The Science of Mentorship

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the science of mentorship. Mentees pay attention to the mentors behavior and attitudes, but mentors may not always realize that they can serve as role models to their mentees. Mentees, especially students from marginalized backgrounds, are able to envision themselves in the future as successful in their chosen STEM careers, when they see a role model succeeding, with similar values or a similar background. When there's a lack of positive role models, students may have a hard time seeing themselves as future leaders in STEM.
Mathematician, Dr. Juan Meza, went through much of his academic career without effective role models. He worked to earn his PhD in computational and applied mathematics from Rice university. In this journey, he found people that showed him that he did have a place in the future of STEM. Today he works hard to be an encouraging role model to his mentees. Dr.Juan Meza, is currently the division director for the national science foundation's division of mathematical sciences. He served as Dean of the school of natural sciences, at the university of California Merced. Dr. Meza is also a professor of applied mathematics, and his current research focuses on non-linear optimization with an emphasis on methods for parallel computing. He has received numerous awards, and has served on several external boards and federal advisory committees.
As Dr.Juan Meza Went through school, he found a specific Subject that fascinated him. He was excited, but he wasn't sure how to follow this new passion.

Dr. Juan Meza (01:55):
Originally, I was going to be an electrical engineer. One of the things that I think I see a lot in first- generation students, especially underrepresented minorities, is you become a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer. That's what your parents are looking at. For me, I always liked math, when I was a young kid. I loved math and in both middle school and high school, but it didn't seem to me that there was job there.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Dr.Juan's pursuit of mathematics seemed like a dead end, but he hadn't experience and realized that this dream might still be possible.

Dr. Juan Meza (02:33):
I ended up doing a summer internship at NASA, where I got introduced to computers. Then I said, Oh, this sounds like a lot more fun. I decided I want to be a computer scientist, but it was early enough in the nation's history that computer science was not a major yet. The only way of doing it was to become an electrical engineer.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Dr.Juan took steps to become a computer scientist. He looked for guidance and found someone who provided the direction he was seeking.

Dr. Juan Meza (03:06):
Halfway through my experience at Rice is where I did my undergraduate work. I met this wonderful mentor by the name of Richard Tapia, who happened to be a mathematician. I have to say that, if I hadn't met him, I probably would have had a much different career path and life, but he instilled in me a sense of you can do mathematics, it can be fun, I knew that already. But you can actually do interesting things with it as well.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
This mentoring relationship with Dr. Tapia, allowed Dr. Juan, to discover more of his potential and competence in STEM. But as he explored this world of possibilities, he found there was a major absence of something important.

Dr. Juan Meza (03:56):
Richard pulled me into his office one time, and he said, okay, we've just gotten some fantastic news from the national science foundation, since we've just graduated three math PhDs that are Latino, in the country. I said, well, that's really fantastic news, he goes, yeah. The thing is, you're half of the contingent for this year.
There were six mathematicians Latino, they got PhDs in the country that year. That was 1986, and Rice had produced half of them. They were congratulating him, but at the same time, it showed the state of the nation, if you will. There's not a whole lot People out there.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
The absence of underrepresented students post a problem for Dr. Juan.

Dr. Juan Meza (04:41):
There were not a whole lot of role models. A lot of times it was just colleagues, of the same age as myself.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Dr. Juan looked for a positive role model, but he encountered something else.

Dr. Juan Meza (04:52):
I've had Lots of negative mentoring. It is certainly one of those things where I can remember instances as early as in high school, where people were trying to in- subtle and not so subtle ways, discourage me to go into certain areas or certain fields. Whether it was covert or overt, it's hard to tell sometimes. The overt ones are a little bit easier to tell, and in certainly in 1970s in Texas, it was probably more the over types of discouragement than there is now, but there is discouragement to many expects.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Dr. Meza pushed through this discouragement, and earned his PhD. He decided he would do everything he could to give his students a different experience.

Dr. Juan Meza (05:42):
Three years ago, I had seen so much. I set out to help out every single minority that was in STEM, and so I would try to shield them and protect them from things. I would try to tell them, how to do some things that maybe they weren't aware of. That changed after I had kids. Right? Because I realized as much as you can protect kids and then you want to, sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Not only can you not protect them against everything, but sometimes the experience is worth having, even if it's a negative experience.
Today, what I try to do is, I try to tell the students some of the, what I call unwritten rules that are out there. Then say in essence, I'm here, you can talk to me, I'm happy to advise you, but it really is a

two way street. That's one of the principles that I have for mentoring. It's got to be two ways. I will provide a certain amount of advice and mentoring, but a lot of it is based on what they see and perceive that they need. Then having the initiative to come to meet, to say, I'm dealing with this issue or that.
That's not to say I don't step in every once in a while, if I see something that's going to go off the rails. But in large part, I let people make mistakes and wait to see how they react, and then try to jump in where you can to be supportive and help them out.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Dr. Meza guides his students to foster their own independence and STEM. When it's necessary, he points them to a unique teacher, a teacher he often learned from.

Dr. Juan Meza (07:30):
Failure can be a wonderful, wonderful teacher. One time I really turned heads because I was asked to give this talk, and I think it was the Louis Stokes AMP conference. The first words out of my mouth for the talk was, I want you to fail. It was just dead silence in this room of about 300 people and all of the, majority of them students, and they looked at me and said, can you repeat that. In case you didn't hear me, I want you to fail. Then I of course explained that, what's really important is you've got to take risk, you've got to take chances, and part of that is that you're going to fail. That can be, one of the best teachers that you can have. It's not an easy thing, but it's something that we need to make sure that our students really understand the value of that.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
As students learn this value, Dr. Meza helps them understand that they are not alone in the obstacles they face.

Dr. Juan Meza (08:27):
Yeah, to learn this trick as well, so I can certainly point to a lot of failures. When the students go down that road, I can always go back and say, yeah, that happened to me before.,Yeah, that didn't work out for me either, or, yeah, I failed on that. I think having and sharing that experience and making sure that they understand that it happens to everybody, I think goes a long way towards building that self- confidence.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Dr. Maze quickly discovered that mentees weren't the only ones to benefit from mentoring relationships.

Dr. Juan Meza (08:59):
One of the, I think major benefits of mentoring, is that you learn so much from them as well. Different ways of approaching problems, different ideas are coming up, it's a wonderful gift that you get from mentoring. I always encourage people to mentor because I really view it as a two way street, as I mentioned earlier. I think you can get so much out of that relationship.

Speaker 1 (09:23):

He found that there are multiple forms of mentoring relationships, and they're all needed for different reasons. In some cases, people can only connect online, look and find connections and support through online programs like MentorNet.

Dr. Juan Meza (09:38):
I think there's value to having a MentorNet, that an electronic mentor at work, if you will. I still think that the best mentors are those that you can talk to in person, that have a sense of where you're at, I think longer term, the stronger relationships are better one-on-one. But certainly when you have such small numbers in so many different places, just making connections can be difficult. I think mentoring that really wonderful purpose of making those initial connections. But I think you do have to follow them up with more one-on-one types of relationships. Going out to coffee, going out to lunch, being able to touch base and see how things are going, how the families are going. I think those are the kinds of things that really are useful for mentorin.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
In all mentoring relationships, Dr. Meza knew that mentors needed to acknowledge the weight of their role.

Dr. Juan Meza (10:32):
But it is definitely a challenge in keeping up because, whether you like it or not, and I know some people that don't like it, you are a role model for many people. Just by the virtue of having succeeded to that position, there are people that will look at you as a, what we used to call in the math community and existence proof. The fact that you're there, tells you that people that yes, it is possible to do. That carries a certain amount of responsibility. Let me phrase it like that. I think it's a responsibility, and one that, for better or for worse is something that I think is important to take on.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Mentors should be aware that their behaviors and actions guide students. They may point students to a hopeful future, but if not careful, a lack of positive role modeling could discourage students from envisioning themselves as successful in the STEM ecosystem. Mentors should acknowledge that their mentees look to them as role models, and work to engage with their mentees behavior, values and attitudes. When this happens, students can discover a whole world of new possibilities for their future in STEM. Thanks for listening, to learn more about the science of effective mentorship and for a guide to implementing best practices in your STEM environment, visit nas.edu/mentor.