The Voices of Mentees: Holistic Critical Mentoring of McNair Scholars

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Lifting While We Climb: Graduate Student Experiences With Mentors and Counter-Spaces (Table 12)

Abstract

Mentoring is often seen as one-way relationship where the mentees learn from their mentors. However, when supporting First Generation minoritized undergraduate scholars, it is imperative that their voices are centered. This project honors the voices of the mentees by interviewing McNair Scholars exploring their understanding of and desires for mentoring, while validates the need for holistic critical mentoring, a network of power-dynamic-flipped, mentee-centered, reciprocal relationships expanded to include all mentorships. Using a qualitative descriptive methodological approach, graduating McNair Scholars described effective mentoring as encouraging and supportive reciprocal trusting relationships between mentor and mentee with shared experiences.

Author

• Michael Hunt, University of Maryland - Baltimore County