The hallway of the Grad College displays notes on the qualities of a good mentor (you can read about them here). One set, categorized into a heading of “Being Nice,” includes things like acknowledging emotions, positive non-verbal communication, support, guidance, validation, acknowledging a personal life, and showing gratitude.
Another way to categorize these attributes is being human. An important part of mentoring is acknowledging each other’s humanity—recognizing that each of us has a whole experience outside of the meeting we’re in. It prioritizes human connection as beneficial to furthering research, publishing papers, accomplishing professional goals, and overall growth.
Making space for human connection is a way we support our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those around us. Mentoring relationships create a virtuous circle enabling genuine relationships that foster trust, empathy, and a supportive environment where mentees feel valued as people, not just trainees, leading to more meaningful guidance and personal growth.
Acknowledging each other’s humanity doesn’t mean sharing all of your personal life or knowing everything about your mentee. It does mean being open to offering support to students as needed and appropriate. Knowing the broad strokes of our life opportunity to offer appropriate support as needed.
As you think about conversations with students, you don’t need to be the expert or the sole source of support, but you can help by being a connector. You could say something as simple as, “Do you have the support you need? I don’t know a lot about that, but I know who to call.”
You can share resources directly in response to a mentee indicating a specific need, but you can also get into the habit of sharing them often and broadly, even when you don't know whether your mentees need them. This can increase awareness, give mentees tools to help themselves and their colleagues, and lower barriers to asking for help when it's more directly needed. Word of mouth is one of the most effective ways people connect to resources.
We all receive emails sharing campus resources, but if you’ve read this far, we want to take a moment to share a few, particularly those that are starting points for constellations of resources.
Mental Health and Wellness
A single site with campus services and resources for the health and wellness of the campus community, from mental health to physical health and from preventative to crisis services.
Open Illinois
Information, resources and guidance for undocumented and DACA students.
Connie Frank CARE Center
A collaborative resource that promotes the holistic growth and development of Illinois students, partnering with students, faculty, staff, and family members to address disruptions to students’ academic and social stability or behaviors that cause distress in our community.
And, of course, the Graduate College is always here to assist you. Please feel free to reach out to us at grad@illinois.edu whenever we can be of service.
