Resources and tips
Below you'll find resources and tips for building a strong mentoring relationship with your Mary Gates Scholar. If you have questions or would like to talk through mentorship with someone, the Endowment is glad to help.
Resources
A few well-made guides from across the UW, for mentors at any stage.
- The UW's Professional & Organizational Development division offers a Quick Reference for Mentors on what it means to be a mentor, what mentors do, and how to identify what you can contribute to your scholar's experience.
- The Community Engagement and Leadership Education (CELE) Center's Mentorship at the UW pages include a guide to becoming a great mentor and managing challenges.
- The Office of Undergraduate Research provides Mentoring Tools along with Undergraduate Research Mentor Workshops.
Keep communications open
Stay in regular contact, keep pointing to useful resources, and bring your scholar into your group's work.
Make sure your scholar reports to you, or to someone you designate, on a regular basis — to discuss their progress, ask questions, and review the documentation of their research or leadership project. Keep identifying resources worth consulting as they go.
If your own schedule is tight, written status updates can work well; the act of writing also helps a student fit their day-to-day work into the larger frame of the project. And when your scholar attends a group meeting, encourage them to take part or to present.
Identify benchmarks and recognize accomplishments
Name milestones, and mark progress large and small — especially when the work feels hard.
Research and project work can be frustrating or challenging at times, so recognize accomplishments large and small as the work moves along; part of mentoring is sometimes helping a student see that those feelings are a normal part of moving forward.
Some students benefit from more structure, including clear milestones and regular updates on where things stand.
Maintain a project log or notebook
Encourage good records — for your scholar's sake and for whoever picks the work up next.
Encourage your scholar to keep notes on what they do and to record results regularly, both for their own reference and, in some cases, so that another student or researcher can continue the project after they leave. Many students have never kept a research or project notebook, so an example helps — and this is the moment to discuss any proprietary considerations, particularly within an ongoing or funded project. (A common pitfall is student-generated software or protocols that no one else can run once the student is gone.) Be sure, too, that your scholar is conducting their work ethically.
Encourage students to present and fund their work
Help your scholar share what they've done — at UW events, at conferences, and in print.
- Tell your scholar about UW venues where students present their work to faculty and peers, including the Undergraduate Research Symposium and the Spring CELEbration.
- Students with noteworthy accomplishments may benefit from presenting at professional meetings or conferences.
- The Office of Undergraduate Research offers an Undergraduate Research Travel Award to fund students accepted to present. Mary Gates Endowment funds Travel Awards to support both Research and Leadership Scholars presenting their projects.
- Point your scholar toward journals that publish undergraduate work, and help them keep an eye on current sources of funding.
Questions are always welcome at mgates@uw.edu.