AWM Mentor Network : Suggested Guidelines

WELCOME TO THE AWM MENTOR NETWORK!

Just a few suggestions for communicating with your mentor or advisee:

TIME COMMITMENT

The most important part of the mentor/advisee match is REGULAR CONTACT. Not every contact has to be a long email message, but the main idea is to STAY CONNECTED - even short "chatty" messages are fine, since they keep the communication channels open.

The suggested quantitative guidelines are borrowed from Mentor Net, a mentoring network which connects women in engineering and science with mentors in industry. They suggest contact frequency of about once a week, at least 2-4 times per month. One estimate is that this will require a commitment from students of about 15-30 minutes a week, more for mentors if you have more than one advisee. You might want to make it a regular appointment, e.g. every Friday at lunch, send an email to your mentor/advisee. We don't have to be tied to their guidelines, but it will do as a start.

(For those of you who may be interested in checking out Mentor Net, the URL is www.mentornet.net. The main reason that we are not directly connected with them is financial)

Specific guidelines for Mentors

You must read these guidelines before requesting a mentor .

Specific guidelines for Mentees

FORUMS

If you'd like to connect to other mentor/advisee matches in the AWM, we suggest you do it through the NEW AWM mentor forum. The forum allows dialog with other groups of the mentor network, so you can help each other out with information, discussion topics, etc. Check out the web site www.awm-math.org/forums.html! Start a discussion topic, or check it periodically to see other postings that may interest you.

Thanks again for your involvement - please send feedback as necessary to rachel@math.umn.edu.