MentorNet Plays a Professional Development Role at the University of Colorado, Boulder
When she was director of the Women in Engineering Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the late
1990's, Jill Tietjen kept close tabs on MentorNet's development. Though the program was in its infancy, Tietjen-who had
known MentorNet's founder, Carol Muller, since 1995-wanted to implement it on campus as soon as possible.
"I think mentors are important," she says simply, when asked why she was so eager. "They bring knowledge and
awareness you don’t get in other ways; they guide you along and help you in your career."
CU had a mentoring program, but "it was a very fledgling kind of program," Tietjen recalls. Mentors were volunteer
alumni, and students were recruited via e-mail. "It was a limited pool and matching opportunities were slim.
It wasn’t exactly something we did on the side, but the structure didn’t exist to make it bloom and move forward."
As soon as MentorNet was ready, in 1999, Tietjen signed up. "I wanted to give our students the opportunity to get
the kind of mentors they wanted, and the only way to do that is through the way MentorNet is set up."
That first year, 27 students participated. Now there are more than 65 CU students on MentorNet's rolls, and the
program complements a peer mentoring program hosted by the Society of Women Engineers and various networking events.
MentorNet gave CU "a professional, organized program that had some meat to it," Tietjen says. "They had mentors
who had been recruited across a broad range of industries, so now we could give the students the kinds of mentors
they wanted."
Support for Women in STEM
Six years later, the program is helping CU meet its goals for supporting women in STEM, says CU's Beverly Louie,
who succeeded Tietjen as director of Women in Engineering in 2001.
"This year we had more graduate women in the sciences taking part," Louie says. "I think interacting with
[mentors] in academic positions is a real draw; it fills a void for these women. The women in engineering who
participated have really benefited from the interactions and probably are reinforced in their goals of becoming
engineers."
Tietjen, who now works as a consultant, remains a strong advocate of mentoring, especially for women in engineering
and sciences. A practicing electrical engineer since 1976, she has been national president of the Society of
Women Engineers and a MentorNet mentor since 1999, matched successfully nearly every year since then.
"I had never met a woman engineer until I became one," says Tietjen. "There's something about asking a
professional engineer who is not your mother, your father, or your teacher questions, and getting back an
unvarnished answer."
Role Models and Networking
The ability of MentorNet to provide role models is a key benefit of the program for CU, Louie says. "It's great
for students to learn about the career paths and decisions of professionals. They need to learn how others
handled similar problems at their age. I know some of the students have really appreciated having [mentors who]
are an older version of what they may be in a few years."
MentorNet also gives students an edge in career-building skills.
"For some, it's the start of the networking process, which I think is incredibly important," says Tietjen. "If
you’re familiar with the mentoring process before you get into the workplace … you’ll start looking for mentors w
hen you’re out of school. I think that’s an incredible leg up for women and minorities.
"And the earlier you find that out, the better-which is what MentorNet is doing and is helping [women students]
realize. You don’t have to hit your head against the wall so many times along the way."