'Make student mentoring matter': Inside Higher Ed features Elon faculty insights 

Inside Higher Ed, a top national higher education media outlet, has featured the expertise of Elon faculty members about how to make the student mentoring experience most effective and impactful. 

In the Oct. 27 column “7 Key Ways to Make Student Mentoring Matter,” Elon professors Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler and Paul Miller join with colleagues Lauran Behling of Knox College and Brad Johnson of the U.S. Naval Academy to provide guidance on strategies surrounding student mentoring that arose from a three-year seminar supported by Elon’s Center for Engaged Learning. The seminar brought together faculty and staff from a variety of colleges and universities across three summers to explore best practices for undergraduate mentoring. 

“Mentoring relies on quality relationships that endure over time,” the authors write. “An intensive summer or multiyear mentored undergraduate experience, for example, supports students’ developing expertise in a field of study as well as their personal growth. And as a result, mentoring connotes a relationship that transcends mere assigned roles such as advising and teaching.”

The authors go on to offer guidance including defining the mentoring relationship, how to train faculty members over time, making mentoring a priority and recognizing and rewarding good mentoring. Read the entire column.

Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler is a professor of psychology and director of the Center for Research on Global Engagement. Paul Miller is assistant provost of communications and operations, a professor of exercise science and previously served as director of undergraduate research. 

Both were deeply involved in CEL’s seminar, which culminated in July 2016 with the Conference on Excellent Practices in Mentoring Undergraduate Research, as faculty from 26 institutions gathered at Elon to share the fruits of three years of research and work in the area. Read more about that conference here.