In recent decades, women's overall participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields has steadily increased, and women play an ever-increasing role in advancing their respective fields. However, women are still underrepresented at advanced academic career stages within many STEM fields and face unique challenges as they pursue their career goals.
Mission
The Mentoring and WiSTAR3 committees of Pipeline are initiating two programs that aim to promote mentoring relationships between graduate students and post-docs or faculty members in STEM here at UTK, with the purpose of helping them to choose, persist, and succeed in STEM programs and careers. Through group or one-on-one mentoring, mentors and mentees can choose a program designed to meet their needs and schedules. Mentors provide practical advice and insights from their personal experiences while also providing encouragement, career guidance, and support.
This program structure is based on the successful approach of a similar mentoring program at Yale University (Women in Science at Yale) and a successful pilot program within the departments of EEB and Math at UTK.
This program structure is based on the successful approach of a similar mentoring program at Yale University (Women in Science at Yale) and a successful pilot program within the departments of EEB and Math at UTK.
Benefits
- Guidance and support from an experienced member of the academic community
- Expand professional networks and develop a sense of community with fellow women in STEM at UTK
- Build transferable skills including leadership, working with teams, communication, and more
- Freedom to discuss possible topics including, but not limited to:
- work-life balance
- overcoming implicit bias
- dealing with discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace
- general career advice
Structure and Time Commitment
Participants can choose from one or both of the following programs (sign-up forms below):
1) Group of graduate student mentees matched with a post-doc or faculty mentor. Example: group of 4-8 mentees will meet with 1-2 mentors
2) Graduate student matched one-on-one with a post-doc or faculty mentor
1) Group of graduate student mentees matched with a post-doc or faculty mentor. Example: group of 4-8 mentees will meet with 1-2 mentors
2) Graduate student matched one-on-one with a post-doc or faculty mentor
- Each mentor should be able to commit to participating throughout the rest of the 2018-2019 academic year.
- While it will be up to each group or one-on-one match to make decisions about the frequency of their meetings, we encourage each group/pair to meet at least once per month throughout the academic year.
- Groups are encouraged to meet in informal settings (i.e. courtyards, coffee houses), and can choose whether to structure their meetings around a set of topics or to simply pursue informal discussion of issues that face women in STEM.
Mentor and Mentee Sign-ups (Google Forms)
Graduate Student-Postdoc/Faculty Group Mentoring
Graduate Student-Postdoc/Faculty One-On-One Mentoring
If you have questions comments, please contact the mentoring program officers through email.