Doctoral E-Mentoring and Mentee Milestones From a Mentor’s Perspective

• In Event: Rethinking Mentoring

Abstract

Academic mentoring has taken its rightful place alongside teaching for supporting student success. However, mentorship in higher education is complex, contextual, and laborious, as well as under-researched and unevenly recognized. Mentoring by design—focused on partnerships of learning that can empower and transform participants—embeds perspectives, theories, and evidence-supported practices/strategies. In this qualitative conceptual analysis of doctoral e-mentoring, mentoring relationships are organized around Kram’s phases and guided by a pandemic intervention. Reflection on theory-informed practice sparks insights for effectively mentoring doctoral candidates and improving distance learning environments. A mentor describes doctoral e-mentoring relative to theories, models, strategies, application, outcomes, and assessment. Research on graduate mentoring is incorporated. Mentee milestones (program and beyond) from 4 years of doctoral e-mentoring are revealed.

Author

• Carol A. Mullen, Virginia Tech