Center also promotes cultural change that values excellence in research mentoring as a critical aspect of diversifying the research workforce. 

There are many units across campus committed to providing mentoring for graduate and professional students. One best practice example is the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP), which provides specific recommendations for mentoring first-year Ph.D students in the current COVID-19 environment. 

For questions or concerns, please contact the CFE or request an individual mentoring consultation.