One-on-One Academic Career E-Mentoring

NOTE: This program is part of MentorNet's One-on-One E-Mentoring Program, effective 2006.

New in 2003, the MentorNet Academic Career E-Mentoring Program is designed to provide information, encouragement, and support to students, postdoctoral scholars and early-career faculty who are considering or pursuing faculty careers. Protégés are matched in one-on-one e-mentoring relationships with faculty members. MentorNet provides the training, coaching and support for an 8-month mentoring relationship. This program is a feature of MentorNet's One-on-One E-Mentoring Program, and can be automatically accessed by signing up as a faculty mentor or as a protégé requesting a faculty mentor.

How the program works:

Mentors:

Fill out a mentor profile, which asks for information on educational and professional backgrounds, preferences for a protégé (such as gender) and comfort in discussing common mentoring topics such as work/life balance, academic career knowledge and gender issues.
Protégés may choose their own mentor (within a limited time frame) or let MentorNet automatically match them. The match process is bi-directional, taking into account not only the protégé's preferences for a mentor, but also the mentor's preferences in a protégé. MentorNet does its best to match mentors as quickly as possible, but it could take a while to be matched.
Once a mentor has been tentatively matched, s/he receives an email notice that gives 10 days to return to the MentorNet site and confirm the mentor's availability. This ensures that the mentor is still interested in being matched with a protégé.
Once the mentor's availability is confirmed, the e-mentoring relationship begins immediately. Mentor and protégé can view each others' profiles through the MentorNet web site to learn about their partner. Mentor and protégé begin receiving regular discussion suggestions from the MentorNet program to help start and build the relationship.
The official MentorNet program lasts approximately 8 months.
Mentors may hide their profile at any time if they do not wish to be available to be chosen. They may also edit their profiles at any time, or delete them completely (if not matched).

Protégés:

Fill out a protégé profile, which asks for basic information and interest in discussing common mentoring topics, such as work/life balance, career knowledge, and gender issues. This profile also identifies a protégé's preferences for a mentor, such as gender, field of work, location and ethnicity. A protégé can fill out a protégé profile at any time of year, as long as her/his college or university is a current participant, or s/he is a current student member of one of MentorNet's Affiliated Partner Plus organizations.
Immediately after creating a profile, a protégé is presented with the mentor profiles (minus the mentor's name and email) of up to 5 potential matches. Protégés can choose a match, opt to let MentorNet try to match them automatically, or come back anytime within the next 14 days to check for new potential matches.
If no mentors are available immediately, protégés can revise their profile, changing preferences to be less restrictive to try to improve the chances of finding a match.
If a protégé opts immediately to let MentorNet try to make the match, s/he will no longer have the option to choose a mentor.
If a protégé does not immediately choose a mentor or opt to let MentorNet try to make the match, s/he will receive 2 reminder e-mails encouraging her/him to come back and check for, and choose from, potential matches.
If a protégé does not choose a mentor within 14 days, MentorNet will automatically attempt to find a match for her/him, based on the information in the protégé profile.
No matter how a protégé is matched (s/he chooses or MentorNet chooses), we will check that the mentor is still available. Once the mentor's availability is confirmed, the e-mentoring relationship begins immediately. Mentor and protégé can view each others' profiles through the MentorNet web site to learn about their partner. Mentor and protégé begin receiving regular discussion suggestions from the MentorNet program to help start and build the relationship.
If the protégé chooses a mentor and that mentor is not available, the protégé will have another 14 days to view potential matches and choose again before MentorNet attempts to automatically make a match.
The official MentorNet program lasts for 8 months.
Protégés may edit their profile or delete it at any time while they are not matched.

Requirements to be a mentor:

Female or male faculty member (retired ok) in engineering, science, technology, or math at an institution of higher education.
Willing to mentor a student (undergraduate or graduate), postdoctoral scholar or early-career faculty member via email.
Willing to exchange email messages regularly with a protégé over an 8-month period.
Regular access to email.

Requirements to be a protégé:

Current student (undergraduate or graduate), postdoctoral scholar or early-career faculty member in engineering, science, technology, or math.
Interested in or pursuing a career as a faculty member at a college or university.
Enrolled, postdoctoral scholar or untenured faculty member at a participating campus or current student member of one of MentorNet's Affiliated Partner Plus organizations.
Willing to exchange email messages regularly with a mentor over an 8-month period.
Regular access to email.

For more information, please see our One-on-One E-Mentoring Program FAQ page for either mentors or protégés.

MentorNet appreciates the support in the initial development of its Academic Career E-mentoring (ACE) program from WEPAN and the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SBE-0318510 and SBE-0549084. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.