Astronomy
I first encountered this term "Horizontal Mentoring" in the article "Horizontal Mentoring Alliances: Resonant Phenomena" that appeared last fall in the Gazette, published by the American Physical Society's CSWP. But the concept is not strange to me. In fact, I wrote about it a couple of years ago, when I referred to it as "Peer Mentoring."
In fact, I have been a part of a peer mentoring group myself for almost two years now. The four of us come from various fields of science and all of us have children, and when we started meeting, we were all postdocs. Although the Gazette article cited above talks about peer mentoring at the senior faculty level, I would argue that horizontal mentoring is valuable at any level. Since the time we started meeting, two of us have given birth with a third on the way, and 3 of the 4 of us have landed permanent positions. Simply based on those statistics, I'd say our group has been a huge success!
So how do you go about setting up a peer mentoring group? We loosely based ours on Every Other Thursday by Ellen Daniell, with a number of modifications that we either agreed to in advance or evolved naturally as we went along. From there, it's a matter of recruiting people who are willing to commit to regular meetings, maintain confidentiality, and contribute to group problem solving.
I was re-reading my earlier blog post and was particularly struck by my prescience:
My peer mentoring group recently threw a Women in Science Party, getting together as many women scientists we could think of in the area so we could network with each other and talk about forming more peer mentoring groups, because this is really too good an idea to keep to ourselves. I hope to replicate the event at my new digs this fall and see if I can continue to spread the idea. After all, women scientists need mentoring even in big rectangular states.
- Self-mentoring
A wonderful series of posts on self-mentoring recently appeared at the AWIS group on LinkedIn, pointing to sciencementor's blog. The author is a scientist who balances biofuels research at a national lab with project management. She has made a virtue...
- Nsf Advance
The NSF ADVANCE program funds a wide variety of initiatives at institutions to increase the representation of women in STEM. I have heard of and even participated in a number of ADVANCE programs: FORWARD to Professorship career development workshops at...
- Request For Guiding Questions/comments -- 'transforming Cultural Norms' Panel Discussion At Boston Aas
The AAS Committee on the Status of Women and the AAS Committee on the Status of Minorities are co-hosting a Special Session on Tuesday, May 24th from 2-3:30 pm at the Boston AAS meeting. This panel discussion builds on previous AAS sessions on mentoring,...
- Aaswomen For March 18, 2011
AAS Committee on the Status of Women Issue of March 18, 2011 eds. Joan Schmelz, Caroline Simpson, and Michele Montgomery This week's issues: 1. Senior Women: A Comparison of Astronomy Departments 2. Grad School Rankings: How Important...
- Wia 2009: Wednesday Part 3
The best part of any conference are the interactions you have outside the talks, and this one is no exceptions. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't hear all of every single talk. Nick White's opening remarks after the lunch breaks talked...
Astronomy
Peer Mentoring
I first encountered this term "Horizontal Mentoring" in the article "Horizontal Mentoring Alliances: Resonant Phenomena" that appeared last fall in the Gazette, published by the American Physical Society's CSWP. But the concept is not strange to me. In fact, I wrote about it a couple of years ago, when I referred to it as "Peer Mentoring."
In fact, I have been a part of a peer mentoring group myself for almost two years now. The four of us come from various fields of science and all of us have children, and when we started meeting, we were all postdocs. Although the Gazette article cited above talks about peer mentoring at the senior faculty level, I would argue that horizontal mentoring is valuable at any level. Since the time we started meeting, two of us have given birth with a third on the way, and 3 of the 4 of us have landed permanent positions. Simply based on those statistics, I'd say our group has been a huge success!
So how do you go about setting up a peer mentoring group? We loosely based ours on Every Other Thursday by Ellen Daniell, with a number of modifications that we either agreed to in advance or evolved naturally as we went along. From there, it's a matter of recruiting people who are willing to commit to regular meetings, maintain confidentiality, and contribute to group problem solving.
I was re-reading my earlier blog post and was particularly struck by my prescience:
While I think the idea of support groups for women in science is great, it only works if you live in a region with high PhD density. Daniell worked at Berkeley, where there are more universities per square foot than perhaps anywhere else in the country. What if you live in a big rectangular state and work in a department with only one woman?Good question! Because that's exactly where I'll be this fall! However, I have to revise my earlier pessimism about maintaining a useful peer mentoring group at a distance, because of the success of the group highlighted in the Gazette article. I've also already made some connections with some terrific women in other science departments at my institution-to-be, so maybe we could even set up our own network.
My peer mentoring group recently threw a Women in Science Party, getting together as many women scientists we could think of in the area so we could network with each other and talk about forming more peer mentoring groups, because this is really too good an idea to keep to ourselves. I hope to replicate the event at my new digs this fall and see if I can continue to spread the idea. After all, women scientists need mentoring even in big rectangular states.
- Self-mentoring
A wonderful series of posts on self-mentoring recently appeared at the AWIS group on LinkedIn, pointing to sciencementor's blog. The author is a scientist who balances biofuels research at a national lab with project management. She has made a virtue...
- Nsf Advance
The NSF ADVANCE program funds a wide variety of initiatives at institutions to increase the representation of women in STEM. I have heard of and even participated in a number of ADVANCE programs: FORWARD to Professorship career development workshops at...
- Request For Guiding Questions/comments -- 'transforming Cultural Norms' Panel Discussion At Boston Aas
The AAS Committee on the Status of Women and the AAS Committee on the Status of Minorities are co-hosting a Special Session on Tuesday, May 24th from 2-3:30 pm at the Boston AAS meeting. This panel discussion builds on previous AAS sessions on mentoring,...
- Aaswomen For March 18, 2011
AAS Committee on the Status of Women Issue of March 18, 2011 eds. Joan Schmelz, Caroline Simpson, and Michele Montgomery This week's issues: 1. Senior Women: A Comparison of Astronomy Departments 2. Grad School Rankings: How Important...
- Wia 2009: Wednesday Part 3
The best part of any conference are the interactions you have outside the talks, and this one is no exceptions. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't hear all of every single talk. Nick White's opening remarks after the lunch breaks talked...