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I received amazing mentorship as a grad student and postdoc and wanted to pay it forward. I have been enriched beyond measure mentoring students of color. They made ME step up my game and be a better researcher. Their voices are desperately needed to push the science forward. https://twitter.com/mwkraus/status/1263256044127555585">https://twitter.com/mwkraus/s...
What I realized (and already knew) was that most of the work I had to do was not about teaching them to do research. Much of my mentoring work involved teaching my 1st gen and/or students of color about the unwritten rules of the academy.
This all came into focus one day when I was reading a thread started by @tony_jack about office hours. (I wasn& #39;t actually on twitter yet! 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đ" title="Face with tears of joy" aria-label="Emoji: Face with tears of joy">). It had NEVER occurred to me that my mentees wouldn& #39;t know that office hours are about connecting with faculty and forming relationships.
So one day I asked them in a lab meeting if they knew that they should be going to office hours when they didn& #39;t have questions about the material. And they didn& #39;t. That& #39;s when thehttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đĄ" title="Electric light bulb" aria-label="Emoji: Electric light bulb">went off.
There& #39;s layers to the privilege that academics have. Yes, I& #39;m a black woman scholar, but I& #39;m also third generation college educated on my mama& #39;s side. Forming relationships with professors outside of class was second nature to me. But it isn& #39;t always to our brilliant students.
That day, I was able to teach them a lesson about the hidden curriculum and teach myself a lesson about never making assumptions. My mentees and students often tell me that they& #39;ve never experienced faculty taking such an interest in their growth and development.
I miss my students at my former institution and am so geeked every time I hear about the things they gained confidence to do because of working with me. But I& #39;ll tell you this. The gift they gave me was beyond price and is still paying dividends for me today.
I know the empirical evidence that women in general (and women of color faculty in particular) tend to disproportionately take on the work of advising and mentoring. My friends and I talk about this all the time. But it& #39;s still worth doing, especially if we& #39;re smart about it.
And here, in the spirit of #citeblackwomen, I want to give a shoutout to the amazing Professor Beronda Montgomery. I was fortunate to hear her speak at one of the AEA Summer Mentoring Pipeline Conferences headed up by @drlisadcook and @Marietmora. https://bit.ly/3d23vQV ">https://bit.ly/3d23vQV&q...
