The Science of Mentorship

Bethany Brookshire (00:11):
2020. For the foreseeable future, the year 2020 will be linked with strong and complex memories, thoughts and emotions. To say it was a difficult year is an understatement. For some, it was a time of grief. For others, it was a time of growth. 2020 changed everything. It changed the way we live, communicate and learn. Earning a degree in STEM is a massive undertaking on its own. Managing and supporting students in a research group is already a heavy responsibility. Add on a global pandemic, long term physical isolation and collective self-reflection, and the result is a lot of students and faculty completely thrown off in their personal and their academic lives. I've heard a lot of powerful stories from students about how different mentoring relationships and programs supported them through their STEM journey, but most of these stories have happened before 2020. What did the crucible of 2020 do to mentorship?
This is The Science of Mentorship, a podcast from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, that explores the mentoring skills that can and should be learned to unleash everyone's potential in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine. I'm your host, Bethany Brookshire.
Like I mentioned before, everything changed in 2020. One of the biggest changes was that nearly everything moved online. School and work went virtual almost overnight. Our workout classes, concerts, happy hours and religious services all moved to video calls. Some fields and industries were able to transition with relative ease, but STEM fields, well, for many disciplines it's not so easy. You can't wield a pipette, study a mouse or run a chemical reaction over the internet.
Anthony Keyes (01:59):
I think the pandemic overloaded most graduate students.
Bethany Brookshire (02:04):
That's Anthony Keyes again, who I've talked with in previous episodes. When the lockdown started, Anthony was in the middle of earning his PhD in organic chemistry.
Anthony Keyes (02:12):
The main issue I had was that we were all at home and if you're an organic chemist, if you're at home, you can't be doing work and that's very challenging for a PI to come to terms with. Because obviously it's true, if you're not in the lab, you're not collecting your results.
Bethany Brookshire (02:30):
Students across STEM fields had this problem. They couldn't go into the lab, but they couldn't just stop their research either. They had to quickly figure out how they would pivot their studies so they could still complete their programs.
Anthony Keyes (02:41):
One of the main things that our group had to do was we had to shift basically our perspective on what we were doing and we ended up writing a review paper. We would have Zoom meetings maybe three days a week and we would talk for hours.
Bethany Brookshire (02:59):
Anthony and his peers were out of the lab for two months, which is a long time, especially if there was no forewarning that the lab would be shut down. Some students though were out of the lab for even longer.
Anthony Keyes (03:10):
So some people might have been out of the lab for eight months, a whole year probably, during their PhD and that definitely could be very challenging and I think, I could see myself being a PI and that would be very difficult to navigate. You'd be thinking about, "Am I going to get new students? Will people want to come to grad school after this pandemic?" And, "Are my students going to be ready after being out of the lab for so long?" Or, "Do they need to stay longer?" Or, "Was there something we could do during that time period?" So it was a challenging period, I think.
Bethany Brookshire (03:42):
When the pandemic began, it felt like the world came to a screeching halt, but oddly enough, the earth still kept turning and responsibilities didn't pause. Faculty had to balance their research projects, mentoring and their own personal pandemic experiences. Students had to navigate continuing their degrees and faculty likely didn't know how to support their students through this, because they had never experienced it themselves. We were all afraid for our health and our loved ones. Many people felt alone and isolated. These feelings were only exacerbated when we realized this wouldn't be ending anytime soon.
Anthony Keyes (04:17):
I think since so many of us were going through it together, it did help when every graduate student is basically like, "This sucks, the world's falling apart, and also I have to think about my PhD during all of it."
Bethany Brookshire (04:31):
As students and faculty tried to balance all of this change, a lot of them really struggled with their mental health.
Dr. Michael Green (04:37):
The pandemic itself has just been a terrible experience.
Bethany Brookshire (04:42):
That's Dr. Michael Green again. Dr. Green had just begun doing research in New York City when the lockdown started. He saw that it was taking a big toll on his peers.
Dr. Michael Green (04:51):
I was in New York City and New York City is the worst place to live during a pandemic. There's nothing to do, but you pay so much money. And luckily I had my family, so I wasn't alone, but I know some grad students were single and they were by themselves and they were going through a rough time.
Bethany Brookshire (05:10):
While students and faculty navigated their own fears, confusion, and loneliness, they also had to navigate something new, communicating with each other only online. In some ways, this provided much needed social time.
Dr. Michael Green (05:24):
So I know Zoom lab meetings or Zoom conferences gave some social aspect.
Bethany Brookshire (05:31):
A lot of people experienced Zoom burnout, where they were so tired of looking at their screen that the last thing they wanted to do was put their energy into another online meeting, where there would likely be technological problems and where things just wouldn't be the way they used to be. On the other hand, for extroverts like Dr. Green, social time on Zoom wasn't always enough.
Dr. Michael Green (05:51):
I feed off people in terms of I'm an extrovert, so I like to be silly. So if I can see also your body language, so Zoom helps, but it's not the full picture. Just being in someone's presence, it just changes how I feel. And sometimes, especially if you're in a presentation when everyone's muted, it's very awkward trying to do a Zoom seminar. I hate it, but you adapt. I actually got two monitors now, so I can have people's faces staring at me or just their picture. But in person, it's just a whole different experience. And I really can't wait till the world is open again. But at the same time, we're not going to be the same and it's not going to go back to how it used to be.
Bethany Brookshire (06:45):
Even when students return to the lab, things weren't the same. And once again, they had to rely on technology.
Dr. Michael Green (06:50):
It kind of changed how research is done. But I think around May, New York City researchers were considered essential workers and everyone pretty much came back to lab, so we got some sense of normalcy in terms of doing our research. But still, there were still some unspoken roles of don't get too close. It's really hard trying to show someone how to a technique when they can't be above you hovering. So we got little MacGyver, iPad situations recorded, and then you can see, and then we'll see how each other is able to handle this technique.
Bethany Brookshire (07:31):
For a while, and even to this day, mentoring relationships had to exist through Zoom and email. Some relationships were still effective through this new form of communication. Carrie Shafer from our previous episodes, noticed that certain kinds of relationships were able to continue through the pandemic.
Carrie Shafer (07:47):
A formal relationship does really kind of benefit in that online space because you can hop on a phone call or you can send an email or hop on a Zoom call.
Bethany Brookshire (07:58):
But other kinds of relationships struggled.
Carrie Shafer (08:01):
I think it's kind of the informal type relationships that do kind of suffer, and I'm sure have suffered a bit in the past year, because I think it's often those informal relationships where you're passing that person in the hallway or you're with them in the lab, or you're running into them at a mixer after school or something like that. And so often with the informal types of mentoring relationships, you're not necessarily scheduling that time to chat with them about their experiences. So unless you're very intentional about that, I think it's kind of inevitable that if you kind of move from a location or in the case of the pandemic, you don't see them for a year, those relationships could potentially drop off, if you don't make the effort to keep in contact with that person.
Bethany Brookshire (08:50):
Informal mentoring relationships struggled because they thrived off of being together in person, where the mentee could catch the mentor spontaneously around campus for quick questions and pieces of advice. But you can't just run into people on Zoom. It takes planning and structure, even if it's just to meet for coffee. 2020 changed how many mentees and mentors navigated their relationships. But for some mentoring, the internet, wasn't all that new. As we will learn, the practice of online mentoring has actually been around long before the pandemic.
Online mentoring can take many forms. It can be a formal online mentoring program like MentorNet, but often it can take place on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, where students can find STEM leaders all over the world and ask them questions. After living virtually for an entire year, though, I had to wonder, "How do students feel now about online mentoring? Do they prefer it now? Do they dislike it?" I asked them and I got a lot of different answers with different perspectives. I talked with Nicole Benalee again. Nicole could see there was some benefit to online mentoring, but when it came to networking and maintaining relationships, she found it was difficult.
Nicole Benalee (10:03):
I think it's very hard to do networking or stay in communication online. I feel like it's very hard because you don't really know that person's personality that you get when you're talking in person.
Bethany Brookshire (10:18):
For Nicole, after everything went virtual, she knew that online mentoring wasn't right for her. She knew what she needed instead to find the best support.
Nicole Benalee (10:26):
Zoom fatigue this past year, and just email fatigue. It's been very hard to just keep up with it. And it is very exhausting and it's more comforting to talk to people in person. I know there's a lot of opportunity, LinkedIn or Facebook, Twitter, whatever, but I'm somewhat old school to where I just stay with Facebook because it's just so much simpler. And as a graduate student, I feel like sometimes that's a distraction just having one Facebook account, it's super distracting and it's overwhelming to kind of be involved in social media when you really need to focus at certain times of your graduate career.
Bethany Brookshire (11:11):
Other students like Dr. Green, find that sometimes online mentoring can be awkward.
Dr. Michael Green (11:17):
There's some people trying to recreate our natural world.
Bethany Brookshire (11:21):
Dr. Green experienced this awkwardness when he went to a virtual conference. At an in-person scientific conference, there's often time for networking. People are wearing name tags. You might see them talking to a mutual connection and simply being in the same room mingling after a presentation, opens the door for conversation. But when it came time for Dr. Green to network at a virtual conference, he wasn't exactly sure how the communication would go.
Dr. Michael Green (11:44):
There are some platforms now, that it's like a virtual conference center where you have a little avatar moving around. I did that once. It was interesting. It was awkward at first because it was pretty much like Zoom, but if your avatars were in each other's vicinity, our screens would pop up and see each other. But in a larger group of people, there'd be overlap and you'd have eight different conversations going on at once, which is kind of realistic, but we didn't really understand, who are you talking to right now? It's like, "Oh, I'm talking to someone else." It's like, "Oh, okay, let's move our little group, and shuffle to the other side of the screen."
Bethany Brookshire (12:22):
I had to laugh. I've been in those online conferences myself and found myself suddenly on a video call with someone I don't know, without much context of who they are or what we had to talk about. It's really, truly awkward, but as cringe worthy as it might be, it hit me that even as life resumes back to in person, online events, meetings and mentoring, won't go away. I spoke with Carrie Shafer again from our previous episodes. Carrie helped me realize that to have effective online mentoring relationships, it would require something from both mentors and mentees. It needs intentionality, especially in virtual meetings with her mentors, Carrie always wanted to make sure that she came prepared and was intentional about the time they had.
Carrie Shafer (13:03):
You kind of realize over time that that person is instilling a lot of knowledge and important lessons. I think you need to make sure you're putting in that work and that you're using that time in a way that I guess is appropriate. I make sure whenever I'm having kind of these biweekly meetings, I'm showing up kind of with an agenda in mind and I'm making sure I'm getting the most out of these mentorship relationships. So I guess it would maybe be a little bit different if we are all in the same office and we're kind of running into each other, but since it's all done virtually, I want to make sure when we have that set time, we're kind of using it to the best of our ability.
Bethany Brookshire (13:45):
This intentionality isn't just for virtual one-on-one meetings with a formal mentor. Intentionality is useful in any STEM online space and it can benefit in person interactions as well. When mentees and mentors come into online spaces, ready to be intentional in the short moments they share, they can end up finding some really supportive communities. Anthony Keyes decided to be intentional on social media platforms. On LinkedIn, he started sharing about himself, his STEM journey and what he's gone through. He did this with the hopes that students would relate to it find support they needed.
Anthony Keyes (14:17):
One of the main things I do is I keep in contact with a lot of the students I've met, who are kind of in the same level as me, who are either completing graduate school or even just staying in touch with students I've mentored, I find that to be very valuable just hearing about their experience. Because I always feel like the need, if I know so something I need to share it with someone, or just if I've applied for something and I know someone else in two years might be applying for something similar, like, "Oh, I should share my application with them in case they want it."
Bethany Brookshire (14:48):
After he started sharing these things, he got a lot of responses from students.
Anthony Keyes (14:52):
And I've been contacted by people who are graduate students around the world. And they've asked me simple questions to some people saying, "Would you mind looking at my cover letter," or, "I see that you worked at this lab, do you know this professor? Do you think I should join this kind of group?" And really, I think that's a great place for LinkedIn.
Bethany Brookshire (15:22):
Finding a community where you belong became even more important in 2020 the year didn't just bring a global pandemic, but it also centered much needed conversations about race and racism in the United States and highlighted the gaps in our systems that have allowed marginalized groups to slide through the cracks.
Dr. Jeremy Waisome (15:39):
The last year has proven to me that we need more.
Bethany Brookshire (15:44):
That's Dr. Jeremy Waisome again. Something that came out of 2020s, racial awakening was the forming of new groups. Excluded and marginalized people came together to celebrate and support one another in certain niches like research, professions and hobbies.
Dr. Jeremy Waisome (15:58):
So if you saw in the news about the Black and X Network being developed, I've been so incredibly proud to see all of these communities. The birders come out and the people who are in artificial intelligence, people who are studying frogs and lizards and all of these communities of people, black and gaming. Black and X is a phenomenal example of the importance of narratives, because I think before that community really started promoting itself, it was really difficult to find someone who looked like you who did the work that you might be interested in.
Bethany Brookshire (16:48):
Before the internet was accessible like it is today, these niche groups existed, but they were harder to find.
Dr. Jeremy Waisome (16:54):
If I wanted to find someone who was black and in let's say chemistry, where do I go? Where do I find that person? Where do I find their voice? If I'm a little kid and that's who I'm hoping to be one day a chemist, who do I follow on the internet? You can't just search black person in chemistry and find that person. And so I think that's important that we're working towards creating these communities where people can find themselves and find mentors and find support. And I think that there should be a national model for something like that, where people who are interested in finding mentors and being mentors exist.
Bethany Brookshire (17:37):
Dr. Waisome believed that being able to find these groups could pave the way for future generations in STEM. That is a positive aspect of the internet today. These networks are so much easier to find with just a search. In our previous episodes, I talked with Trayvon Giles. Trayvon mentioned a mentoring community he had found in 2020, Black and Neuro. He felt like this kind of community was a game changer.
Trayvon Giles (17:59):
I think Black and Neuro will really become sort of the benchmark for a bunch of other fields to follow because there are tons of kids that are interactive with Black and Neuro, that have never done any sort of neuroscience research at all. They just thought it was so cool that a bunch of black people from one field decided to get together and make a group.
Bethany Brookshire (18:21):
The Black and Neuro hashtag and network makes it easy for students and faculty to start connecting with the community.
Trayvon Giles (18:27):
They have a website, so anyone can go on the website and fill out a membership page where you get a bio. Then they have a speaker seminar series and they do a few other virtual events that you can tune into. And then a lot of people just have it in their bio as well. And so I've met a bunch of people on Twitter where I've just DM'd them and they're like, "Hey, you're in Black and Neuro. I'm in Black and Neuro, I want to do this or that, or do you know someone at institution interested in this, and they're willing to help out?" And I think that's what it is, is it's really just a key to get into the door. You just have to be willing to mentor and be mentored, and I think that's useful.
Bethany Brookshire (19:06):
Trayvon found that online mentoring networks like Black and Neuro, were also so good resources for faculty. Faculty who weren't black themselves, but who wanted to help their black students navigate their STEM careers.
Trayvon Giles (19:17):
And so for example, Black and Neuro, wasn't really a thing when I was a freshman in undergrad. So Dr. Hachtel was teaching me everything that she knew, but she had no way of helping me navigate the neuroscience world as a black man. Whereas now, she has Black and Neuro, and although she's not a black woman, she can interact with people in Black and Neuro and say, "Hey, I have a bunch of black students that need help. Would any of you guys be willing to help them?" And I think to me, that is a game changer, no matter what field it is.
Bethany Brookshire (19:54):
Black and Neuro and other Black and X communities such as Black and Chem or Black Birder Week, are just some examples of what affinity groups and online mentoring communities can do for students and faculty. They bring community to the field and provide a space for students to ask questions. Then, people get to collectively work together to point them in the right direction. Post 2020, these groups are only growing.
Trayvon Giles (20:16):
And I think that people of all colors, ranges, shapes, and sizes, should begin to make their own groups, that way these groups can begin to interact with each other. And I think that is where the mentorship has sort of its strongest impact because that network is created. And so now, you have instant access to a network and all you need is one person in that network to help you navigate where to go and who to go to. And so now mentorship doesn't have to be a, "Can I help this person, yes or no?? It can be a, "Can I help this person," or "Do I know someone else that's willing to help this person?"
Bethany Brookshire (21:00):
Online mentoring networks may not initially appear to offer the comfort or spontaneity that in person mentoring brings, some mentees will always prefer in person mentoring. But online mentoring can bring about amazing communities, connecting mentees with mentors all over the world. When this happens, students who may have felt lost, can find support and their place in STEM. And then, when the time comes, they might find themselves serving others as a mentor. In our next episode, we're going to hear what it was like for students to take on mentor roles and what they learned throughout their journeys, as they started supporting the next generation of students in STEM. Until then, you can learn more about the science of effective mentoring in STEM at nas.edu/mentoring. If you're enjoying the Science of Mentorship, please tell your friends, colleagues, students, teachers, and of course your mentors and mentees about our podcast and help others discover it, by giving us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Thanks for listening.

SOM-Post2020-Final Transcript

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