Graduate Career Services
Women Mentoring Women
Women Mentoring Women (WMW) promotes and facilitates the development of mentoring relationships among graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and staff who are women. According to a report on academic mentoring by the Association of American Colleges, the primary obstacle facing women in academics has shifted from access to academe to advancement within academe. Women students and faculty are less likely to advance as fast and as far as their male peers. Moreover, women students often suffer from a decline in their academic and career ambitions and may also be less confident about their chances for success.
Mentoring helps create better and more cooperative learning environments on campus. For women faculty, mentoring can help cultivate closer working relationships with graduate students, some of whom will become colleagues in the future, thus promoting greater representation and retention of women in academe. WMW has compiled profiles of women in a variety of roles on campus to help initiate this process.
Anyone interested in learning about the ongoing programs and services developed through this initiative are encouraged to register to receive announcements via e-mail or contact WMW Fellow Mary Ellen Leuver, a third-year doctoral candidate in the History of Medicine & Science and Public Health. Women graduate students are invited to take their women mentors to lunch in the HGS Dining Hall or for coffee at the Blue Dog Café by obtaining passes from HGS 123 (with a limit of two per term for each venue). The McDougal Center Resource Library maintains a variety of books (under the search keyword “mentor”) on mentoring and women in academia.
How to Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty in a Diverse University. A guidebook for faculty mentors, including information on the definition and benefits of mentoring, how to get started and the basics of being a good mentor. This guide also offers suggestions specific to mentoring women and minority graduate students. Produced by the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan.
Mentor and Graduate Student: Strategies for Success. A guide for faculty mentors and student mentees, with easy bullet point “responsibilities” for each. Produced by the University of Louisville.
Gender Informed Mentoring Strategies for Women Engineering Scholars: On Establishing a Caring Community. An examination of the role mentoring can play in increasing presence, retention, and advancement of women scholars in engineering (applicable to other science fields as well). Explores the importance of women as mentors, and alternative modes of mentoring (peer, multiple, and collective mentorships) that are more likely to prove successful for women mentees. Written by Naomi C. Chesler, University of Vermont, and Mark A. Chesler, University of Michigan.
The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal. A free electronic publication about academic advising in higher education. The goal of this journal is to provide a mechanism for the rapid dissemination of new ideas about advising and for ongoing discourse about advising issues.
Go Find Yourself a Mentor! A comprehensive website for mentees, including information on what a mentor is, how to find one, why you should have a mentor, examples of mentor/mentee relationships, the expectations of each, and guidelines for how to connect. Produced by the California Institute of Technology.
How to Get the Mentoring You Want: A Guide for Graduate Students at a Diverse University. A guide for graduates student mentees, including information on the definition and importance of mentoring, considerations to be made in choosing mentors, how to find a mentor and be a good mentee, and tips for addressing problems with a mentoring relationship. This guide also offers suggestions specific to mentoring women and minority graduate students. Produced by the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, University of Michigan.
Mentor and Graduate Student: Strategies for Success. A guide for faculty mentors and student protégées, with simple tips for both, from the University of Louisville.
Project on the Status of Women in Higher Education. This report offers valuable insights into the Produced by the Association of American Colleges, 1983.
The National Initiative for Women in Higher Education. The NIWHE is a unique alliance promoting a multicultural women-led agenda for the sustained transformation of higher education for the twenty-first century.
Diversity Web: An Interactive Resource Hub for Higher Education. Welcome to DiversityWeb, the most comprehensive compendium of campus practices and resources about diversity in higher education that you can find anywhere. This site is designed to serve campus practitioners seeking to place diversity at the center of the academy's educational and societal mission.
Sister Mentors. Dissertation support groups for women of color. A community of highly motivated women of color of different races, ethnicities and backgrounds who come together to help each other complete the dissertation and get the doctorate. Most participants are the first generation in their families to earn an advanced degree or a doctorate.
The Compleat Academic: A Career Guide. Darley, John M., Mark P. Zanna, and Henry L. Roediger, III, eds. American Psychological Association Press, 2003. 2nd ed. Find this book at Amazon.com.
Ms. Mentor’s Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia. Toth, Emily. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Find this book at Amazon.com.
Shattering the Myths: Women in Academe. Glazer-Raymo, Judith. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Find this book at Amazon.com.
Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women. Valian, Virginia. Boston: MIT Press, 1999. Find this book at Amazon.com.
The Womentor Guide: Leadership for a New Millennium. Washington, Paula and Diane Scott. Traverse City, MI: Sage Creek Press, 1999. Find this book at Amazon.com.
