Lending a Virtual Ear: The On-Line Mentors of AT&T'S Technical Community

Carol Muller, MentorNet director, (far left) with AT&T mentors

"It's great to see everyone face-to-face," says Carol Muller, executive director of MentorNet, as she spoke with a room full of AT&T employees who are online mentors for women pursuing degrees in math and science. But she was only half joking.

Because when students and their potential mentors sign on to participate, everything happens online. They fill out a survey about their interests and experiences. Mentors receive instructions and guidance by email. And they receive periodic prompts&—like, have you written your mentoree lately? - electronically, too.

"It's so rewarding, yet so painless," says Craig Montero from Network and Computing Service's Network CIO organization, who loves the convenience of keeping up with Amy, the Carnegie Mellon student he was matched with by email. "I'm going to talk the program up with my diversity committee, because I think a lot of people would like to do this."

He's not alone in his enthusiasm. By all accounts, the program's a raging success. In spring '98, its pilot semester, mentors volunteered from 93 organizations including HP, Intel, Microsoft, Dupont, IBM, and of course, AT&T. Two hundred mentor/student pairs particpated. About one-quarter of mentors, like Montero, are male. This fall, organizers hope to create 500 pairs from 25 schools.

"While many others were intrigued by the concept of electronic mentoring, it was AT&T that provided funds to get the two-year pilot program started at Dartmouth," says Muller. Not only did AT&T provide the funds for MentorNet's Advisory board, but AT&T also hosted a meeting in N. Y. to ensure that various national programs for electronic resources to support women in engineering would be coordinated.

Read what AT&T mentors have to say about it:
Jennifer Rexford, Labs Research
Danielle Gallo, Labs Research
Craig Montero, Network and Computing Services
Amy Muller, Corporate Strategy, explains how it all started

Jennifer Rexford, Labs Research

My student attended Stevens. She was in her first year of engineering research. I think the most important thing I learned was how to build rapport, since we're only working electronically and we're not even in the same field. My field is computer science.

Jennifer Rexford

The MentorNet forms we filled out helped build rapport, because we both included our interests, outside of work and school. I pointed her to my Web site that lists my personal interests. Her next email included a photo of herself she'd scanned in. She said, "I've seen your face, I think it's only fair to let you see mine."

The medium actually helped&—we'd babble to each other on email. For instance, once I let her know I was going up to Massachusetts and I'd be stopping at Emily Dickinson's house. And it turned out we shared an interest in literature.

When she didn't find a summer internship in her field, she was devastated. I'd completely forgotten what that was like. My first year I ended up writing technical memos in a temp agency&—not the Pascal coding I was hoping for. I tried to help her put it in perspective: This was a short-term disappointment. It didn't mean she didn't have a future in research. There would be more opportunities later on.

In the end I was glad I was paired with a very junior student. We don't have much outreach for young women early on in their education, when they're making critical choices. It's great to help them calibrate what their expectations should be.

Simple truth is, students aren't skilled enough at the early stages and sometimes their first choices amount to scooping ice cream or slinging fries. But it's understandable if they need help seeing beyond those first disappointments.

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Danielle Gallo, Labs research

My mentoree was a second-year undergrad at Cal Tech. I was a little shocked to find out she was a biology major, because I have no experience in her field. I'm in computer science and math. But she said right off, "I love computer science, especially Web design and java."

Danielle Gallo

Cal-Tech doesn't support minors, but it didn't diminish her interest! We each shared our URLs. Mine has my academic info. She asked about my senior thesis, which was structured in java. She had a lot of questions about graduate school and the application process.

She was feeling pressure from her academic mentors to go straight through to grad school. I gave her another perspective. If you really want to take a year off, go ahead, try looking for a position with people who are developing bio-technology software. She loved that idea. That way she can make a well-rounded decision.

We didn't talk much about biology. She was looking for programming advice&—she would ask, Will you recommend classes and books? We still communicate because she's at school. I used little smiley-faces but it's hard to relay everything in email.

I missed being able to draw a diagram or open a book together. I had to work a little harder in email. But that just made me explain things better. Email is very convenient, I can send it off in the middle of the night. We probably achieved as much as we could, considering we never spoke in person. I found it very rewarding&—I'm sure I got as much out of it as she did.

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Craig Montero, Network and Computing Services

I work in NCS with 800 call center applications. My mentoree was an undergraduate Physics major at Carnegie Mellon. Luckily, I did my undergrad in chemistry with a minor in physics and math. So like the other luncheon speakers, I found the new discipline refreshing.

Craig Montero

I helped her decide between two summer job options. She loves Physics, but she also wants to be a fashion designer. I asked her, is your interest in fashion design based on social pressure? I tried to explain, if it's creativity you're after, don't rule physics out. When physicists talk about quarks and heptons&—those playful concepts were created to explain principles of nuclear physics, and it seems to me there's plenty of room for creativity.

She struck me as someone who takes school work very seriously. I was afraid she may burn herself out. I would ask her, what do you do for fun? And remind her, take time for yourself&—there's a lot more to learn than you could ever possibly get to, so relax a little.

I serve on a diversity committee and I'll talk up MentorNet there because it is so painless. There's no social pressure compared to phone calls. You're not put off if I don't respond immediately, whereas you would be on the phone. Some of the questions require thought.

Some of the questions required thought. In real-time conversation, you'd feel socially compelled to give a response. The medium actually gives you a chance to be wiser than you would be in an ordinary conversation, and that means you give your mentoree better answers.

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Amy Muller from AT&T's Corporate Strategy and Business Development organization and a member of the MentorNet advisory board explains the history of the program and how she got involved:

As a Dartmouth alumna and Labs Researcher, I took an active role in Women in Science Project (WISP) during its early years. I spoke to women scientists at Dartmouth and served on the WISP advisory board. Through the AT&T Foundation I helped provide AT&T funding for WISP. Largely through the efforts of Carol Muller (no relation, but also a Dartmouth grad), WISP received a lot of national attention, especially from other schools looking to start similar programs.

In WISP's third or fourth year, Carol hatched the idea of online mentoring as part of WISP. I was part of the "brainstorming" team that planned the original launch. It looked like a natural for AT&T to be involved because of the online communications aspect. AT&T sponsored the first WISP e-mentoring pilot which was very successsful.

Because of the success of WISP's mentoring program, and the response from other schools interested in the program, Carol realized that a national program would provide a real "economy of scale" advantage. She gathered a group of interested women to figure out how to launch the program and how to get funding. I continued to champion the program for funding from the AT&T Foundation. Starting with a Sloan Foundation grant to explore the possibilities, the program eventually grew into today's MentorNet.

I've been really impressed with the whole WISP-MentorNet experience. The level of professionalism of the program is impressive-the program has top quality external advisors, conducts external evaluations including metrics and benchmarking, and even includes professional sociologists who provide advice about the softer aspects of mentoring. Carol herself has a Ph.D. in education from Stanford. Carol is the main driver here - and great at it!

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Photos From Luncheon