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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
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't actually on twitter yet! 
). It had NEVER occurred to me that my mentees wouldn't know that office hours are about connecting with faculty and forming relationships.
). It had NEVER occurred to me that my mentees wouldn'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't have questions about the material. And they didn't. That's when the
went off.
went off.
There's layers to the privilege that academics have. Yes, I'm a black woman scholar, but I'm also third generation college educated on my mama's side. Forming relationships with professors outside of class was second nature to me. But it isn'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'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'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's still worth doing, especially if we'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
Dr. Montgomery has an sizeable body of work on mentoring, but that day at the conference, she pounded a nail in the coffin of the idea that we should be adjudicating which students 'have what it takes for grad school' based on what we see (back to @mwkraus' whole point.)
