Graduate Students Gather for Mentoring for Social Justice and Community-Building Orientation
In September, the five graduate student mentors participating in the 2022-23 cohort with the Mentoring for Social Justice and Community-Building Project gathered with program staff for a day-long mentor orientation on Douglass campus.
The group discussed theoretical frameworks informing a socially just approach to mentoring, explored strategies and promising practices for inclusive mentoring and facilitation, and workshopped the project proposals that will structure their mentoring relationship with Douglass College undergrads.
Each mentor is matched with 3-4 Douglass undergraduate students who share an interest in the mentor's proposed project. Projects structuring each mentoring relationship include community-engaged learning with New Brunswick immigrant justice organizers, preparing Women of Color to apply to graduate school, and more. The mentors are graduate students in the following programs: Education, Spanish & Portuguese, Microbial Biology, Geography, and Communication, Information, & Media. Learn more about the mentors and their creative projects.
Mentors and mentees will meet monthly over the 2022-23 academic year. Mentors will participate in check-ins with fellow mentors and program staff, pop-up events organized alongside campus partners, and a Spring 2023 symposium and celebration. More details to come!
Questions? Contact Briana Bivens (briana.bivens@rutgers.edu), Madinah Elamin (melamin@echo.rutgers.edu), and Corina Hernandez (corina.hernandez@rutgers.edu).
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The goal of the Mentoring for Social Justice and Community-Building Project – sponsored by the School of Graduate Studies and Douglass Residential College – is to foster mutually beneficial relationships between current graduate students and undergraduates committed to aligning their scholarship, advocacy, and collaborations with social justice principles. Through training graduate students in justice-oriented approaches to mentorship and partnering a cohort of graduate student mentors with Douglass undergraduate mentees, the project aims to generate sustainable near-peer mentoring relationships shaped by common interests, experiences, or aspirations.
The 2022-23 project is supported by the Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement's IDEA Innovation Grant Program.