NINDS's Building Up the Nerve

S3E7: Structural interventions around mentoring

• NINDS • Season 3 • Episode 7

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The third Season of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Building Up the Nerve podcast helps you strengthen your mentoring relationships with tools and advice from both trainees and faculty. We know that navigating your career can be daunting, but we're here to help—it's our job!

In the last episode of the season, we focus on structural interventions around mentoring. Mentorship doesn’t happen in a vacuum—what can program directors, department chairs, and other institutional leaders do to create an environment in which supportive mentorship thrives?

Featuring Sherilynn Black PhD - Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, Duke University; Beronda Montgomery, PhD –Professor of Biology & Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College, Grinnell College; and Thomas Schwarz, PhD - Professor, Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Resources

 Transcript available at http://ninds.buzzsprout.com/. 

Lauren Ullrich:

[intro music] Welcome to Season Three of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke's Building Up the Nerve, where we help you strengthen your mentoring relationships with tools and advice from both trainees and faculty. We know that navigating your career can be daunting, but we're here to help. It's our job.[music fades] I'm Lauren Ullrich, a program director at NINDS.

Marguerite Matthews:

And I'm Marguerite Matthews, a program director at NINDS, and we are your hosts today.

Lauren Ullrich:

This episode will focus on structural interventions around mentoring. We know that mentorship doesn't happen in a vacuum. So what can program directors, department chairs and other institutional leaders do to create an environment in which supportive mentorship thrives?[musical interlude]

Marguerite Matthews:

Our guests today are Dr. Sherilynn Black, Dr. Beronda Montgomery, and Dr. Thomas Schwarz. Let's get started with introductions.

Sherilynn Black:

Yes, hello everyone. My name is Sherilynn Black and I'm faculty in the School of Medicine at Duke University. Uh, I am a social neuroscientist and I study how race and forms of difference influence organizational structures, which I'm sure I'll talk more about as the podcast progresses. I am also currently serving as the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement. So in that role, I do a lot of work at the institutional level around faculty development support. So mentoring is a huge part of that. Um, I also do a lot of work at the national level in the mentorship space. I currently facilitate a lot of mentoring engagement for the Gilliam Fellows Program through Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and also for the PDEP and GDEP awardees for Burroughs Welcome Fund. And I've also done a lot of work with the National Academies and other national entities around thinking about the interventions that lead to successful mentorship with a specific emphasis on cultural awareness and mentorship. I would say when I think about my mentoring style or philosophy, um, I really put an emphasis on authenticity. I think that that's what allows everyone to thrive and to be the best version of themselves. I also believe very deeply in leading with my values, and I really try to support my mentees to really have a clear understanding of who they are and what they stand for, and that always amplifies the impact of their science. And then third, I would say, I like to look at systemic issues and changes moreso then a deficit based approach about what my mentee needs themselves to address. So I really try to keep my mentorship in those areas and I'll stop there and, um, looking forward to the conversation.

Beronda Montgomery:

Hi, I'm Beronda Montgomery, a Professor of Biology and the Vice President of Academic Affairs at Grinnell College, as well as Dean of the Faculty. My scholarly work is about understanding how individuals have a sense of who they are, where they are, what kinds of communities, they're a part of, um, what's going on around them and how they should translate that knowledge about what's going around them into behaviors of success um, and limiting damage. And I study all of that in the context of how plants understand themselves, how humans understand themselves in relationships and also how mentors and leaders understand the work that they should be doing. Um, in terms of my mentoring style, I would describe it as strengths-based. I would describe it as active listening based and also understanding community.

Thomas Schwarz:

Hi, I'm Thomas Schwarz and thank you for letting me be a part of this conversation. I'm a professor in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children's Hospital and in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. And I'm the director of a T32 postdoc training grant. So my lab focuses on the cell biology of neurons, and we combine very basic research into synaptogenesis, axonal transport, and mitochondria with some more translational projects on the cell biological basis of neurodegenerative diseases. I would say my mentoring style starts from, you know, with stay calm and also realizing what an honor, it is to have people trust you with the responsibility for training them. And my philosophy is to try and find the right balance between their autonomy and independence with having a sense of being supported, uh, throughout their training by me and by their colleagues in the lab.

Lauren Ullrich:

Yeah. Trust has been, uh, a huge theme of the season so far, so that's great.[musical interlude] Our first question is more of a general one. Um, what does an environment that promotes successful mentorship look like and how does leadership contribute to this environment?

Beronda Montgomery:

When I think about, um, environments that promote successful mentorship, for me, there are a number of features. One of them is a recognition of individuals and their whole selves. Um, not just the science we're trying to train them, but how they show up prepared to do that science. I think that successful environments are focused on two questions: what we're going to do, what we're going to accomplish in terms of the science, but also how we're going to get there. And for me, the mentoring is really about how we're going to support individuals in advancing their science. And I also think that a successful mentorship environments have both structures of resources to support that, but also very firm systems of accountability. And when I think about the accountability, that's where leaders really have the possibility to establish that we are a certain type of mentoring environment, not just as individual good mentors, which we need, but as a community and setting up systems of reward, as well as accountability.

Thomas Schwarz:

I know that when I first started as a faculty member and took on the responsibility of running a lab, not only did I know very little about how to run a lab, other than watching all the mistakes that my mentors had made, but we never talked about mentoring. It wasn't a conversation at all. Now this is going back 32 years. Um, but I think the institution needs to signal from the start, from the moment that they hire somebody, that mentoring matters and they should make it clear that it matters for promotion and it's going to matter to the individual's own career. Because if you get a reputation for being a good mentor, really wonderful trainees will, will flock to your door. And if you get a reputation for being a bad mentor, you know, there's some who I compare to the kind of mouse strains that eat older pups. You know, if you're one of those, the smart postdocs are going to run in the other direction. So it's a matter of self-interest as well as a matter of just doing the right thing.

Sherilynn Black:

Yeah, I would also build on that, Tom, and say, you know, to me, one of the most successful hallmarks of a strong mentorship environment is one where the mentor has a strong sense of self-awareness. I think that it is really critical. Um, so much of the mentor mentee relationship when it's discussed is talking about, you know, what is the student doing? What's the trainee doing? What's the mentee doing and how do we help the trainee? But the reality is, if we, as faculty, don't understand who we are and the kinds of things that are important to us as scientists, it's really hard to impart that information onto our mentees. And I would give the example of, you know, a lot of people now are using what sort of is colloquially referred to as a mentoring compact, uh, or sort of these mentorship agreements, I think is a new language that's being used. And it's really fascinating because if you sit down with a faculty member and they say, oh, you know, my, my student is not able to succeed in this area. And it's like, okay great. So tell me, you know, how do you think that they should be approaching this experience, or this opportunity, or this scientific knowledge? And the blank stares that you get back because it's sort of something that's intrinsically bound in their head where they say, well, you know, you just sort of figure these things out, but a good mentor helps to make things that are sort of the implicit explicit. And you want to see people that have a strong sense of self-awareness who are clear communicators and transparent with their norms and goals so that students can be successful.

Thomas Schwarz:

I'll sign on to that. I, I want to say one of the things that I've found very worthwhile was a training program run by CIMER. I don't know if people have mentioned that previously on these podcasts, but this is the Center for the Improvement of the Mentored Experience in Research. And one of the exercises that they did is have us evaluate our own mentoring style. I would not have been able to answer the question, "what is your mentoring style?" before that. Certainly when I started my lab, I would've said well-intentioned but clueless, and it made you realize that there is no single successful mentoring style, but you need to understand what yours is because that comes with it's own set of strengths and also weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And once you're aware of those, you can say, aha, I know my mentoring style leads to being indecisive. So I think I have to watch out, [laughs], um, and I found that very valuable. And so that's definitely something I think the institutions should strongly encourage.

Sherilynn Black:

Yeah, I will definitely give a shout out to CIMER, uh, the collaboration work that I do for Howard Hughes is in collaboration with CIMER, led by Chris Pfund, Angela Byars-Winston, Leah Nell Adams, the whole gang. Um, and I just want to say that if you're interested in their work, um, you should definitely go to their website because in addition to the kinds of trainings that Tom is speaking of, there's a host of resources. There's literally like library of, uh, materials to help you. If you're looking for, you know, hard references and, um, exercises that you can do to improve your mentorship practices.

Marguerite Matthews:

So to your point, Tom, about having organizations help mentors be better mentors, are there other ways that programs or institutions can support mentors be better mentors and set them up for having successful mentoring relationships?

Thomas Schwarz:

Well, I think it's important that the faculty not be alone in that and have their own mentors. I think even senior faculty need to have somebody to turn to when they say, "I don't know how to deal with this situation," but I think junior faculty especially want to have somebody who is a successful mentor, who they can go to for advice. And I think having everyone from the start paired up with somebody who knows it's their responsibility to, to be a mentor to this person. And yes, sometimes that's going to involve things like, what should be my specific aims? But sometimes that's also going to be, you know, how do I decide whether to take this person into my lab? How do I work most effectively with them once they're here? And help them find out what their proper mentoring style might be.

Beronda Montgomery:

In addition to those kinds of day-to-day ways, which I think are absolutely critical to, to support each other through collegiality and kinds of the structures of local departments. I've also argued that we have to do larger structural things, which really mirror what we know works on campuses. So we all have offices of research and innovation, which have grant writers and grant editors and other structural supports to help faculty be successful at getting grants because it's an institutional commitment that faculty should be successful at getting grants. And so there are resources invested and executive level positions with responsibility for that. I would argue that, you know, centers for teaching excellence are similar in the commitment to pedagogy. And so I think one of the bigger structural things that we have to do in addition to the kind of day-to-day on the ground things, are to ask where on our campuses there are executive level positions and real resources invested in local mentoring supports so that there's expertise and systems to really ensure that it's not just good departments with good mentors, but commitment to that across campus.

Thomas Schwarz:

I'll agree with that, Beronda, I think that is spot on and that I think things like having a postdoc association so that the postdocs also can express what their needs are and having an office of fellowship development that can provide workshops and training. You know, they may be much better at doing things like bringing in speakers from non-academic careers or, um, having people talk about what their experiences were like on the job search. Much better at that sort of mentoring than the individual faculty in the department will be. I think it's crucial to have all sorts of courses like that, that can be offered for the fellows, that institutionalizes some of the responsibility. Is that the sort of thing that you were thinking of?

Beronda Montgomery:

Absolutely, yes.

Sherilynn Black:

Yeah. And you know, the other thing that I would add to that, because I, I very much agree with what you're saying, Beronda. Where the resources are is where the institution cares. So we know that to be true. I would also say at the institutional level, you know, we, as leaders, have a responsibility to norm set around the fact that mentorship is a good thing and asking for help is a good thing. And having supportive resources and mechanisms to support you along the way is a good thing. I think that, um, you know, especially in some of the STEM fields, we have developed a culture where sort of asking for help is maybe viewed as a sign of weakness or something that indicates that you are not as strong of a scientist or not an independent thinker, but actually the scientists that I know who are the most successful are the ones who are heavily mentored at every stage of their careers. And I think that, you know, for us as faculty, it's really important that we norm level set that for our students and help them to understand utilizing these resources on campus, finding multiple mentors, not just looking only to their advisors, but looking for people who can support them in a number of different ways, and really having a culture at the institution where there is an expectation that you are mentors and also that you mentor others. I think that really sort of strengthens the muscle around mentorship at institutions in ways that really helps it to become a much more, um, sort of pervasive existence. And I think it really helps everyone to thrive.

Lauren Ullrich:

So along those lines, there are some common mentoring issues or needs that certain groups of trainees encounter. So if you think about, um, postdocs, often we hear about issues of isolation, um, cause they're no longer coming in as part of a cohort. Or graduate students might talk about a lack of clarity around a mentor's expectations, or things like this. So are there specific ways to design programs to anticipate these kinds of needs and try to prevent them from happening in the first place?

Beronda Montgomery:

I was about to say, I think about some of the things that we've done to try to really counteract isolation for post-docs. Um, and one of those is to have us not just mentor our post-docs around many issues, but to have kind of departmental wide mentoring. So I do some mentoring of postdocs on science communication and science writing, where I take a group of eight to ten postdocs from different labs and work together with them. So it allows them to build up some kind of peer-peer interactions, while I'm really mentoring around my strengths. And then I have other colleagues who are really good at working with postdocs on specific aims and summary pages. And so we've kind of broken it out in some of our areas of expertise to help the mentors, you know, kind of thrive and be motivated, but also to build in these built-in cohorts that otherwise sometimes postdocs have to have the self agency to build. And we've asked, how can we really support it on our side, so it's not just the ones that have the wherewithal to do that, but everyone gets access to some of those kinds of structures of support.

Thomas Schwarz:

I think for graduate students, I hope every institution has, you know, dissertation advisory committees. And that's great because it means there's at least going to be more than a one-on-one relationship, uh, with the students. But those committees have to be taken very seriously. They have to meet at least once every nine months, they have to meet more often if there's a perceived problem. And the way we've been doing it in the, uh, the program in neuroscience at Harvard is that at the start of the meeting, the student leaves the room and the mentor gives their perspective, and then the mentor leaves the room and the student can raise any issues that they don't want to discuss in front of the advisor. And we can ask bluntly, are you getting enough time with your advisor? Are you getting enough attention? Do you feel like you understand what your advisor expects of you? And we can see whether the two are misaligned. And then we'll come together and then we'll talk about that Western blot, or that, you know, mouse behavior or whatever it might be. Um, but then at the end we also can say, and if you have any issues, you know, we're here for you. You can come back to us if there are problems, either scientific or non-scientific. And I think it's great that we can have that safety net for graduate students. We'd love to do that for post-docs, but at most institutions, I think, the number of post-docs is so large, and the number of faculty is so small and so stressed out that no one has the bandwidth for that. Um, and I think that's where things like the, the group mentoring that you were talking about Beronda, and a postdoc association, those are all so good for letting the postdocs feel like they're not alone in their foxhole, but that they're really part of a, a community also. And when they can, they should seek out other faculty. It's not going to be as intensive as the attention that a grad student gets, but, uh, but it needs to be an opportunity when they need it.

Marguerite Matthews:

For the graduate student situation, are there systems in place to deal with an issue when there is misalignment or there is a problem where the graduate student either needs, um, to be say, removed from the situation, or certainly needs to have like serious mediation happening?

Thomas Schwarz:

So yes, so the graduate programs are watching the situations closely and if there is a problem of any sort, you know, in the progress of the student or the relationships in the lab or the relationship with a mentor. You know, difficult situations like the mentor leaves for another institution or the, or the mentor dies. Then the program has to step in and with the student's best interests at heart, not the mentors best interests, but the students, you know, figure out what's the solution to that problem. And sometimes it means switching labs. Sometimes it means staying on your project, but working in a different room, sometimes it means having some other sort of an intervention. But, the program has responsibility for that. The advisory committee has to make sure the people running the program know exactly what the problems are when problems like that arise.

Sherilynn Black:

And Tom, that's actually something I was going to draw back on your earlier comment, um, but you're, you're touching on a point I think is really critical and should be underscored, which is that oftentimes people don't realize or think about the fact that mentorship practices are deeply tied to the culture and the climate in a department, right? Like right now, so many institutions are sort of having these really deep looks at, you know, what's the climate like on campus? What's the culture? Do people feel valued? Um, is it an equitable space? And you know, for example, we're talking about postdocs feeling isolated, and I think the question was, are there things that could be done, you know, preemptively or proactively? Absolutely. If you already know that the numbers are disproportionate, especially if you're thinking about things like, you know, postdocs from underrepresented groups, whether it's gender, whether it's race or ethnicity, I think that it sort of behooves institutions to be proactive about this and think, you know, in a very real way. If we are bringing in scientists X to train in our space, it's our responsibility to make sure they're coming into an environment where they can thrive and be successful. So if we know that isolation is an issue, that should be something that the programs are thinking about before they agree to bring postdocs in. I feel that way also about the graduate student question. Um, I think that we really need to sort of get out of the headspace that it's up to mentees and trainees to ameliorate their own situations and really think more about the system that they're coming into. Is this system equitable? Are there appropriate mentorship practices that everyone has access to and is able to thrive? And if not, it's a really good opportunity for the faculty and leaders of the program to think about ways that they can improve the local environment for all of the trainees.

Beronda Montgomery:

I think related to what you're saying too, Sherilynn, I think about the fact that in a lot of our spaces, there is something that I talk about is restorative mentoring that has to happen, where we have students and postdocs, they're mal-mentored. They're not mentored well. And sometimes there are these structures in place that Tom has talked about, but sometimes these students are seeking out other people who they know to be good mentors to help them get back on track. And they often do this from the, the sense of, can I have a confidential conversation with you? And so we have mentors doing this restorative mentoring to get students and postdocs back on track. They then go back to the lab of someone, complete their degree or get a job placement, and the person who you had to intervene for is the one who gets the credit for that. And I think we have to start to ask how do we really look at the systems? Because if we look at it now, there are often women and faculty of color who are taking on this load of restorative mentoring, which may be distracting them from progressing. So I think, you know, when you talk about looking at the system and asking about culture and climate, there are a lot of those things that are going on. And there will always be a need for some restorative mentoring. But then again, that's a role for leaders to step in and say, how are we protecting people who we know may be doing that. Our mentoring awards now you have to put a list of students and postdocs that you've mentored. Well, I've done restorative mentoring for 50 that I can never list their name because I promised them that I wouldn't. And so sometimes the people who are doing the most work aren't even eligible for our mentoring award. So how can leaders set up structures to reward all kinds of mentoring that happens in these spaces.. And I think that goes to that very important point you were making, Sherilynn, that we have to look at the structures and understand there's some things we can't mentor our way out of. As important as mentoring is, we can't mentor our way out of sexism or racism. And so we have to understand where mentoring is situated and where there's a role for leaders to step in and really deal with some of these other issues.

Sherilynn Black:

And honestly, you know, I really do frame this as an equity issue. If you think about the attrition that we've had from the scientific workforce broadly, I'm talking from undergraduate, even younger maybe, all the way up. We say we want a diverse workforce. We say we want people with different perspectives and norms that will expand our thinking and creativity and innovation. Those may be some of the people who are not properly mentored, right? And so without having that structural support, we're seeing all of this attrition of these groups out of STEM. So to me, it really makes it, like, an ethical imperative that program's really think about mentorship as a part of the equity conversation. And I think a lot of times, you know, it's really attractive for people to take the equity conversation down to things like demographics and raw numbers. But if you're not thinking about the environment, the mentorship, the ability of the trainees to thrive to be able to be successful, then all of the numbers increase is for nothing. If at the end of the day, these people are not matriculating all the way through to success in the scientific workforce. So I really hope that we can do, sort of, more of looking at these as intersectional, as opposed to looking at them as two separate issues.

Marguerite Matthews:

So thinking about that, addressing mentorship and being proactive, are there ways to incentivize good mentorship instead of always like maneuvering around bad mentorship or having to have systems in place that you know, are dealing with the aftermath of poor mentorship or a lack of mentorship. Are there things that you're implementing at your universities or that you think should be implemented, um, that can help really with being proactive and incentivizing those who maybe they want to be great mentors, they just don't know how, or they haven't yet been given the tools to advance in flexing that mentoring muscle.

Thomas Schwarz:

I would say that that making those training courses available and not just available, but you know, pressing people to take them and having the conversations from the Chair, from the Dean, early on that says, this is going to matter to you, and it's going to matter to the people who you have a responsibility for, is really important. It signals from the start that this is something that, that matters. I know when I started not here, but at another institution, there was a meeting with the Dean for all the new junior faculty and the take home message from that was when it comes time for promotion, don't think that by being the best teacher there has ever been here, you will get promoted. If your research isn't world-class, you're not going to get promoted, but we do want you also to do well at teaching. The word mentoring, you know, responsibility for graduate students, all of that, never ever came up. So I think if those conversations from the very start you've said, this matters, you know, it is a part of your job responsibility. And it's more than that, it's like a sacred trust that you have to these people whose careers are in your hands.

Sherilynn Black:

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Um, I'm a social neuroscientist, I guess I didn't say that during my intro. So I'm very interested in human behavior and what motivates people. So when you talk about incentives, I always think about, you know, what matters to the people that you're wanting to be effective mentors. That's where you end up doing the incentivizing. Um, you know, at the end of the day as faculty, we all want our science to be excellent. We all want to be able to be successful, to expand our research programs and, you know, tackle interesting questions and, you know, sort of train the next generation. And so to me, Um, I think it's really important to tie mentorship to the mentors professional success. I think what happens a lot of times is, you know, it's viewed as, well, that's a student and if the student cannot adapt to environment X, then that's on the student. It's not on the mentor. But really helping people to see, you know, you two are a pair, you're coming into this as a pair of scientists who are working collaboratively to solve a problem. And if it's viewed as a communal shared responsibility, I think a lot of times there's a lot more emphasis and determination from the faculty to engage. And I also agree with you, Tom, I think, you know, if you want to ask people to do something, you have to give them the resources to be good at it. And I think what happens a lot of times is, you know, grant announcements will come out or, um, there'll be other things where, you know, it's asking faculty to like work on your mentorship, but then they say how. And so if you're not providing the, the courses or the trainings to do it, and you're not providing capacity building exercises, I think it can be very overwhelming. And so then they will, in term, you know, turn back to the practices that they experienced themselves, which may or may not have been the healthiest practices. Um, and then the last thing that I'll say is. You know, I know at Duke, we've just done a pretty comprehensive look at our tenure standards across the board. And the reality is, you know, for faculty getting tenure, getting advancement or promotion, regardless of what kind of faculty title or rank you hold, um, is very important. And so if mentorship is a part of that equation and you know that it is part of what determines if you are viewed as successful in your field. I do think that it's something that people will take more seriously. I also know that some of the changes that NIH has made, where there are mentorship courses and trainings that are required to get, you know, be eligible for certain funding opportunities. That makes a big difference. So really tying the incentives to the things that scientists care about really seems to matter in terms of motivating people properly.

Beronda Montgomery:

I just want to make a quick point about incentives. I think that we also have to be clear that the incentives have to be commiserate with the behaviors that we want to see. And I think just from a very brief study I did a few years ago, on many campuses the mentoring awards are not as prestigious or have the same kind of dollar value to them that a research grant would. And for me, myself and my career, I years ago was called and said that I had been nominated for a mentoring award by my college. And the reward was that communications and branding was going to come out and take pictures of me that would be posted across campus. And so I had to ask a primarily white institution, "well, who gets the most out of a black woman's picture of being posted across campus?" They are getting more than I'm getting for the supposed recognition of my mentoring. And if we really want mentoring to count, we have to have mentoring awards that are named after someone who has prestige in the field and it goes on your CV and will matter when people are reviewing your CV for promotion, letters, and merit raises. So I said to them, we need the equivalent of the Sherilynn Black Award for Mentoring! I don't want to be on the lamppost. I want a named award on my CV. And so I think we really have to ask ourselves, even when we put incentives in place, are they true incentives that are going to encourage people to take this as seriously as you would getting an early career research award? And we know how to do that, if we so choose.

Sherilynn Black:

Beronda, I happily award you the first ever [laughter] Sherilynn Black Mentorship Award.

Marguerite Matthews:

Yes! You heard it hear first!

Sherilynn Black:

You heard it here first! It's a hot take, it's a hot take [laughter].

Thomas Schwarz:

So we have, we have a mentoring award like that. It is named, and it is something that two people a year get and you can put it on your CV. And I have to hope that it helps.

Beronda Montgomery:

Yes

Thomas Schwarz:

When you're turning in an F32 or a K99, to say, is this person a good mentor? Yes! They got an award for it. I certainly know that when I sit on the study section that reviews those, if somebody says they've got a mentoring award, it's kind of hard to fault them for that.

Beronda Montgomery:

mmhmm

Thomas Schwarz:

So those things do matter, that's a great idea.

Lauren Ullrich:

So I actually, I want to go back to something Sherilynn and Beronda touched on, which is this issue around culture and climate, and you know, what are some strategies that programs can use to be proactive around issues of inclusion, whether it's race, ethnicity, disability, gender, um, you know, all the various aspects of ourselves that we bring to the lab.

Beronda Montgomery:

Well, I really go back to something that Sherilynn said is that we can't separate the issues. And I think that you know, of the work that's been coming out of, uh, University of Wisconsin, Madison, some of Sherilynn's work and other people's work, there's a lot of work now about cultural competence and mentoring. And there's a lot of questions, not just about cultural competence, but understanding that we still live in environments that have structural racism and structural sexism. And so we have to be willing to have tough conversations about how that shows up in our spaces at the same time that we're talking about mentoring. Because the reality is that we're people doing the mentoring and we don't leave all of these social issues at the door of our labs and offices when we walk into these spaces. And so I've been encouraged, you know, to look at some of the work by Angela Byars-Winston and others who are really centering how do we have conversations about these issues in the context of human interaction, including mentoring relationships and leadership relationships.

Sherilynn Black:

Yeah, and I would add to that, you know, that the scholarship is critically important for faculty to understand. Um, I just want to put in a plug as an intervention scientist myself, you know, uh, this is a field with just as many experts as any other scientific field that I urge you to explore the literature, look at the practices, um, you know, look at the experimentation. Um, I always give the example of, if I was wanting to do an experiment on T-cells, I would not read a book in the popular press, and then think that I was ready to go. I would talk to an immunologist and I would understand, you know, what's at stake so that I could truly be rigorous and excellent. And I think, um, in the area of mentorship and areas relating to diversity and equity work, unfortunately, I think a lot of institutions tend to, you know, make sort of jumps that are based off of how we feel about things instead of what the data and evidence show we should be doing. Um, so to that end one thing that I would say about, you know, thinking about a first step, of thinking about how to make spaces more equitable, I always tell schools that I'm working with, you know, don't make assumptions about what the issues are in your unit. Understand context by getting that information from the constituents you say you most want to serve. So doing these climate surveys, which a lot of people have tried to do over the last few years, some, you know, have done them to better degrees than others. There are a lot of validated instruments that are out there for departments to use, to get a really clear understanding of, um, what's actually going on with the lived experience of all the constituent groups in your unit. I'm talking faculty, staff, and students. And you know, I've heard some people say, oh, we already know what the issues are. But if that's the case, that means that one of two things is happening. One, you knew that issues existed that were making it challenging for people in your units and you didn't do anything about it. Or two, you knew that there were issues going on, but you did not take the time to get help from expertise about how to address them. So neither of those is a good practice in mentorship or leadership, if you really want to seek equity in units. So I really urge people to not make assumptions about lived experiences. Do those surveys, do focus groups, give opportunities for authentic feedback. That really goes far to help to provide context and norm setting for scientists who are interested in making spaces more equitable and being proactive about it, because understanding the culture and the ethos of the space where you're training people will help all the people in the unit, not just people from underrepresented groups or people who might be in a position where they may need additional support.

Thomas Schwarz:

Well said, and I would say that it's one of those things that the institution has to push or the leadership of a program, of a department, of an Institution. When we've done those climate surveys, they were very revealing and the listening labs and focus groups very helpful. And it was far too easy to say,"Hey, I've done this for 30 years, I think, you know, I'm cool, I'm cool." But you go to the listening labs, you look at the survey and you do learn. It really is a productive engagement.

Marguerite Matthews:

So we're going to have a lightening round for each of you to tell us about some innovative practices that excite you about mentoring and that other people should consider bringing to their programs or institutions.

Sherilynn Black:

You know, there are a lot of exciting things around mentorship that I've seen happening, both at Duke and, um, sort of at the national level. I can give a couple of really cool things. The first thing I'll say is, you know, I was formerly a PI of an IMSD program, and one of the things that we did in that program that was really successful was we were really huge fans of vertically integrated mentoring structures. So instead of just having a situation where, um, you know, there's an advisor and their graduate student, for example, we formed, um, what we colloquially referred to as "science squads" [chuckles] where we had an undergraduate student, a graduate student, a post-doc and a faculty that were all together, that were all sort of disciplinarily, um, similar in terms of the kinds of questions that they wanted, but it also gave everyone a chance to sort of get to know someone else in their discipline, have a sort of safe space to be able to talk about issues that were going on and really helped the students to learn how to do peer mentoring, how to do, um, you know, sort of the near peer communications that are so important for scientific development. So, you know, anything that you can do where you look at sort of paired forms of mentorship. I always think that those are a really great way to start. I just saw a talk, um, at an NIH panel I did recently from the University of Kentucky, where they're doing pairs of mentors for junior faculty and senior faculty from underrepresented groups that are coming in. I thought that sounded like a really interesting idea to provide community, um, and a very specialized kind of mentoring for underrepresented faculty. I would also say that anything with mentoring that allows for increased self-awareness of the mentor, especially when positionality is involved and we're talking about faculty and students. I think that, you know, anything that's going on that helps to raise awareness, how we ourselves can have better understanding of our own mentoring practices, more cultural awareness, more values-based leadership practices. All of those really excite me because what that means is that both directions of the mentorship relationship will be more fulfilling. It won't just be the faculty always being the person to give. It will be a more bi-directional relationship that usually helps everyone involved.

Beronda Montgomery:

I would say one of the innovative practices that I've seen, that I'm really excited about is following the expertise and not the presumed, um, who has the greater standing. And so we have moved to some models and spaces I've been in where non-tenured faculty are the mentors for senior faculty and teaching because they have the expertise in teaching. We have students doing the mentoring around social communication, because they are the ones who are out there using Twitter to start things like Black in X weeks. And so we have really started to choose mentors based on expertise, not on perceived hierarchy. And it's really flipping things on their head. I'm really enjoying seeing how this is playing out.

Lauren Ullrich:

I love that.

Thomas Schwarz:

Yeah, that's fantastic. I'll say along with that, the idea that the PI should show their vulnerability, should not feel obliged to feel like they know all the answers, but should be able to, you know, admit that they too may have imposter syndrome. That they too may have insecurities. That they don't know the answer to things. That is, I think really important for the mentoring relationship and it sets up the pathway that can be a real partnership and not always the, you know, the authority and the trainee.

Sherilynn Black:

Yeah, and the last thing that I'll say, that I think is really interesting is, you know, we've added something to our mentorship practices at Duke that we're piloting right now, which is, um, you know, engaging career coaching as a part of mentorship. And I know a lot of people are doing career coaching, but what's unique about what we're doing with it is that we are doing career coaching with a culturally aware lens. So we have a career coach who's actually gotten training, um, on sort of the foundational elements of coaching, but it's doing it specifically to enhance, um, and sort of bring cultural awareness and infuse it into all of the career decisions that are happening as the trainees are being mentored. So we're currently piloting this with junior faculty in our School of Medicine, with the idea that we will look to see, does this improve their ability to sort of bring their whole self into their career decisions and make decisions that are more in line with their cultural perspectives and values as they go throughout their scientific training.[musical interlude]

Lauren Ullrich:

So thank you all for sharing your wisdom today. And can I ask each of you for one last piece of parting advice?

Beronda Montgomery:

The parting advice that I would give is that mentoring really should be about helping the person being mentored move towards their full self, as a scholar, as a person, and the contributions that they want to make. And I think that we need people who are being mentored to really focus on what unique contributions they could bring and find the mentoring networks that help. Otherwise, we keep reproducing versions of people who are already in these spaces, and if we're really going to move to where we want to be, we need new approaches, new views, and that comes from people really holding on to the unique contributions that they want to make and finding the mentors that help them do that.

Sherilynn Black:

You know, I think I would say that, um, it's really important for us as faculty to approach mentorship with humility. There is a phenomenon in psychology called the Dunning-Kruger effect and the idea behind that is that we tend to overestimate our ability to deal with complex issues. And there's been a lot of research lately showing that things like race and gender fall under the umbrella of complex issues. I would certainly anticipate that mentorship would be another very sort of socially constructed, complex set of human relationships that would be challenging. So I think it's important to approach it with humility, with the understanding that you may not always get everything right, or even sometimes your instincts about what to do may not be right. But also realizing you should never underestimate the importance of you trying, because the impact of you being an effective mentor and really trying to, you know, add to and cultivate someone else's life will have such long lasting impact. It's always worth the attempt, while always sort of keeping humility that this is a lifelong process of learning in this area.

Thomas Schwarz:

And I would just add that it's one of the most rewarding aspects of our job. It's both a sacred responsibility, but it's also something that is, uh, as satisfying as anything you'll publish, as anything that you'll discover to know that you have managed to support and guide and allow another scientist to reach their full potential. It's a tremendously rewarding thing and people should embrace that role wholeheartedly.

Lauren Ullrich:

And Marguerite, what's your advice?

Marguerite Matthews:

Maybe less advice and more encouragement of folks who are on the faculty hunt to find institutions and programs that value mentorship and are going to invest in you as a mentor and provide or give you access to resources that will help you, um, continue to be a better mentor, whether it's just starting out or being someone who's a full professor and been in that position for decades. What about you, Lauren?

Lauren Ullrich:

I think I want to underscore something Sherilynn said earlier, which is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There is a huge literature out there. And as scientists, like our first instinct should be to go to the literature and see what have people tried before? What has worked? What's the evidence base around what we're doing? And then collect data to see whether the programs we're implementing are working as intended, or maybe they have unintended consequences. And these are incredibly complex environments where you have all these different people, right? It's not just the mentor-mentee, it's a whole suite of mentors and mentees in this, um, this social situation. So, you don't have to go it alone. You don't have to go by your gut. You can go to the experts and get help.[outro music] So that's all we have time for today on Building Up the Nerve. This season, we are ending every episode with a reflection question. So this episode, we invite you to reflect on how does the way your program or workplace is structured influence the quality of mentoring received by the various participants, and what changes could you make to help both mentors and mentees thrive? Thank you to our guests this week for sharing their expertise and thank you to NINDS program director, Dr. Bob Riddle, who composed our theme song and music. And that's a wrap for Season Three! You can find past episodes of this podcast and many more grant application resources on the web at ninds.nih.gov. Be sure to follow us on Twitter@NINDSDiversity and @NINDSFunding. You can email us questions and ideas for Season Four at NINDSNervePod@nih.gov. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on apple podcasts or your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode. We'll see you next season.