IGE: Track 2: EDU EPSCoR DCL: EMPOWERS: Elevating Mentoring Practices for Optimal Work-life balance in Education and Research in STEM Graduate Studies

The EMPOWERS (Evaluating Mentoring Practices for Optimal Work-life balance in Education and Research in STEM graduate studies) program is an innovative, four-year, multi-dimensional approach that aims to enhance the holistic mentoring environment for faculty and graduate students. EMPOWERS was developed to respond to the emerging crisis in graduate education, which is a result of ineffective mentoring, high levels of distress in graduate students, a lack of inclusion, and a lack of career and professional development.

In fact, the majority of faculty are not developed or trained in how to be an effective mentor during their graduate studies; this often becomes on-the-job training in academic positions. While effective mentoring can yield many positive benefits for the graduate student and faculty member, ineffective mentoring can lead to high rates of attrition for faculty and students, mental health concerns, and reduced well-being.

This National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Track 2 award to the Clemson University EMPOWERS program will address these issues through two innovative and distinct goals: 1) Promote holistic mentorship, which will include mentorship training, mental health and wellness, inclusion, and career and professional development; and 2) Affect systemic change at the department, college, and University levels through capacity building and policy development related to holistic mentoring. Ultimately, these two goals will lead to advances in the knowledge of effective mentoring practices while employing holistic mentor training at the university level.

Grounded in Ecological Systems Theory and the Cultural Framework for Institutional Change, EMPOWERS provides a novel approach to this problem by providing holistic mentor training to both graduate students and faculty members. This holistic mentor training will build upon existing curricula to address mental health, well-being, inclusion, career, and professional development, while developing mentoring plans for graduate students.

Development of additional curricula will include an emphasis on responsible and ethical research conduct. The project will also determine graduate student and faculty perspectives on needed policy changes related to holistic mentoring, and how to best implement these changes at the department, college, or University levels through qualitative interviews and focus groups as well as quantitative surveys.

This work will lead to the development of broad university policy changes to embed mentoring systemically, both at the graduate student and faculty levels. EMPOWERS team members from the Engineering and Science Education Department and the Graduate School will use the data from this study to build a national model of holistic mentoring.

The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.